Visualization is a powerful tool that successful people (think Olympians!) use to drive them towards goals. You can manifest the life of your dreams using it. But let’s get real. As my Grandma used to say, “Wish in one hand, S!*$ in the other, see what you get first.” In other words, in order to use visualization in the right way for producing life results, you must do the work toward your dreams. You can’t just simply go on a guided mediation about it. In this post, we’ll deep dive into what visualization is and how to utilize it to achieve your goals.
What Is Visualization?
Visualization is the mental act of seeing your goal or dream in your mind’s eye as though it were a movie. It is the practice of using the 5 senses to imagine yourself accomplishing a specific goal or becoming who you want to be. By focusing your mind on a desired outcome, dream, or goal, you train yourself to attain it. Visualization can work to produce real life results because it manipulates the subconscious mind into thinking that what you’re visualizing is reality. Thus, your brain triggers you to act true to what you’re thinking.
Let’s take a look at the function of the mind when doing visualization.
The Importance of the Subconscious Mind in Visualization
One of the myths of visualization is that it’s for quacks and people trying to get you to buy into some self-help, cult-like mindset. Contrarily, being able to mentally picture your future is a research-backed way of improving your outcome. For example, Guang Yue, a Cleveland Clinic exercise psychologist, had study participants visualize themselves doing weight lifting. The other participants actually lifted the weights. The ones mentalizing it still had a gain of 35% to the actual lifter’s 53%. This is due to how the subconscious mind works.
The subconscious mind is the part of our brain that takes action without thought; it is the autopilot of our personality. Seeped in our personal beliefs and values, it operates on identity formation. It doesn’t actually know the difference between reality or not. But it is like the symphony conductor telling the orchestra what to play.
Thus, it is crucial to making change in your life. If you have an unhealthy identity, motivation to achieving your dreams will not be there. You might get gung-ho on an action plan to succeed at something, only to give up when it gets boring, hard, or when you suffer a setback.
But if you can team up with your brain and get your subconscious mind to adopt a newer, more goal-aligned, identity, you’ll be more naturally propelled toward action on your dream. Experts say this training of the mind can take about a month of solid commitment. Visualization is one way to work on this mind transformation. Speak your new truth to your mind and watch it follow your lead!
Mental Rehearsal
When I was in grade school, I had a best friend named Heather who was a high-achieving person and full of sunshine. I, on the other hand, had a proclivity towards being sedentary and ruminating on all the ways “I can’t” do something. Hanging out with her rubbed off some of her can-do-it mindset on me. One time, while we were working out in my basement, she said, “Do you ever play scenarios in your mind of who you want to be?”
Umm, no…
For the umpteenth time I felt like she was smarter than me. She told me how when she’s exercising or listening to music, she sees in her mind what she wants to look like, do, say, feel like in the future.
Like I said, I was more the girl, who when thought of the future, it was of what I would eat next. LOL.
I wish I’d have adopted that future-self-vision mentality from the time she told me about it. How it could have helped me be a creator of my young life verses the passive participant I felt like! But, alas, it would take decades before I came to fully understand the power behind what she said. Better late than never!
Heather was talking about mental rehearsal. Popular in Russia, athletes in the USA started using it around the 1960’s to produce outcomes in competitions. It is a process of visualizing yourself performing and behaving in a desired way; of doing in your mind what you want to do in real life.
Mental Rehearsal Exercise Example
This example of a mental rehearsal exercise comes from Jack Canfield’s website. (He created the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and is a personal transformation speaker and teacher). He writes:
Spending 5-10 minutes a day doing exercises such as this will train your mind to achieve what you want in life. It’s important, Canfield writes, to then carry confidence in your ability to produce results, to feel as though you’ve accomplished it. This believing in yourself will reprogram your subconscious mind to help you become who you want to be. Your thoughts will start to think in terms of going to get your dream and will give ideas for how to go about it.
Why Visualization is Important for Goals
Visualization is important for goals because it primes the mind for performance. Just like how a soccer player runs through drills at practice before a big game, seeing your goals in your mind primes you to act them out. Big life players have used it to succeed: Oprah, Jim Carrey, Sara Blakely, Tony Robbins (see examples below).
The practice helps your brain to register that the goal as important. It will then offer suggestions, possible resources, and ways to make it a reality. It maps out a pathway to attaining what you desire, like a personal assistant mapping out your next vacation.
We are motivated towards action when we can clearly see what it is we want, in which direction we’d prefer to travel. When we can see what purpose lies ahead, we can route a path there. As Dave Ramsey says, “Aim at nothing and you’ll hit it every time.” But aim at a crystal clear dream and you can see what’s necessary to bring it to fruition. That’s visualization.
Neuroscientists studying neuroplasticity (how our brains gain growth and flexibility in learning new things) have discovered that visualization alone is good enough to improve performance. In one study, piano players who visualized their performance ahead of time had the same brain motor skills mapping as those actually playing a piano.
Making your dream a reality begins with first dreaming it. Instead of a vague wishing, practice clear, intentional visualization.
“First, have a clear, definite, practical ideal: a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends: wisdom, money, materials, methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.”
Aristotle
Does Visualization Work?
Visualization works when repeated and then acted out. Of course, you won’t actually get into phenomenal physical shape if all you do is think about yourself in great shape. Action is the key follow up to visualization, obviously. But the reason it nudges you towards results is because our brains don’t logically know the difference between imagination and reality.
When you clearly use your senses and mind to think of your future life, the same neurons fire in your brain as though you were living that life. It’s a trick of consciousness. Aren’t we lucky to have this gift? Use it for your betterment!
How To Practice Visualization to Achieve Goals
Getting into the habit of visualization is fairly simple. It may take some practice, as not everyone is used to seeing pictures in their mind or using their imagination in this way. If you’re a more visual person, you may find it easy to do right off the bat. If, like me, you’re more of an auditory person, some facets of the process, like hearing affirmations, may work wonders for you but you may need a bit more focus on the “seeing” aspect.
There are two main types of visualization: outcome and process. Outcome visualization is where you put 100% of your focus on exactly what you’re trying to achieve. You see yourself attaining it. It’s a picture perfect image in your mind where all of your senses come alive in the imagining. Hold that image as long as possible.
Process visualization is where you see yourself taking the steps necessary to achieving that goal in your mind’s eye. You break down what it’s going to take to reach your desired dream and imagine yourself doing each one of those steps as specifically as you can.
Pin It!
The 5 Steps of Visualization
Here are 5 key steps to a great visualization process. When ready to do, go ahead a grab a notebook or journal and find a quiet, uninterrupted place where you can take 10-30 minutes to perform the full visualization. You can play soft meditation music for relaxation and focus. Do it once or twice a day.
- Identify any limiting beliefs you hold: While you may not be able to uproot these beliefs overnight, it’s important to be aware of our beliefs about our identity. They may be self-sabotaging. For instance, one of my self-limiting beliefs that I struggle with is: “I always wind up failing. Everything I try to achieve I eventually give up on when it get’s hard.” Gee, that’ll ruin any goal! Glad that I know that so I can counter it with a new belief. Get a journal and write your limiting beliefs so that you’re aware of what may be holding you back.
- Know specifically what it is you want: This is key. You must know exactly what it is that you’re after, what the goal is. It’s can’t be vague, such as, “I want to lose weight.” It has to be more like, “I want to lose 20 pounds and see definition in my muscles by summer.” Focus on one goal per visualization when starting out.
- See the goal with ultra clarity using the 5 senses. You want the visualization to be as though it’s really happening. Your subconscious needs a much input as possible to sort of “fake” it into believing it’s real. That gets those neurons firing and conspiring to make it happen. See yourself living the goal. Hear any sounds you would if it were real, such as people applauding if your goal is playing a concert. Next, how would your body feel? What would you touch, such as a new set of clothes when you lose weight? Use your olfactory system to smell something, such as a healthy meal you will cook when losing weight. You must visualize the goal as clearly and as if it’s real life.
- Create emotions and “I am” affirmations. Getting your feelings involved in the process is probably the most important aspect of visualization. When we connect our emotions to something, we create meaning and impact. So when you’re visualizing, ask yourself: how would I feel achieving my goal? What emotions would you have? What emotions would you have living that goal as a reality? For example, when you lose the weight, will you feel relief? Happy, proud, confident? Energized? You also want to create “I am” affirmations. Your mind won’t respond to “I want”. When you’re seeing your goal, think, “I am 20 pounds lighter. I am a size 10.” Or, “I am a paid writer”. “I am fit and healthy.”
- Plan and then take actions to commit to the new vision. Once you get the vision as clearly as if it’s happening now, you must plan the steps to get there. Perhaps do a second process visualization where you think about and see the steps it takes to achieve it. Write them down and begin the daily commitment to walking into that vision with action. James Clear, habits expert, says it can often only take 1% of improvement each day to reach a goal. This is the most important part. Don’t just dream it. Live “As If” and you will persevere.
Examples of Seeing Goals in Your Mind’s Eye
I want to share some inspiring stories of real people who have used visualization to achieve big dreams.
First, Jim Carrey. Before he was famous, in the early 1900’s, Carrey wrote himself a pretend check for 10 Million dollars for “Acting Services Rendered.” He carried it in his wallet for a few years for inspiration. By 1994, he received a $10 million payment for the movie Dumb and Dumber.
Second, Oprah. Oprah is big on visualization. She claims that when she was a child living in poverty and being abused that she would think over and over about how she’d grow up to live differently. She used, and teaches to use, vision boards to help see her future.
Third, Sara Blakely. She’s the founder of Spanx and a billionaire. But when she was living paycheck to paycheck as a door to door salesperson, she wanted more. She says that in her daydreams she would see exactly the life she wanted to lead, even seeing herself on Oprah one day. She visualized herself creating a product that made her rich and saw down to the detail what type of house she would live in.
Finally, Rachel Hollis, motivational speaker, podcaster, and author. She always wanted to be a best-selling author. She had a fancy bottle of champagne in which she wrote on it ‘To be opened when I make the NYT’s bestseller list.’ She specifically wrote her dream down using the methods above. It took her a long time of ups and downs but she did make the bestseller list with her book, “Girl, Wash Your Face.”
Use these stories to inspire you. Sure, you may think, “well, they’re famous.” But they weren’t always. We too can do big things!
Popular Visualization Techniques
- Journaling as Scripting: Scripting is when you write as though you’re in the time after you’ve already achieved your dream. You write from a place of as if you’re living the life of your dreams. Doing this will make it seem like the goal is more accessible and your mind will work to give you ideas for how to reach it. For instance, I want to be a paid blogger. So I would write in my journal about how I woke up and wrote for my blog, checked my bank account and saw a lot of money from advertising payouts. I’d write about how I have the freedom to make my own schedule, work from anywhere, etc. Pretend as though you’re a child again! Make it big and fun and use your total imagination.
- Guided Meditation: This is done with the intention of focusing your thoughts, calming your mind, and accessing a state of deep relaxation. During the meditation, you use visual images or experiences to imagine the goal or achieving a specific outcome. There’s all kinds of guided meditation for visualization on YouTube such as this one:
- Affirmations (live “As If”): Remember how I mentioned the subconscious mind doesn’t hear “want” or “can’t”? An affirmation practice is affirming who you are in the frame of mind of your goal. “I am a paid writer.” “I have $5000 in my bank account.” “I am a successful restaurant owner.” “I am in the best shape of my life.” Your brain will start conspiring to generate ideas and resources for you to live that reality. It will form a new identity.
- Gratitude practice: Gratitude is a transformational mindset as it opens you up to seeing abundance in your life. When you’re in this state, it’s impossible to feel doubts and fears and anger. This acts as a magnet for success because you generate hope and positivity in yourself, which is motivating. The more grateful you can feel, the more you will think your dreams are possible to achieve.
Test It Out and See
Maybe you’re still skeptical about the power of visualization. I get that. I was for the longest time. But I’ve been practicing it for a while now and have seen how it helps with attaining goals. Visualization helped me make a job change where I got work at my then dream company. I use it to manifest clients for my side-hustle cleaning business and to keep working on transitioning to blogging full time.
I dare you to try it out for yourself and see what happens this year with solid commitment to it.
Utilize these tools that highly successful people have been using for decades to go after your dreams. I promise visualization can only improve your life. Just remember to not let it take over your mind. Stay in the present moment and enjoy the life in front of you as well. I’d love to hear your visualization and manifestation stories. Comment below or drop me an email!