If visualisation is so powerful …

… then why aren’t we all living in our own personal paradise?

Mmm … something just doesn’t add up …

We’re told, again and again, that all we need to do is decide on a worthy goal and visualise it, repeatedly. Visualise it as having been achieved. And we do that. We take our time … we whittle down all the things we really want, right down to their essentials … and what we’re left with is our goal, or goals.

Then we form the habit of spending a few minutes each day (preferably twice a day or more), during which we relax deeply and visualise those goals as having been achieved. But for most of us, most of the time, that doesn’t bring about the achievement we expect.

Why?

In short, we’re doing it wrong!

Just visualising, i.e. seeing, the outcome the way we want it isn’t enough. There’s more to visualisation than that. If it were that straighforward, we’d all have discovered this amazing mechanism years ago, and we woudn’t need other people to point the way either. It would have been as simple as learning to walk. Actually, that’s not a good analogy; learning to walk is something we all achieve, which is what I was trying to compare it to, but learning to walk is actually one of the hardest things you’ll ever do in your life.

Learning to walk

First, you have to learn how to shift from crawling, which is, let’s face it, pretty easy. A very, very young child can do it, once they feel the urge to try. Going from that to walking is a major step (oops, there’s a pun in there, slipped in when I wasn’t looking!). You have to learn how to stand upright first, which is a huge challenge, in terms of balance, when you’ve never done it before. Then you have to try to maintain that balance … and that’s even before you start the whole tricky business of moving one foot in front of the other.

When you do that there’s another whole balance issue … your weight has to switch successfully from one leg to the other, and all the time your body is tending to fall down. Getting, and holding that balance is not easy, not easy at all. The first few steps are usually accompanied by an adult holding you steady, or holding your hand, and by you trying, and stumbling … and falling to the floor. Again … and again! That’s why I say it’s not easy. You ‘fail’ at it time and time again, and that failure is very apparent. Sometimes you’ll feel the pain of failure physically. If ever there was a time to quit it would be now.

But we all made it! We learned to walk! It might have taken some of us longer than others, but we got there. And why? Mostly because we never gave up. Even when ‘failing’ was a painful experience, we just got back up and tried again. And again. And again. We never quit! Pity we don’t always have that determination in later life …

Back to visualisation …

Back to visualisation: we think of it as seeing a successful outcome. That’s due to the term, visualisation, not suprisingly. In fact, it doesn’t really matter very much whether or not you can ‘see’ the outcome, or even how clearly you can see it. Seeing it is only a piece of the visualisation jigsaw. If you focus all your powers on creating a crystal clear mental image of your hoped-for successful outcome, you might still come up short. On its own it’s just not enough!

What you have to do is experience the successful outcome! The shorthand term for that is visualisation, but that doesn’t cover the whole thing (and it puts the stress on the mental image, which results in confusion). What you need to do is trick your subconscious mind into believing that you’ve already achieved your goal. That way, it will support you in having that thing you’re working towards having. If it truly believes you have achieved your goal, it makes it its business to support you all the way, and it’s an incredibly powerful ally to have on your side.

But it’s not stupid! It’s not too bright, actually, but it’s not dumb either. It can be tricked, and once you’ve tricked it, it’s on your side, one hundred percent. But it’s on the lookout for your tricks, and it’s careful not to fall for anything that doesn’t seem totally kosher. Mmm … problem …

How to trick your subconscious

The way to trick your subconscious mind is to harness the powers of all your sensory inputs. That’s where your subconscious gets its information, from your senses. The fact is, the brain cannot tell the difference between an actual event and one that’s vividly imagined. Seems strange, for something so … well, brainy … but it can only go on the information it receives. And the only information it gets is via your senses.

So, to trick your subconscious into believing that you’ve achieved your goal, flood your senses with vividly imagined sensory experiences. Use all of them, and make your imaginings vivid. Your brain won’t know what’s hit it!

How to get a promotion at work

Let’s say your goal is to get a promotion at work. Okay, sounds easy enough … just visualise yourself sitting at a different desk, with your name on the door, with ‘Manager’ written underneath in nice gold lettering, or something like that. Mmm … good luck with that, but it probably won’t work.

How about this though … how about it you were to imagine chatting to your boss at work, and the chat turns to talk of promotion, of you being the new manager, or filling in for someone in that position for a while, or whatever … now imagine walking away from that chat grinning to yourself, knowing that you’ve started the ball rolling … and imagine your boss coming round to your way of thinking, and deciding that yes, actually you’d make a great manager.

And imagine yourself, a short time later, stepping into your own office … settling in, putting your things into the desk drawers, putting your photos, certificates, etc, on the wall, shifting the desk to a slightly more ‘you’ position in the room … and imagine settling back into that nicely upholstered swivel chair, and taking a nice deep breath … imagine hearing your co-workers outside, milling around, going about their business, and thinking to yourself, “I’m in here, in peace … above all that … in my own office … YES!” … and carry on with the visualisation.

Embroider it with a few more fancy touches. Imagine your phone ringing and hearing someone addressing you as the manager, or you introducing yourself as the manager … and imagine one of your friends from ‘out there’ popping in to see you, and feeling a bit awkward now you’ve been promoted … and imagine putting your friend at his/her ease, saying you’re just the same person really … well, maybe a little more important now! And build up a few more scenes, showing you performing really well as a new manager … feel the warmth of the congratulations coming from other people as they regard you as a success … feel yourself smiling as you imagine the hefty pay rise coming your way … and carry on, for just a few minutes, creating little cameos of what it will really be like to inhabit that position.

See what we did there? You imagined getting the promotion … you heard someone (a boss?) agreeing to it, or talking about it in warm tones … you saw your new office … you felt what it was like to open the door and walk in … you felt what it was like to put your things in place, and to move your new desk … you saw your friend walk into your office, and you heard him or her chatting to you about your promotion … you heard the others, in the outer office, carrying on with their unpromoted lives outside … you felt how good it was to settle into your new chair and lean back and take a deep breath … you heard other people refer to you as the new manager … you felt the phone in your hand as you spoke to some of them … and so it goes on, at each opportunity, you’re experiencing the outcome you desire.

Throughout this entire visualisation you were employing various senses. You could see certain things, you could hear them, you could feel them. When you were getting ready to settle back in your new chair, you could probably smell the leather upholstery. You could feel the weight of the desk as you moved it to a better, more personally chosen, position.

All in all, you literally experienced that scenario, using virtually all your senses. You saw, heard, felt, smelt, touched, and practically tasted that experience! You smiled, you felt like it had really happened. And your subconscious was tricked, if only for a minute or two, into believing that you were now a manager. It’s already preparing and putting into action a new blueprint – it will now see you as a manager, and you will start to act accordingly. That’s what will start to bring about the desired result!

What changed?

You will now have the mindset of a manager. You will have the confidence to go along with it. You will take more pride in your appearance; you will start to dress more in line with your new position. You will command more respect. Others will regard you as more senior, even before you gain that position in the ‘real’ world. And that’s another thing that will work towards you securing your promotion … that you’ve managed to change the way other people think, and the way they feel about you. Where before they saw you in your present position, they now see you as a potential manager, or as promotion material.

And what was the difference? What made things happen, when before it was just visualisation? This time you used more of your brain, and you used it in a creative way! This time you created manufactured experiences (remember, real or imaginery, your brain can’t tell the difference), and you imprinted them onto the very neurons of your brain. You made your brain believe your had achieved that promotion … and now it’s just a matter of time before the ‘real’ world catches up with the imagined one.

Specially if you visualise this way, again and again!

In effect, you hypnotised yourself into believing you can be a successful manager. And we all know how successful and effective hypnosis can be. Even stage hypnosis, which is generally done pretty quickly and with minimal preparation, can make the most bashful charater become outgoing and forceful, or make a strong man so weak he can struggle to lift a pencil up from a table. These aren’t staged effects, these are real – these people have had their beliefs temporarily adjusted, and the effect is that they are, quite suddenly, almost different people.

Change yourself … from the inside out

You can do this to yourself, you can change your beliefs, and change them so fundamentally that you will actually become the person you imagine. You can become more forceful in your attitude, more confident, more outgoing, more relaxed, more … more managerial, if that’s what you desire.

The trick is to use as much vivid sensory input as you can muster, and to do it repeatedly. That’s how you trick your brain into believing you’re whatever you want to be.

And once that belief is installed in your brain, your subconscious will do all in its immense power to back it to the hilt!

Carl Harvey

It’s great to see that there are lots of people popularising the practice of visualisation these days. One such person is Carl Harvey.

I’ve been following Carl’s work for a few years and I’ve watched him go from a student of this kind of thing to someone who’s clearly mastered it. He now lives in an expensive hotel right on the beach in New South Wales, Australia, he’s met and married the woman of his dreams, and he’s making a great living by teaching these methods and inspiring thousands of students worldwide. Spreading the word about this form of personal development both ensures that his students improve their lives and brings him in a nice income. A great win-win situation!

Read more about Carl and his work at his website.

In a recent live webinar Carl outlined a simple 7-step routine for effective visualisation. I’ll be going into visualisation in a bit more detail in a future blog post. Meantime, head over to Carl’s website and sign up for The Big Life, a free weekly discussion/chat show featuring some of the top names in personal development. It’s aim is to help you attain the success you’re aiming for, as fast as possible.

 

Want to read more about visualisation?
Want to find out about the missing ingredient?
Check out my follow-up post!