‘Tis the season to make your new year’s resolutions. If you have attended one of my sessions, you have heard me talk about how you can take control and improve your life significantly by deciding, articulating, recording and committing to your future in the form of written goals.
Research has shown that the probability of achieving your dreams of success and happiness increases significantly when you clearly visualize what you want. Maintaining Vision Boards, scribing or even finding pictures of exactly what you want is a common habit of successful people.
Unfortunately, most people spend more time planning a two-week vacation than they do their life! To achieve your life’s goals, follow these five elements for visualization:
Be Clear. For visualization to work, you must have absolute clarity about what it is you desire. There is a direct correlation between how clearly you can see your desired goal in your mind, and how probable it is that it will actually materialize. Visualization is the fuel that mobilizes the power of the Law of Attraction (as outlined in the documentary “The Secret”).
Be Proactive. When you first set a goal, your initial image may be ambiguous. The more often you review, think about, and discuss it with others, the clearer the goal becomes. When it is clear in your psyche is when it will happen – like magic.
Constantly spend time imagining you have already achieved a specific goal. Hold a clear picture of already achieving your dream, or doing what you want to be doing. The longer you are able to hold the image in your mind, the deeper it will be embedded into your subconscious. Psychiatrists have an expression, “You will be dragged kicking and screaming in the direction of your subconscious”.
Be Passionate. One common element of all the successful people I have studied is that at one point in their life they became angry, frustrated or passionate. When your emotion is intense enough, your goal and visual image becomes even clearer.
Be Committed. Everyone has a dream, but very few are willing to pay the price to accomplish it. The result is that few will actually realize their dreams. The uncommitted are the people who go around saying “I don’t believe in that stuff”. Unfortunately, they infect others with that same defeatist mindset.
Over the years, I have known many people who started with nothing or had higher expectations for themselves than seemed possible. I then discovered that those who visualized, wrote it down, made a plan, shared that plan with others, and worked toward the goal with determination – succeeded.
Maintain a Gratitude Journal. Write down just one thing every day for which you are grateful. Evidence suggests you should do this just as you are waking up as this is when your brain is more susceptible to new thinking. It will also set your mood on “Positive” for the day.
Finally, visualize your goals in the positive, rather than what you do not want. For example, if you have a goal to lose weight, phrase it, “My goal is to be 135 pounds.” Do not phrase your goal as “I want to lose 20 pounds”. Your mind will not process the “negative” and your subconscious will drag you into remaining overweight!
Be aware that these five elements can help you or hurt you. Like most things in nature, the power of visualization is neutral. It is neither good nor bad. The process will take you in either direction. Your sub-conscious thoughts can either create success or produce failure. Visualization brings whatever you vividly and intensely imagine, whether good or bad, positive or negative.
An ordinary person with a passionate plan has greater chance for success than a highly educated person without one!
What are your plans for this new year?
