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These days in business and in life, everyone is looking for an edge. An upper hand that will allow them to execute and succeed on higher and higher levels to experience the success, freedom and fulfilment they seek. With top entrepreneurs and business people sharing the secrets of their success and urging others to engage in daily routines that include activities such as visualizations to get to the top, more and more people are turning to these once “woo woo” techniques to gain that upper hand.
Like anything in business and in life, there is a right way and a wrong way to do anything. I often hear from clients and workshop participants that techniques like meditation, visualization and goal setting simply “don’t work” for them. Yet, when we delve deeper into HOW they do these processes, it quickly becomes clear that the issue isn’t so much that their brain is different and therefore the technique doesn’t work, rather it’s a case of the technique being done on a superficial level and therefore can’t do the deeper work the person is seeking.
So how can you improve the depth that your visualizations work at? Here are my top 3 tips to powerup your visualizations to get them working for you!
Tip #1: Be specific, positive and clear when you speak about your goals and life
Our brains contain a section called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). This is the filtering system of our brain that determines what we become aware of, and what is “lost” in the dark recesses of our unconscious mind. Think of your RAS as the most high powered GPS or homing device in the entire world.
When we communicate, we communicate in pictures not in words. Everything that you read, hear from others, or think to yourself creates a picture in your mind (like right now – you have a picture in your mind of a picture in your mind!). This picture gets placed in the RAS as the “destination” that we want to reach. Similar to typing a specific address into the GPS in your phone or car – the RAS will start to seek out how to get you to that picture the fastest and easiest way possible.
This is why vision boards work, we give the RAS a specific picture to seek out. To supercharge the effectiveness of the vision board – we need to be specific in the language we use to speak about and represent our goals. The majority of people who use vision boards spend time looking at their vision board once, maybe twice, a day. On the other hand we have 1,500 words per minute that travel through our head – so the language we use every day can undo the good work of our vision boards.
When we use non-specific language (ie. “financial freedom”) to discuss our goals, our RAS is unable to get a clear picture to seek out. This causes us to revert back whatever beliefs or picture we held onto previously. What to do instead: be specific and clear about what you want (ie. “I want $1 million in the bank”)
Most people, when discussing their goals, talk about what they don’t want (ie. “I don’t want debt”). The RAS is unable to process the word “not” – so when we talk about what we don’t want, we end up programming the RAS with a picture of that thing we don’t want, which the RAS then works to seek out. What to do instead: focus and talk about what you DO want (ie. “I want $1 million in the bank”).
Tip #2: See yourself IN the picture
Our unconscious minds (the part of the brain responsible for driving behaviour) doesn’t know the difference between fiction and reality, between the past and the present and between the future and the present.
When we perform a visualization looking through our own eyes (ie. If my goal is to own an Aston Martin, when looking through my own eyes I would see my hands on the steering wheel and the windshield in front of me) the unconscious mind is tricked into believing that we already have that thing. Even though logically (consciously) we know that we don’t have that car, our unconscious mind and RAS will close the filters off to seeking out ways to own that car as quickly and easily as possible.
What to do instead: Picture yourself in the third person. Using the car example again, instead of seeing myself as the driver of the car (through my own eyes) I would see myself riding shotgun, and when I looked over to the driver I would see myself driving the car.
This tells the unconscious mind two things: first is that the goal is achievable (as Napolean said: “What the mind can conceive, we can achieve”) and second is that we haven’t achieved that goal yet and to take action to find it.
Tip #3: Connect with the emotions you’ll experience when you achieve the goal as often as possible
Whether you want to admit it or not – emotions drive us. The emotions we experience most often determine our energetic vibration and the quality of the things and people we attract into our reality.
When we are constantly stressed out, negative, angry or engaged in drama, our energetic vibration drops and we attract those things to us. And vice versa, when we are happy, fulfilled and grateful our vibration raises and we accelerate our growth and manifestation abilities.
It’s important then to identify the emotions you’ll experience when you achieve your goals. Then, during your daily visualization, focus on feeling those emotions in your body to raise your energetic vibration.
I also recommend finding other activities that will allow you to experience those emotions, and commit to engaging in those activities on a daily or weekly basis. For example, if moving into a beach house in Carlsbad, CA will cause me to feel calm, peace and gratitude then I would prioritize and schedule activities such as meditation, yoga and walks in nature with my dog on a regular basis to experience more calm, peace and gratitude in my present life.
Implement these changes into your visualization process and you’ll see results and changes in not only your goal achieving success, but also your mindset, the amount of opportunities you see and how you show up to obtain those opportunities!
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