Lock on to the end result

You know, I say repeatedly that it’s important to stay focused on your end result. That’s so important, to keep your mind on the attainment of your goals. But it’s one thing that I find troublesome. My illness causes me physical and mental problems simultaneously – at the times when I get very fatigued, my mental focus suffers too. I’m not only physically weakened, my mental strength seems to drain away in sympathy.

Take a few minutes, twice a day, to focus on what’s important to you. You have dreams and aspirations, things you want to achieve, things you want to bring about … and one of the most important things you can do to make sure these things happen is to focus your mental powers, even if only briefly, on the end result.

Target acquired! 

This is giving your subsconscious mind its target. It’s the way to say to your subconscious “Here, this is what we’re after … take a good look, familiarise yourself with it … this is exactly what you need to aim for!”. I say this, because it’s a fact. It’s great advice. Unfortunately, it’s advice I sometimes don’t take myself. The effects of fatigue are so strong that I simply can’t harness my own mental powers like I used to. It’s like someone’s flicked a switch and stopped the power running in those particular circuits. And no matter what I do I find it almost impossible to function anywhere near normal.

I’ve learned to mentally step back a bit and just watch what’s going on. I know I can’t do much at times like that, and the temptation is to sink into a depression, letting it all get on top of me. But I’ve learned that it’s better to step back and let things slide a little. A day or two without any progress is painful for me, but far more painful would be to worry endlessly about it. I can remain fairly calm about the situation, although it annoys me endlessly that I’m stopped in my tracks.

And sometimes, like right now, I can find myself at the end of the day and at the keyboard … and somehow managing to write something. This mightn’t be much of a blog post, but it’s all I can manage right now, and it’s addressing an important point – the fact that we’re all constrained by our physical health. We can only do what we can do. We’re not supermen (although it’s always tempting to pretend we are). We can only do so much. And when we’re pulled up short, by illness or injury, or just plain tiredness, it’s no good berating ourselves for failing in our duty. That doesn’t help. Better to cut ourselves a little slack. Nobody’s perfect, and trying to attain perfection all the time is a pointless exercise.

So here I am, at one o’clock in the morning, after a day of endless fatigue. It’s actually difficult to focus enough to write this at the moment, but the one thing I’m going to do when I finish this blog post is to spend a few minutes in quiet contemplation. I’ll review the things I want to achieve, and I’ll see the final results (mental images of the completion of those goals), and I’ll try to experience the feelings and emotions that will go along with those results. This viewing of the future, the successful future, is of such importance that I can’t ignore it. Too often in the past I’ve let it slide. It has somehow not seemed all that important. Big mistake!

Create the habit – it’s so important

It’s actually of major importance. This is the quiet, invisible work of the mind, when mental images are conjured up, and emotions are felt, strongly and vividly, and when the subconscious mind is treated to the details of its final results. Without giving the subconscious these details, we’re expecting miracles. What the subconscious does, what it achieves, is indeed miraculous, but to expect it to do it without being given strict and specific instructions, that’s expecting more than a miracle, that’s expecting the impossible.

So do yourself a favour – don’t do as I did for far too long and ignore the importance of visualisation. Make it such an ingrained habit that you always do it, no matter what. No matter what’s happening in your life, no matter how many things distract you, and no matter how tired you are. If you really want those things that you have decided are your aims and your goals, then you have to work towards them. And easily as important as the physical work necessary, is the mental work. Those few minutes each night and each morning … they can sometimes feel as tough as any physical work, but they are actually far more valuable.

Don’t shirk them! Be strict with yourself. And the best way to ensure you don’t let things slide is to make your visualisation sessions such a strong habit that you’ll do them even if it seems almost physically impossible.