As you progress with 7 Minute Habits and you start working on your habits throughout the day you will no doubt have a question about whether or not it is okay to visualize your habits in your head or if you should physically practice them as realistically as you can. Well the answer to this really depends on a few things...mainly the particular habit you are working on and your setting at the time.

If you are at work but your habit has to do with being more accurate with a handgun then you most likely won't want to make drawing and firing motions with your hands unless you want your coworkers to report you to Homeland Security. So what do you do and is it okay to simply visualize your routines.

The answer is yes and no. Research has shown that it is perfectly fine to visualize your routines without movement. Most of the same areas of the brain fire as if you are actually doing the routine physically BUT movement is always a bit better. There are a few reasons that we recommend movement which are beyond the scope of this article (if you haven't gotten the program yet it is all explained there). But in a nutshell if you can't go through your habit physically due to the circumstances at the time, then you will want to do what we call micro-movements.

Micros-movements will allow you to discreetly practice your habit routines in the presence of other people and will enact more of your neural networks thus insuring your habits wire faster. Depending on where you are at using slight hand motions while mentally rehearsing your routines will work. People do this all the time when they are in thought and people won't think anything of it. Of course the bigger movements you make with your hands the more people might look at you strange. So keep it simple and minimal.

This type of exercise is similar to what behavioral counselors call Visual Motor Behavioral Rehearsal or VMBR. It's been shown to be very effective in all types of cognitive and behavioral therapies and that's why we use a large portion of it in our program. Every part of 7 Minute Habits has been proven in the real world with the research to back it up. So the next time you are at the office and you want to work on a habit but you don't want to look strange, simply use micro-movements and no one will be the wiser.

To Move or Not to Move?

David Hanover

Mindset, Meditation, and Visualization

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