If you’ve recently watched the secret or read similar books about the power of visualisation, the law of attraction, and the importance of positivity in becoming successful, you’re probably dying to start testing some of those lessons out with your own personal or business ventures.
But while there’s immense power in visualisation, there are a series of specific things you can do to really get the most out of the exercise and begin achieving your dreams today.
Here are a few hacks for helping you to master the art of visualisation in life and business.
Create a “perfect day” scenario
The first thing to do is to come up with a clear idea of what you actually want. This should be pretty big picture stuff when you’re setting intentions for your life, things like “I really want a gold-plated watch” or “I’d love some new high quality office furniture” are not what this particular exercise is about.
One of the most effective ways of identifying what you really want in life, is to visualise your perfect day from start to finish, if money, and practicality were no obstacles, and you could just instantly transform your life situation into anything you wanted.
What kind of house do you live in? What time do you wake up? Who do you wake up next to? Where do you go to work, what’s your job, and what position do you hold? How’s your social life?
Your “perfect day” template might well change over time. That’s fine, you don’t have to stick with your first instincts forever. The important thing is writing down your vision today, so that you can begin focusing on it and moving yourself forward, using it as a focus.
Identify symbols that make you think of success and surround yourself with them
Our bodies are shaped by what we eat, and our minds are shaped by the kinds of information we allow into them. Symbols have immense power — they can trigger emotions, deep memories, thought processes, and so on. If the images we surround ourselves with are disempowering and limiting, we end up feeling disempowered and limited in life, and think disempowering and limiting thoughts.
There is no template for what symbols you should surround yourself with, because there’s no “one-size-fits-all” for everyone. The important thing is that you identify the symbols that lift YOU up, and then integrate them into your life.
If pictures of trees make you think of growth, success, and happiness, hang them up around your house. If certain types of music always make you smile, listen to them regularly.
Surround yourself with symbols that lift you up and improve your mental and emotional balance.
Keep a summary of your “perfect day” on a card and read it each day
The best vision in the world is no good if you just dream it up and then forget about it. You need to make a habit of constantly reflecting on it, and affirming it to yourself, for it to really embed itself in your subconscious mind and have the kind of amazing effect you want it to.
One of the best ways of doing this is to write a short summary of your “perfect day” vision on a flash card, and keep it somewhere within easy reach. Every morning, just after waking up, and every night, just before going to sleep, you should read the card a few times, and then deeply visualise that perfect day unfolding.
Meditate to get some distance from your thoughts
It’s impossible to constantly monitor and edit all of our thoughts to keep them positive. Trying to do that will only drive you insane, and cause deep stress and worry in your life.
Instead of trying to shut down negative thoughts, you need to master the skill of detaching yourself from them automatically, so that they don’t have the same emotional impact on you.
Mindfulness meditation is a brilliant way of conditioning yourself to do this, as it trains you to observe your thoughts without judging, or chasing them.
This makes you a lot more emotionally steady during the day. When you want to do your positive affirmations and visualisations, focus on those and the positive emotions will come. As for the negative ones? As long as you don’t give them your attention, they’ll drift past in the background.
Do things that make you happy
Happiness is one of the keys to creating and maintaining powerful and effective visualisations. While your visualisations should, in and of themselves, bring you a degree of happiness, you need to try and align all the other factors in your life so that you’re as happy as you possibly can be overall.
Take the time to meet up with loved ones, read books you enjoy, and do things that make you feel good.
