Mental Rehearsal: What It Is and How to Practise It

Mental rehearsal is the deliberate practice of imagining a performance or outcome before it happens. You mentally work through the actions, decisions and sensations that matter, so you can prepare for a real task rather than simply picture success from a distance.

What is mental rehearsal?

Mental rehearsal means imagining a specific task before you do it, with enough detail to engage the actions and choices it requires. You might picture yourself answering an interview question, feel the rhythm of a running stride, or mentally practise what you will say when a difficult conversation begins.

It is useful to distinguish process rehearsal from outcome visualization. Process rehearsal takes you through the actions and decisions involved in a task, while outcome visualization focuses on the result, such as crossing a finish line or receiving a job offer.

Both can have a place, but a positive image of the result alone may not prepare you to perform. If you want to get ready for a task, include what you will do, what you will notice and how you will respond when something does not go to plan.

Mental imagery does not have to mean seeing a vivid picture. You can rehearse through sounds, spoken words, bodily sensations, written cues or a verbal walkthrough of each step.

This matters because people differ in how they experience imagery. If you do not see a clear scene in your mind, you can still practise the sequence by recalling its sounds, describing it to yourself or noticing the sensations you expect to feel.

Mental rehearsal complements physical practice and feedback. Imagining a movement does not teach you exactly how much force to use, how the equipment will respond or how the action feels in real time, so use mental practice alongside the real task whenever you can.

For a related explanation of imagery and the brain, read our article on how visualization relates to the brain. It covers a broader topic than practising a particular performance.

Does mental rehearsal really work?

Research suggests that mentally simulating a task can support preparation, attention, confidence and learning. The effects vary with the task and the way you practise, and activity in the brain during imagined movement does not prove that rehearsal improves every kind of performance.

Motor imagery is one part of this picture. Imagining a movement engages some of the processes involved in preparing and organising action, but imagined movement is not identical to carrying out the movement itself.

A well-known sports psychology framework is the PETTLEP model, developed by Holmes and Collins in 2001. It encourages you to make imagery resemble the real performance through its physical, environmental, task, timing, learning, emotional and perspective elements.

For example, a runner might rehearse in their usual kit, picture a familiar route, match the imagined pace to the real event and include the feelings they expect at the start. The aim is to make the mental run-through specific and relevant, not to create a perfect fantasy.

The model is a guide to building realistic imagery, not a guarantee of success. Clinical training has also studied the idea: this study published in Medicina (Kaunas) tested mental rehearsal in CPR and defibrillation training for first-year nursing students.

The basketball experiment every motivational speaker loves

If you have ever sat through a talk on visualization, you have probably heard this one. A group of basketball players had their free throws measured and were then split into three groups. The first practised free throws every day. The second never touched a ball, but spent the same time each day mentally rehearsing their shots, feeling the ball roll off their fingertips and watching it drop through the net. The third did nothing at all. When everyone was tested again, the players who had practised had improved by about 24 per cent, the players who had only rehearsed in their minds by about 23 per cent, and the group that did nothing had not improved at all.

I love this story because the gap between the first two groups is almost negligible. It is usually credited to the Australian psychologist Alan Richardson, whose two-part review, Mental Practice: A Review and Discussion, appeared in Research Quarterly in 1967. I want to be straight with you, though: those neat figures have been retold from so many stages and in so many books that the original experiment behind them is genuinely difficult to trace, and some versions even credit a researcher who cannot be found at all.

What is not in doubt is the principle underneath it. When Driskell, Copper and Moran pooled 35 studies in their 1994 meta-analysis, Does Mental Practice Enhance Performance? (Journal of Applied Psychology), they found that mental practice has a positive and significant effect on performance, with the size of that effect shaped by the type of task, the length of the practice and how long you wait before performing. A 24-year follow-up published in Psychology of Sport and Exercise in 2020 reached the same conclusion. Rehearsal in the mind is real practice; it simply does its finest work alongside the physical kind.

A useful rehearsal has a clear task, realistic conditions and a set of actions you can evaluate. Include a likely difficulty and the response you intend to use, then compare the imagined sequence with what happens in real practice.

That distinction keeps mental rehearsal grounded. It can help you prepare, but it cannot replace instruction, experience or feedback, and it does not promise a particular result.

For another discussion of imagery and performance preparation, see our guide to the benefits of visualization discussed through science.

How do athletes use mental rehearsal?

Athletes use mental rehearsal to prepare the movement, timing and decisions involved in a performance. For a physical skill, first-person imagery can help you imagine the movement from your own point of view, including its rhythm, posture and familiar sensations.

Third-person imagery can serve a different purpose. Seeing yourself from outside the action may help you inspect positioning or overall form, while first-person imagery brings attention to how the movement feels as you perform it.

Choose the perspective according to the task. You can use one, the other or a combination, then check your imagined sequence against physical practice to see whether it reflects the movement you need.

Rehearse the conditions that matter: the venue, equipment, timing and emotional pressure. If you expect a possible disruption, practise noticing it and returning to your next deliberate action rather than imagining that nothing can go wrong.

This is contingency rehearsal. A runner might imagine losing rhythm briefly and then returning attention to pace, while a player might rehearse resetting after a missed shot.

Surgeons and other clinical professionals can mentally walk through a procedure, the order of equipment or a decision point. Mental simulation gives them a way to review what they expect to do, while practical training remains essential for learning the real sequence and handling its demands.

Performers can rehearse cues, transitions and a response to forgetting a line or missing a beat. The useful question is not only what a successful performance looks like, but also what you will do next if a moment goes wrong.

Match the form of rehearsal to the task. Motor imagery is suited to movement, while decision and response rehearsal fits a conversation, presentation or procedure more closely.

Mental rehearsal can also support focus and self-efficacy, the sense that you can take the actions a task requires. When performance anxiety rises, a familiar sequence of cues and responses can give your attention something practical to return to.

Mental rehearsal at the highest level: Phelps, LeBron and Curry

Mental rehearsal is not a fringe notion borrowed from the self-help shelf. Some of the most decorated athletes of the modern era have openly credited it as part of how they win, and each of them illustrates a different facet of the practice.

Michael Phelps: the Olympic final he swam blind

Beijing, 2008, the 200m butterfly final. Moments after Michael Phelps hit the water, his goggles began to fill. By the later lengths he could see almost nothing: not the black line along the floor of the pool, not the wall he needed to turn on. Phelps has since said he swam roughly 175 metres of that race blind.

He did not panic. He counted his strokes, exactly as he had in training, knew precisely when each wall would arrive, and touched first in a new world record. His coach, Bob Bowman, recalled the moment in an interview with McKinsey: under the most extreme pressure imaginable, Phelps simply reverted to what they had drilled for years.

What made that composure possible was a habit Bowman cultivated from Phelps’s teenage years, recounted in Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit (Random House, 2012). Every night before sleep and every morning on waking, Phelps would “watch the videotape”, a vivid mental run-through of the perfect race. Crucially, he did not rehearse only the version where everything went right. He rehearsed the suit tearing, the goggles failing, the race unravelling, and his calm response to each. So when the nightmare arrived in an Olympic final, it was, in a very real sense, a race he had already swum.

That is contingency rehearsal at its most dramatic, and it is exactly the principle I described above: do not imagine that nothing can go wrong; rehearse what you will do when it does.

LeBron James: a quiet minute before the noise

LeBron James is rarely described as a contemplative figure, yet his long-time trainer Mike Mancias told Business Insider that James is “constantly doing some sort of visualization.” Away from his phone, somewhere quiet, he works through everything the day or the game will demand of him, and before tip-off he takes a minute or two alone to see the game as he intends to play it.

There is nothing theatrical about it. What stands out is its regularity: a short, unglamorous return to the same inner preparation, day after day, across one of the longest careers the sport has seen. That is what I mean when I say this is a discipline, not a trick.

Steph Curry: rehearsing the podium

Steph Curry, widely regarded as the greatest shooter the game has produced, offers perhaps the most revealing example of all. Speaking on NBC Sports Bay Area’s Dubs Talk podcast after the Paris 2024 Olympics, he explained that before the games that mattered most, including the comeback against Serbia and the gold medal game, he kept returning to a single scene: standing on the podium beside his teammates in matching kit, watching the flag rise as the anthem played. “It almost manifested in a way,” he said.

Notice what Curry rehearsed. Not his shooting mechanics, not the opposition’s defensive schemes, but the moment after victory, held as though it had already happened. That is a different order of rehearsal altogether, and it brings us remarkably close to what Neville Goddard taught.

How do you practise mental rehearsal step by step?

A useful mental rehearsal technique starts with one upcoming situation, not a broad wish to do well. Choose a job interview, a race or a hard conversation, then name the action you want to perform.

1. Define the task. Be concrete: decide that you will answer a question with a clear example, settle into an even pace after the starting signal, or open a difficult conversation by stating your concern calmly.
2. Settle and choose a point of view. Sit or stand comfortably and imagine the scene in the perspective that serves the task. Use first-person imagery to rehearse what you will experience, or third-person imagery when viewing your position or overall form is more useful.
3. Add relevant details. Bring in the room, sounds, equipment, timing and body sensations you expect. Use details drawn from past experience when they help make the scene familiar, rather than inventing a setting that has little to do with the real situation.
4. Run through the actions at a realistic pace. Mentally practise each decision and step in order. If the task involves speaking, rehearse your words and pauses; if it involves movement, attend to the rhythm and sensations of the action.
5. Include one likely obstacle. Picture a question that catches you off guard, a moment of fatigue or a tense response from the other person. Rehearse your chosen recovery action, then continue with the task instead of demanding a flawless performance.
6. Review and adjust. Notice where the imagined sequence became unclear or difficult. Practise the real task when possible, use feedback to identify what needs work, then update your next mental run-through.

If imagery is difficult, narrate the sequence in your mind, speak the steps quietly or use a short written cue list. These forms of cognitive rehearsal can help you organise an action without relying on a vivid mental picture.

Keep sessions brief enough to fit alongside practical training, and return to the same task across regular practice. There is no single schedule that suits every goal; use the real task and your ability to stay focused to judge whether the session is useful.

For a structured coaching option alongside independent practice, Know Your Subconscious: Why You Don’t Have Your Desires (And How to Change That) includes five weekly 90-minute Zoom sessions, personalized affirmations, guided visualizations, EFT tapping sequences and subconscious reprogramming techniques including mental rehearsal. The program is priced at $790, and its guided format may suit you if you want support as you work with imagery and habitual responses.

Use the session to build a practice you can apply to a real situation. Guided imagery can give you a prompt, but you still learn whether your imagined plan works by trying it, noticing what happens and making a useful adjustment.

How is Neville Goddard’s method different from mental rehearsal?

Sports psychology often uses rehearsal to practise a process: the actions, decisions and responses that support performance. Neville Goddard’s teaching shifts attention to the end, inviting you to imagine that the desired outcome has already happened and to experience a short scene from within it.

In this approach, assumption matters more than desire. You do not picture a distant result as something you are still asking for; you enter an inner scene as though the wish were fulfilled now.

That is the meaning of living in the end: the imagined scene represents an accomplished state, rather than a route you are trying to control. Some practitioners use a relaxed, drowsy state, often called State Akin To Sleep or SATS, to make it easier to attend to the scene.

Steph Curry’s podium scene is a vivid illustration. Phelps rehearsed the process; Curry, by his own description, rehearsed the end: the medal, the flag, the anthem, the thing already accomplished. In Neville’s terms, Curry was not wishing for gold in those moments. He was occupying the state of the man who had already won it.

There is an important difference between this spiritual teaching and performance research. Studies of imagery can inform how you prepare for an action, but they do not establish Neville’s metaphysical claims about assumption or consciousness.

The micromanagement mistake is to rehearse the end and then dictate every step that must lead there. Keep the scene focused on the fulfilled outcome, and leave the route open instead of insisting that life follow one exact chain of events.

The Law of Assumption is a practice, not a trick. Think of a martial artist who repeats the same form thousands of times until it is no longer something they do but something they are. One brilliant session changes little; the quiet, repeated return to the same end is what reshapes you.

Persistent assumption is a discipline of returning to the chosen inner state. It does not mean ignoring practical action or pretending that an external task has already been performed; it means treating the inner scene as the experience you choose to occupy.

Neville Goddard At Your Command presents consciousness as the power through which a person out-pictures what they are conscious of being. If you want to explore this idea in practice, our guide to entering a state of consciousness offers related guidance.

For readers considering how spiritual assumptions relate to ordinary experience, our article on whether manifestation is real explores that question from the site’s perspective.

Use mental rehearsal to prepare for the actions you can practise, and use Neville’s method as a distinct spiritual discipline of assuming the end.

Whatever you are about to walk into, the interview, the race, the conversation you have been dreading, the answer is already inside you. The same power that formed everything around you is at work in your own imagination, waiting for you to direct it. Nobody can rehearse your end for you; you are the one who has to step into it and claim it. Once you do, no circumstance can stand against what you have assumed. Fear not.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is behavioral rehearsal, and how is it different from mental rehearsal?

Behavioral rehearsal means practising an action aloud or physically, often through role-play, rather than imagining it internally. It lets you hear your wording and observe your delivery in a way that mental practice alone cannot.

How long should a mental rehearsal session be?

A few focused minutes is usually enough. A short, vivid run-through you repeat regularly is more useful than a long session where your attention drifts, so stop while the scene is still clear.

What should I do if mental rehearsal makes me feel more anxious?

Pause the scene and orient yourself to your immediate surroundings before deciding whether to continue. If rehearsal repeatedly intensifies distress or interferes with daily life, discuss a gentler preparation approach with a qualified mental health professional.

How can I stop rehearsal from turning into repetitive worry?

Notice whether you are repeating the same feared scenario without reaching a new decision, then write down one practical next action and stop the run-through. Then rehearse the end you want instead of the one you fear, and let that be the last scene you hold.