Hey there!

Did you know that your subconscious brain doesn't understand "Don't"?

Here's a strange little fact about your brain: it can't process a negative image.

Try it. Don't think about a pink elephant.

Too late. You just saw one.

I've been writing about visualization for my upcoming book, Choose, Fail, Grow, and this quirk of the brain keeps showing up everywhere I look — in tennis, in swim meets, in dog training, in just about anything where performance matters.

Here's the science in a nutshell: your subconscious mind works in pictures, not words. And its job is to take your dominant thought and make it a reality. When you think "don't double-fault," your brain can't actually picture a "don't." All it can picture is the double-fault itself — so that's exactly what it helps you create. Same reason the person at a party who's terrified of dogs and thinking "don't come to me, don't come to me" is somehow the exact person the dog makes a beeline for. The "don't" evaporates. The picture remains.

My great-nephew Finn had a rough dive meet, and I heard about it secondhand—a phone call from my sister, me hundreds of miles away, wishing I could do something more than just listen.
​
Watching the story unfold from my sister's description, I could tell exactly what had happened with Finn. He wasn't picturing the dive he wanted. He was picturing everything he was afraid of getting wrong. And his body, quite obligingly, kept delivering exactly what his mind was rehearsing.

There's no greeting card for "you had a bad meet, but I still believe in you." So I made my own instead. The concept came to me almost fully formed: your subconscious mind as a mini Jean-Luc Picard, sitting in the command chair inside your head, watching the images you project. Negatives don't translate into pictures—there's no such thing as a photograph of "don't." So whatever image actually reaches him is the one he sees, and the one he salutes with his single, famous order: "Make it so."

It's such a human thing to do. We think we're being careful by focusing on our mistakes. Really, we're just handing our subconscious a very clear picture of failure and asking it to "make it so."

The fix is simple, even if it takes practice: state your intention as the outcome you want, not the outcome you fear.

Not "don't double-fault" — "hit it in." Not "don't over-rotate the dive" — "rip entry dive." Or in Mooney's case below, not "don't jump up on the judge," but "hold a rock-solid sit stay and look at me." The more specific and detailed you make the image in your mind, the better.

Mooney's Sit for Examination

I've been working with Mooney on a tricky piece of obedience: sit for examination, where he has to hold a sit-stay while someone walks up and touches him. For a dog whose entire personality is "I would like to meet everyone, right now, immediately" — this is genuinely hard.

This week, we made real progress. And I'll admit, part of what shifted wasn't just his training — it was mine. I stopped picturing him breaking the stay to go greet the judge, and started picturing the stay itself: four feet planted, calm eyes focused on me, waiting. Dogs read us better than we usually give them credit for. When I stopped broadcasting "please don't jump up on the judge," and started picturing the outcome I actually wanted, something in how I handled him changed too.

Plus, it's been said that animals not only think in pictures but can communicate in pictures. You may or may not believe that. But why not give it a try? I've attended seminars by animal communicators, as well as world-class equestrian athlete Jane Savoie, author of It's Not Just About the Ribbons: It's About Enriching Riding (and Life) with a Winning Attitude. Jane believed that they can pick up on the pictures we hold in our mind's eye.

If you'd like to learn more about the science of visualization, as well as the practical application of it, I highly recommend Jane's book.

The Takeaway

Whether you're coaching a diver, training a dog, or just trying to get through your own day without dwelling on everything that could go wrong — the fix is the same. Picture the thing you want, not the thing you're afraid of. Your subconscious is listening, and it's not particularly picky about whether the picture you give it is one you're scared of or one you're aiming for. It just gets to work making it real.

So — what's one thing you've been visualizing backwards lately? Hit reply and tell me. I'd love to hear it.

Cheers!

Marsha & Mooney

P.S. I successfully stripped and refinished our banister. The tricky part: how to apply the Rubio Monocoat successfully on the round banister came to me after letting my subconsious work on it overnight. Solution? Use my hand (in a nitrile glove) to spread the stain evenly on the banister. It worked better than any tool I could have made or bought. I visualized my hand running down the bannister, gripping it lightly and realized that was exactly the tool I needed to apply the stain.

P.P.S. I also finished Mooney's CRV "Puppy Palace" with the completion of a custom rear seat quilt. I've made one before for my old Subaru Outback. The secret is to account for shrinkage, which I do by washing the quilt first before final binding and assembly (after calculating how big it needs to start out, accounting for a shrinkage factor of 93%). This version included a 20/30 split so I can fold the seat sections down separately. It also has cut-outs for the head rest supports, so I can actually use them to hold the upper seat portion in place. I put one of Mooney's dog beds in the back seat to provide additional cushion—the seat belt buckle receivers are really hard. I wouldn't want one of them jabbing me in the side.

He hasn't whined once with his new custom setup! Success!

The mesh panel between the front seats is made by WeatherTech, and absolutely needed to keep Mooney from trying out as co-pilot. Or front seat navigator.

​​​​​​