Using the Power of Visualisation to Achieve Your Goals

Visualisation is a very powerful method for keeping your motivation level high and focused on achieving your goals. It works because images are more emotive and memorable than words. It engages your mind on a deeper, subconscious level.  Here are some ideas about
how to visualise:

Relax first

To start with you need to get into a relaxed state. Find somewhere quiet and calm and either lie down or sit comfortably. Notice your breathing and then start to breathe more deeply - breathe in for a count of 5, imagining your stomach blowing up like a balloon, hold it briefly and then breathe out slowly for a count of 5. Repeat this a few times. Now focus on using your breathing to help you relax your body completely. With your next breath feel any tension in your scalp melt away and with the next feel the muscles around your eyes relax. 

Continue like this moving to your cheeks, mouth, chin, neck, shoulders and down your arms (imagine feeling your breath flowing down your arms to your fingertips). Then feel your chest loosening, your lower body, and your thighs and then down your lower legs to your toes.

Form a picture

Now you are nice and relaxed start to form a picture in your mind of what you would be doing having achieved your goal. Where would you be? Who would you be with? What would you be wearing? How would you be standing, sitting, moving? See it as if through your own eyes not as if you were seeing yourself on a screen. Don't worry if at first you can't "see" much; just keep painting the picture in as much detail as possible. What can you see, hear, feel, smell, and touch? Imagine interacting with others; make it a movie rather than a still photo.

Increase the intensity

Increase the brightness of the colours, the clarity of the sounds, etc and as you do you should feel the positive emotions that you expect achieving your goal to bring you. You might make the picture/movie larger than life. Now enjoy the sensations.

Visualise daily

Schedule a regular time at least once a day, preferably twice, to indulge in this visualisation experience. It's especially effective to do it before you go to sleep and first thing in the morning.

Visualisation 2.0

Here are 3 further suggestions to take your visualisation to the next level.

First, create a vision board. This is just a collection of images that relate to your goal. You could use a cork board and place it somewhere prominent so you will see it and reflect on it regularly. If the pictures don't get you excited about achieving your goals, find some that do.

Second, record your voice talking you through an ideal day having achieved your goal as if it was already happening. Then when you do your visualisation, play this back to help your focus.

Third, create a mind movie. This means collecting and combining an inspiring and motivational piece of music with a slide show of images that relate to your goal and add affirmations or affirmations to the slides too. You can do this yourself but there is software available to create these more easily, just type in mind movies to your search engine.

Author - Dawn Marchant