We all want better for our lives, including being healthier and happier and achieving the success we’ve always searched for. But just wanting and
wising
for those things isn’t enough. Have you tried visualizing it?
Visualization has been used by many successful people to achieve their desired outcome. Wouldn’t it be awesome to think about what you really want in life, see it in your mind, and have it manifest in your life, for real? You can do it and it really can happen with visualization.
The daily practice of visualizing your dreams and what you really want out of your life, including having a healthy body along with a healthy outlook rests in your hands.
Follow these techniques which are easy to start and maintain and you’ll be living your life as you see it, in no time.
Here are 3 visualization techniques you can start right away.
Visualize with the ‘Mental Rehearsal’ Technique
For athletes, visualization process is called “mental rehearsal,” and they have been using these exercises since the 1960s when we learned about it from the Russians.
All you have to do is set aside a few minutes a day. The best times are when you first wake up, after meditation or prayer, and right before you go to bed. These are the times you are most relaxed.
Go through the following three steps:
STEP 1. Imagine sitting in a movie theater, the lights dim, and then the movie starts. It is a movie of you doing perfectly whatever it is that you want to do better. See as much detail as you can create, including your clothing, the expression on your face, small body movements, the environment and any other people that might be around. Add in any sounds you would be hearing — traffic, music, other people talking, cheering. And finally, recreate in your body any feelings you think you would be experiencing as you engage in this activity.
STEP 2. Get out of your chair, walk up to the screen, open a door in the screen and enter into the movie. Now experience the whole thing again from inside of yourself, looking out through your eyes. This is called an “embodied image” rather than a “distant image.” It will deepen the impact of the experience. Again, see everything in vivid detail, hear the sounds you would hear, and feel the feelings you would feel.
STEP 3. Finally, walk back out of the screen that is still showing the picture of you performing perfectly, return to your seat in the theater, reach out and grab the screen and shrink it down to the size of a cracker. Then, bring this miniature screen up to your mouth, chew it up and swallow it. Imagine that each tiny piece — just like a hologram — contains the full picture of you performing well. Imagine all these little screens traveling down into your stomach and out through the bloodstream into every cell of your body. Then imagine that every cell of your body is lit up with a movie of you performing perfectly. It’s like one of those appliance store windows where 50 televisions are all tuned to the same channel.
When you have finished this process — it should take less than five minutes — you can open your eyes and go about your business. If you make this part of your daily routine, you will be amazed at how much improvement you will see in your life.
Be Specific: If You Want Healthier Eating Habits
Focus on the positive. Think of reaching for an apple instead of visualizing passing up the peanut butter cups. Researchers suspect that this tack may be more effective because it’s easier to see how close you are to a new goal than to gauge how far you are from old habits. In other words, it’s more satisfying to note all the fresh, nutritious salads you’ve had than to think of all the cupcakes you could have eaten but didn’t.
Imagine every step. A 2011 study by scientists at McGill University, in Montreal, found that when told to eat more fruit, people who envisioned every step of the process (reaching for it, biting into it, enjoying it) were more successful than those who only generally thought about eating more fruit.
Focus. Repeat. Focus. Repeat. Focus.
Repetition adds extra power to your visualization. Try this – put an alarm on your phone and place yourself in that “scene” several times a day – even every hour on the hour. Integrate the feeling of this imagined “current” reality into your day and night – and it will blend into who you are. Its inevitability will grow more and more natural and “evident” to your brain; the desired reality will increasingly feel as if it is already your reality. All you need to do is step into it, action-by-action.
[Tip]: Joyfully Course Correct During your visualizations. The beauty of visualization is that you can practice new patterns and actions in your mind without fear of failure in the physical world. Visualization allows you to make multiple attempts to get it right – before you even try it once out there with others. By trying alternatives and correcting mistakes during visualization, you are programming your mind to help you overcome obstacles fluidly and as an accepted part of the process of success down the line.
Try these techniques and let us know how it goes. Are you ready to kickstart your healthy lifestyle? Get with 7 days of real, actionable strategies that work for Free. Click this link for free access.
