Choose Positive Visualisation
A subconscious programming technique even more powerful than positive self-talk is positive visualisation –mentally picturing events or outcomes in your mind before they occur in physical reality. Visualisation is based on the same principles as self-talk, but it is considerably more effective because it goes directly to the source: the collection of subconscious mental pictures that occupy your mind. Self-talk triggers the development of new mental images, whereas visualisation directly imprints the new pictures. Self-talk and visualisation complement each other. Visualisation intensifies your self-talk, and self-talk reinforces your visualisation. Both techniques promote the accomplishment of your goals and should be used in tandem on a consistent basis.
It’s important to note that visualisation is a skill that can be learned and mastered. Everyone has the ability to visualise. As with all other skills, some people find visualisation naturally easier, almost intuitive,while others must practise often to experience the benefits. You can demonstrate your ability to visualise just by thinking of how manywindows there are in your living room or recalling the smell of freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies. Visualisation refers not just to visual images but also to hearing, touch, taste, smell and emotional sensations.
“I visualised where I wanted to be, what kind of player I wanted to become. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, and I focused on getting there.”
-Michael Jordan
It has been said that the pictures you create in your head turn into the reality you hold in your hand. That’s why it is crucial that you not allow the visualisation process to be arbitrary. The primary aim of this lesson is to help you make the shift from random, reactive visualisations to deliberate, proactive visualisations that support who you want to become and what you want to accomplish.
Your subconscious mind is responsible for your long-term success, failure, or mediocrity. It is responsible for generating and coordinating your thoughts, feelings, words and actions. This is good news because you are responsible for the subconscious mind and whether it is programmed for success. Once again, you are in charge. You have yet another opportunity to take control of the direction of your life if – and this is a big if – you are willing to be extraordinarily picky about which thoughts occupy your mind. While you cannot always control what you are exposed to and the thoughts these exposures stimulate, you can control what you choose to dwell upon. The thoughts you harbor most often impact your life the most. The thoughts that set up camp in your mind have the most influence, not those that merely drop in for a quick visit.
Fortunately, your subconscious mind is not a master, but an ever-ready and willing servant. It will bring into your life whatever you sincerely ask. The subconscious is not discriminating. Like fertile soil, your subconscious will accommodate whatever seeds you choose to plant. It is just as happy to help you as it is to hurt you. It is content to bring you health or sickness and fatigue. It is happy to bring you either abundance or lack. Your mind works on the instructions it is given. These instructions can come from its owner – you – or they can come from whatever influences you expose yourself to on a regular basis. It is up to you to give your subconscious mind instructions that will produce a life that will make you contagiously happy and fully alive.
An instruction to your subconscious can be defined as any continuously held conscious thought. It is not the infrequent mental pictures that exert tremendous influence, but the most dominant ones. The images that you consciously and repeatedly focus on become absorbed into the subconscious mind, like water into a sponge. At this point the progress is made or the damage is done.
Successful men and women train their minds to think about what they want to have happen in their lives. They think about the type of person they want to become. They think about their goals and dreams. They think about the principles and virtues they most admire. They think about the people they like and thesituations they hope to experience. By contrast, the unsuccessful or mediocre lack mental discipline.
What If?
What if you visualised (one hundred times) pushing away a dessert after taking only one bite? Do you think you would be more likely to do that in real circumstances?
What if you visualised (one hundred times) delivering your next presentation comfortably and excellently?Do you think that would have a positive impact on your results?
What if you visualised (one hundred times) the physical condition you hope to be in when you turn sixty? Do you think that would have any effect on the lifestyle habits you choose today?
What if you visualised (one hundred times) rising easily and effortlessly at 5 a.m., feeling completely refreshed and rejuvenated? Do you believe that would improve your effectiveness in the morning?
Their thoughts drift from the circumstances they hope to avoid, to the people they dislike and the wide variety of injustices that seem to surround them. They are quick to dismiss themselves as being unlucky and even quicker to dismiss the successful as being extremely lucky. The mediocre bathe themselves in all the reasons why they cannot have the life they really want, and behold, they end up being right.
Your subconscious mind is incapable of distinguishing between an actual event and one that is only imagined. This God-given dynamic of the human brain allows you, through repeated visualisations, to convince your subconscious mind that a desired goal has already been accomplished.
Once your mind believes something to be true, it automatically adjusts your thoughts, words, emotions, and behaviours to be consistent with your visualisation. A visualisation is a by-product of an electrical and chemical process within the brain. Because your visual images are composed of electromagnetic energy that consists of matter, they are, in effect, real. As a result, your mind and body interpret them as reality and respond to them as though they were actually happening. For example, during mental rehearsals of their events, Olympic athletes often experience physiological changes – increased heart rate, respiration, perspiration, or even involuntary muscle movements – as if they were participating in the real event. Best of all, according to Stanford neurosurgeon and psychologist, Dr. Karl Pribram, electromagnetically charged visual images produce a magnetic field that attracts back to the visualiser those things he or she vividly imagines and senses. This phenomenon enables you to attract into your life the very people, resources and circumstances necessary to translate your goal into concrete reality.
Culled from SUCCESS IS NOT AN ACCIDENT by Tommy Newberry
