Image Credit: © Joe_Andrews
I’ll believe it when I see it
How many times have you heard somebody say that? How many times have your heard yourself say that? Countless times, I bet. And most times they are saying it to dismiss or ridicule the “it”. But here is the thing, that statement is 100% completely true! Visualisation is a very powerful and essential tool in your success toolbox. This article is going to explain the process and give you some tips and ideas about using visualisation as a part of your success routine.
What Is Visualisation
In the articles, “The Little Engine That Could“, and, “Getting Your Hands Dirty With Affirmations“, I spoke about affirmations as a tool to help you solidify your belief in your ability to reach your goals. Affirmations also help intensify the vividness of the mental image you hold of your goals. Visualisation goes hand in hand with affirmations.
All learning is a result of reacting to ideas experienced through one of the five senses. For most people, visual pathways are the primary sources of learning. Much of our language is geared toward mental images. We’ll say “I see” when we mean “I understand”. ”That looks like a good idea”, or “I get the picture”. While each person differs in the relative importance of the five senses in individual learning, visual images are important to almost everyone.
The ability to visualise is a function of your imagination. It is the process by which you relate the present to the past by converting your current thoughts into mental pictures of past experiences. You then form a bridge from the past to the present and use that bridge as a means of understanding the experiences of today.
Visualisation is used to its best advantage, however, when you learn to relate the present to the future. When you can relate where you are now to where you want to be in the future, you have lifted visualisation to an art.
An Exercise In Visualisation
It might be an idea to get somebody to read this section to you while you try it out. That will save you from having to continually open your eyes to read the next bit. All the things I ask you to “do”, I want you to do in your mind.
Close your eyes and think of your car. Concentrate and completely focus on the car. What is the make and model? What colour is the exterior? How many doors? Describe the shape of the car. Are there any scratches or little dents in the bodywork? Is it clean or does it need a wash? What shape are the headlights? How many are there? Are there any external accessories like a roof rack or a tow bar? How about the tyres, do any of them look like they could do with some air? Can you describe the tread pattern? Is there plenty of tread or are they a bit worn? Stand next to the driver’s door. How high is the car? Can you see over it? Put your hand on the car. How does it feel? Is it cold? Now open the driver’s door. What sort of handle does the door have? Is it easy to open? Does the door creak a little when you open it or does it open silently? Does the door feel heavy? Before you get in, lean inside and breath in deeply through your nose. How does the interior smell? Still got that “new car” smell? Alright, get in and sit down. How does the seat feel? Is it soft and comfortable? Does it support your back nicely? And how about those seats? What are they made of? Vinyl? Leather? What is the main colour of the interior? Put your seat belt on. What does the fastener look like? Describe the “click” noise it makes when you fasten it. Look straight out through the windscreen. Can you see all the instruments on the instrument panel easily? What gauges are there? How many? What shape? Colour? What speed does the speedometer go up to? What about the leg room? Can you reach the pedals easily and comfortably? Where is the seat adjustment? What does it look like? Describe the gear shift. Is this an automatic transmission or manual? How does the gear shift feel in your hand? Lastly, put the key in the ignition and give it a turn. Does the car start first time? Describe the sound of the engine. Can you smell the exhaust?
When you visualise, you need to go into that much detail. You have to be able to picture it so completely that you could describe it to someone who has never seen the thing you are visualising.
When you become truly self-motivated, you won’t restrict your imagination. You’ll set it free. Then if you are asked to describe a car, you might describe the one you have planned to purchase a few months from now. You have learned to make a bridge from the present to the future so that you can see what you want to achieve. When you can visualise in this way you are prepared for the future because you are already familiar with it.
Visualisation works because the visual sense, in most ordinary situations, develops more accurate knowledge than any other sense. As a result, most people generally think in pictures.
An inventor visualises when mentally picturing a new device to perform a specific job. An advertising exec visualises when planning graphic layouts to show the unique qualities of a product or service. A salesperson helps a prospect visualise by picturing in words the benefits of a product or idea. An artist visualises by mentally forming a completed picture before the brush ever touches the canvas. Athletes visualise the exact movements they want to make as they execute particular plays.
If you are able to formulate an idea or a plan, to see it in your imagination and to focus it until it is crystal clear, if you see the picture so vividly, so sharply that you can put it into words and make others see it as clearly as you do, you are visualising.
Visualisation Keeps You On Track
AS you develop the art of visualisation, free your mind from the restriction of past experiences. Focus your imagination on the future instead of the past. Zero in on your goals and plans through concentration. Explore every facet of an idea or goal until it becomes crystal clear, and you can visualise it exactly.
Think of your mind as a camera. Take a mental picture of the goal you want to reach. If the camera is 10% our of focus, the picture will also be 10% out of focus. You’ll never get a clear photograph from a camera that is out of focus. Likewise, the mental picture of your goal must be exactly in focus. If the mental picture is hazy, the goal will be distorted when (if) you reach it. It may be recognisable, but not completely satisfying. Visualisation is the tool to use for crystallising your thinking so that you know exactly how to reach the goal you have set.
As you begin to concentrate on a specific plan of action for reaching your goal, visualisation will help you spot errors or inconsistencies in your plans. You can then go back and make corrections and redirect your actions before mistakes are made.
When you exercise the power of visualisation, you are able to see how each goal fits into your overall priorities for a specific area of life. Visualisation also helps you see exactly how a particular plan satisfies your personal values and standards. When you understand ahead of time the relationship of your goal to your priorities and personal values, you avoid wasting time, energy, and resources working toward a goal that will not fit into your overall needs.
Seeing Is Believing
Visualisation is the ultimate fulfillment of that proverb, “seeing is believing”. When you set goals and use the power of visualisation to picture yourself already in possession of them, you develop an almost miraculous belief in yourself and your ability to achieve your goals.
If you have made resolutions or set goals in the past for attitude changes and then relied on willpower to accomplish the goal, you may have been disappointed. Willpower alone is not enough because it does not produce belief. Unless you can “see” the success you desire through visualisation you’ll be moving ahead into the unknown. When you are dealing with the unknown you have little or no basis for confidence and belief. You can produce belief through visualisation. Visualise a new mode of behaviour that will replace old habits, and adopting the new behaviour becomes much easier.
The power to produce belief is the difference between genuine visualisation and daydreams. Daydreams are an escape from reality. They are vague, fanciful pictures of some sort of ideal that you never intend or expect to reach. Visualisation, on the other hand, is a constructive plan for preventing inactivity.
The daydreamer does not believe in his dreams, but when you visualise, you develop belief, confidence, and assurance in the possibility and the reality of achieving your goals. Through visualisation, you have, in a very real sense, already arrived at your goal.
Further Reading
Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain (Amazon)
Till next time…
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About the only time I visualize anything is when I have a blog post in mind and I am away from the computer. When that happens I can see it all so vividly in my mind, it’s almost like a play with the actors playing out a part.
If I am near some paper I jot it all down, if not I play it over and over again trying to cement it in my mind for when I can get a hard copy. Sometimes it actually works out better this way as each time I play it through my mind I make little alterations trying to make it better.
Sire´s last blog ..My Spin On The Squeeze Page And Email Lists
Twitter: AussieSire
Hi Sire!
Sounds like you’re very good at visualisation. And I love how it lets you make corrections and improvements even before you’ve started the actual writing. That is exactly how they are supposed to work. Good one, mate.
Thanks very much for taking the time to comment, Sire. Hope to see you back again soon.
Kind regards,
Steve.
Twitter: SteveYoungs
I’ll be back Steve, no worries there. It’s funny though how the mind allows you to visualize some things and not others. I suppose it’s all a matter of training and I just have to work at certain visualizations.
Sire´s last blog ..If Women Controlled The Earth
Twitter: AussieSire
I think it is just that it is easier to visualise things we have desire for or are passionate about.
Twitter: SteveYoungs
This is my first time here and I must say your post is quite interesting. I don’t know that I can use this visualisation however I would consider trying it. Thanks again.
winnie´s last blog ..Optimist or Perssimist?
Hi Winnie!
Welcome to my site. I love it when new people show up. Lovely to meet you.
Thank you for taking the time to comment and I’m glad you enjoyed my article.
Kind regards,
Steve.
Twitter: SteveYoungs
[...] Hmm.. I found one of my image linked out to a really cool post so I thought would share.. This was my “Deep Blue Dream” attached to a pretty neat article on visualization. Thanks to steveyoungs.com for the feature! Read the article here! [...]
Thanks for letting me use such an awesome image, mate.
Twitter: SteveYoungs
Good interaction going here brother, Visualisation is an amazing tool, I do it really vocally while I’m driving about I talk as if I’m all ready where I want to be (working from home earning good money etc) and it’s where I get a lot of my ideas too.
Sure, if I got caught talking to myself about the future as if I was living it, I would get locked up, but for now it’s working great, awesome stuff here Steve, fantastic
TheInfoPreneur´s last blog ..Why Being Normal Is The New Extraordinary
Thanks, James! You are removing the distinction between visualisation and affirmation, and that is great, man! You really shouldn’t do one without the other anyway.
Thanks for stopping by, mate
Steve.
Twitter: SteveYoungs
I visualize every time I write a poem.
As for goal setting when I first started my website todays-woman.net I never visualized it would turn into a successful writing community.
Today I have a vision.
Hi Rose!
I haven’t read any of your poetry so can’t comment on that (where can I find it, BTW?)
I’d be interested to know how you did visualise the future todays-woman back when you began it. And if you didn’t employ the art of visualisation, I wonder where you’d be now if you did?
Do you want to share the vision you have now for it? Can you make us believe it like you do? Or do we have to wait and see?
It’s OK if you don’t want to share, Rose. Totally up to you, hun.
Thanks for commenting.
Steve.
Twitter: SteveYoungs
Visualisation is such a powerful tool.
Most people who hear about it and try it once but don’t get results because they think that it’s just about visualising something and it magically appears. That’s not how it works and most people miss the trick of it.
By seating images into your subconscious, visualisation helps to push your focus into the right direction. By having the right focus you can easily determine your reality because your focus, whether positive or negative, helps you make decisions in life. With a negative focus you will make crappy decision that won’t really benefit you. With a positive focus you’ll make some choices that with greatly affect your success.
Visualisation helps to create the right focus. It drives it down deep into your sub-conscious where you mind can constantly refer to it without you realising.
Great post Steve, as always. Between us we’ll spread the visualisation love!
Ben´s last blog ..Music: The Soundtrack to life
Wow! I wish you’d commented before I’d published… I would have included this into the article
Thanks, mate. You rock!
Twitter: SteveYoungs
I first visualized it to be a woman’s network. Then I visualized it just to be a place where I’d chat with online friends.