Success starts with a vision.
Have you ever taken a journey where you know where you want to go and you just figured out how to get there along the way? This is generally the same way that a vision board works.
A vision board helps you
manifest your goals into reality.
I know that the example above is rather specific and that is because I have taken such a journey; a journey which at the time seemed like a dangerous endeavour. I knew I was taking a big risk but my vision of how wonderful my target destination would be kept me going and helped me overcome all my hesitation and fears.
At that time, I felt that my strong feelings of excitement and positive expectations also brought me good luck. I met the right people along the way who provided me with directions to get to my destination faster. Thus, my journey was a success because I had arrived at my intended destination. The experience I had was all worth the risk. By experience, I mean the whole journey, not just reaching my destination.
Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone can dream and make his dreams come true.
— Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich
Visualization
Visualization is a powerful mind exercise. Even athletes use visualization to practice their race or game before the actual game. Most importantly, they visualize themselves succeeding, winning their race or game.
Science has also proven that even when you are just visualizing, the muscles in your body still move the way they do when you are actually moving physically. So if an athlete visualizes themself running on a grassy field, their muscles move the same way as if they are actually running on a grassy field. Most importantly, the brain does not differentiate between the visualization and the actual action. That’s why this is a good mental exercise for athletes.
The law of attraction is forming your entire life experience and it is doing that through your thoughts. When you are visualizing, you are emitting a powerful frequency out into the Universe.
— The Secret
Visualization is not just for athletes though. It is also very effective for achieving non-athletic goals like I did. Since the brain does not differentiate between a visualization and a real, physical action. The emotions you feel during both these activities are also not differentiated by the brain. And feelings are a major factor in visualization.
Feel Your Success
We all know that our emotions affect how we act and even think. This is our usual programming, to be reactionary. With visualization, we try to be NOT REACTIONARY but be actively monitoring and modifying our thoughts to effect a certain feeling, particularly positive feelings. A vision board helps you focus as the images you choose constantly remind you of the pleasant feelings you associate with the images.
Our vision should elicit positive feelings in us whenever we think of them. Most of the time, we spend our mental energy worrying about how to achieve our vision, or in my example, how to get to my destination. This is the complete opposite of visualization.
When you visualize, you concentrate on sustaining the positive feeling of joy and delight that you will feel when you have succeeded in achieving your vision. In fact, you try to sustain the positive feelings by visualizing how it feels when you are already in the moment of your success. Use all your senses to make everything you have in your vision as tangible to your senses as possible. Aside from what you see, try to touch, smell and hear everything in your vision.
Prepare for Your Success
Visualize this way as often as you can. When you are not visualizing, do everything you can to prepare for your moment of success. This means, you still work out a plan, and you still make S.M.A.R.T. goals, You can still try everything you can to ensure your success but you don’t worry too much about the things you can’t control.
In short, you do everything in your power to prepare for achieving your success and leave the rest to sort itself out. And as you prepare, don’t forget to have as much fun as you can.
Trust Your Intuition & Keep an Open Mind
Keep yourself in this mindset and you will see that the resources you need will come at the right time, the persons who can help you will pop out of nowhere. Don’t doubt yourself for a moment, don’t doubt your vision. But also, be ready to accept the result in whatever form it may come.
For example, after I had succeeded in getting to my destination, we suddenly faced the predicament of how to get back home as the vehicles were only available until a certain time which we had exceeded.
I felt tired from all the walking but I did not want to feel defeated so I just immersed myself in the feeling of success I felt earlier instead. Moments later, a group of bikers passed by and stopped to offer us a ride. They showed us even more amazing locations that we did not anticipate before they dropped us off the bus terminal for our ride home.
In hindsight, it was risky to just hitch a ride with a group of strangers but we trusted our intuition. We were rewarded with beautiful scenery, a great time and new friends.
The key to serenity is trusting that the universe has your back.
— Gabrielle Bernstein
This is one of the secrets of visualizing. As you do your work preparing to receive your vision, your intuition also guides you to the right people, places and resources and uncannily, they are delivered to you at the right time too. When you experience these “coincidences”, you can’t help but feel as though you are the luckiest person in the world. Everything seems to be working out in your favor and most of the time, it does. But remember that nothing is a coincidence. The universe conspires in helping you achieve your vision. Everything happening to you is a result of your thoughts, of what you focus on, of your vision of your world.
I say most of the time because the Universe or God, Creator or whatever names you call that higher, divine power, works in mysterious ways. That’s why I mentioned earlier that while you hold steady your vision as you prepare for it, you must also keep an open mind to the way or form that your vision is granted.
Again, in my example, I expected that I would be able to get home but I did not worry myself on how I would do so. It was surprising to me that it would be in the form of a gang of motorbiking strangers.
So to recap, success starts with a vision; more precisely YOUR VISION. Visualize as though you are already in the moment of your success. Go to the state as though you have already achieved or received your vision. Don’t worry about the things you can’t control but have fun while preparing to receive your success. And last but not the least, keep an open mind for the way or form that your vision is granted. Remember also, to keep your positive feelings every step of the way. The best way to do this is to receive everything with gratitude.
First published on Pinoy Smart Living 09.01.18.
Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash.