Presentations Training Begins at Home
- Victoria Hogg
- Apr 28
- 2 min read
Picture this!
Ever practised something in your head? Run a difficult sequence of moves in your mind’s eye? That’s visualisation.
Visualisation can sharpen performance because the brain does not treat vivid mental rehearsal as meaningless daydreaming. When you run a presentation through your head — your opening line, your pace, your pauses, even how you recover if you lose your place — you are rehearsing attention, sequence, and emotional control.
Research on mental practice shows it has a real positive effect on performance, especially for cognitively demanding tasks, though it is generally less effective than physical practice and works best alongside it, not instead of it.
Visualisation also matters for speakers. A presentation is not only a physical act; it's also timing, memory, anticipation, and self-regulation.
Visualising the room, the slides, and your calm response to pressure can make the real moment feel more familiar, which often lowers nerves and improves fluency. Olympics.com describes visualisation as using your imagination to picture challenges ahead of you so you can achieve them in real life.
“The more you dream, the farther you get” Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time
That is the sparkle of visualisation: it lets you practise success before the spotlight arrives. Just keep it honest: mental rehearsal is powerful, but the strongest results usually come when imagination and live practice work together.
Happy visualisation!
Paul n Vic
This training comes from the IMPACT Pillar in the Talk TACTICs system.
#AppliedImprovisation #YesAnd #BusinessInPlay #BusinessSkills #PersonalGrowth #AgilityinBusiness #AdaptabilityQuotient #PositiveEnergy #PlayfulSolutions #visualisation #training
If you have a work problem to fix and you want to hear how applied improvisation can support you, email us at hello@improvinc.co.uk. We’d love to meet you! All chemistry calls are free.
Activity Title
Aim: This runs in three steps, leading to a warmed up creative mind. Run solo or in a group; speak clearly if you’re with others.
Outcome: A brain that’s warmed up to imagining something different than reality.
How it works: Step 1: Move around your space and, as you spy each random thing, look and point at it very deliberately and say what it is out loud (eg. “Lamp!” “Carpet!” “Chair!” “Phone!”. 45 secs.
Step 2: Point at the first random object: say nothing. Then as you look and point at the second object very deliberately, say what the previous one was. You are always ‘one behind’. 45 secs.
Step 3: Point and name out loud again but this time, each object can be named as anything at all! (eg. “map of Peru!” “basket of kittens!” “my cousin’s slow cooker!”). Try to visualise the made-up thing as you also look at the real thing. It will exercise your brain to replace reality with your ideal choice. 45 secs.
Reflections: What did you pull from your imagination? What could you now visualise? Run this again the next day: are you faster?
