The Power of Vision

Several years ago, I bought a book called “Think Yourself Thin”. The premise was that all you had to do to lose weight is have a very clear picture of yourself as a thin person in your head and think about it every single night. The author used this method of consistent imagery to lose weight herself and then wrote a book about it.

The concept that she uses of visualizing success is a very powerful tool. It is used by Olympic athletes, professional sales people, and others who want to get to a new level of performance. The most powerful “visions” of success not only provide you with a clear picture of what success looks like, they also evoke strong positive emotions. In this way they channel both your mental and emotional energy towards your goal.

You provide your mind with a clear picture as a place to focus. This triggers your “selective perception,” and you begin to notice information that is relevant to achieving your goal. You may not have noticed this information before, just because your brain didn’t see it as relevant.

At the same time your positive emotions provide you with two additional keys to success: one is that other people respond positively to your emotion, so every interaction you have relative to your goal is more effective. Secondly, the positive emotion generates new energy and motivation, so you are more likely to push outside of your comfort zone and act on whatever you are excited about.

If you are working towards a big goal, one sure way to accelerate your progress is to develop a clear picture in your head of what success looks like and think about it often. Draw it, write about it, talk about it, and “practice” being there already.

Sometimes I have clients tell a story of their vision, and interact in our group as if they had already achieved their goal. It’s a fun exercise with a powerful purpose – to get everyone mentally clear and emotionally “in synch” with what they want to make real in their lives.

Do you have a clear vision of what success will look like once you’ve achieved your BIG goal? If not, spend some time today – even 15 minutes, writing it down. And then spend a few minutes tonight before you fall asleep thinking about it. See if you can do this on a daily basis for a few weeks and monitor what new ideas you get and what new possibilities show up for you.

Good luck and have fun with this!