If you are aware of it or not, everyone uses creative visualisation techniques. You do too! It might be that you use creative visualisation techniques unconsciously, but you are using it.
Quick example – If I would say to you: “Don’t think of a blue elephant,” what did you see in your mind’s eye? Even if it was in a split second? Or what if you step into an airplane and you are a bit afraid of what could happen. What do you see in your mind’s eye? Or what if I would ask you what the colour is of your car? Do you see, that even you are using visualisation?
So, visualisation is a technique we all use. The big question is, do we use it for our benefit or not?
Suppose that you are thinking a couple of times a day “Hopefully I will not get fired,” because you are afraid of getting fired. What picture do you draw in your head? Is it a positive picture? Is it an image which will motivate you and focus you on the job? I don’t think so! So, it is necessary that you will learn how to use creative visualisation techniques to your benefit, as all successful people do.
What is Visualisation?
Probably one of the first persons in history who wrote about visualisation was Wallace D. Wattles in his 1910 book The Science of Getting Rich. An example of creative visualisation Wattles gives is this: “Live in the new house; wear the beautiful clothes; ride in the automobile; go on the journey, and confidently plan for greater adventures.
Think and speak of all the things you have asked for in terms of actual present ownership. Imagine an environment, and a financial condition exactly as you want them, and live all the time in that ideal environment and financial condition.”
According to Wattles, creative visualisation techniques work like this:
“If a person can communicate his thought to original thinking substance, he can cause the creation or formation of the thing he thinks about.”
Creative visualisation techniques have the power to realise your goal by first picturing it in your head and holding it in your head for as long as it takes until your goal is accomplished. It requires great focus to maintain a mental picture in your head for a long enough time. Visualising on your goal makes it easier for you to stay focused on your goal. Visualisation and Focus are very much interconnected with each other.
What you focus on, you attract with your re-programmed mental filters.
So, you better focus on something you desire, instead of something you don’t desire. Make a picture in your mind that you already have what you desire. In such a way that you can feel it. Only then, the right neural paths are triggered and ingrained, so, that your mental filters will be re-programmed for your goal or desire. And although your conscious mind might think that it is just a mental trick, your unconscious mind cannot distinguish between what is real and what is imagined.
Your unconscious mind will act upon the images you create internally, whether they reflect your current reality or not. When a hockey player is sitting on the bench watching his colleagues play his unconscious mind and nervous system in the meantime are triggering the same neural pathways as when he would play on the field. Researchers have proofed this by measuring the micro movements of the muscles in both situations.
Positive Visualisation techniques
Just sit back and relax. Take a deep breath in and breathe slowly out. Now enter your internal cinema and start a beautiful movie. A film where you see your life in one year from now when everything you wish has become true.
See what you then will see.
Hear what you would hear.
Feel what you would feel.
Smell what you would smell.
Taste what you would taste.
And hear yourself saying to yourself how grateful you are for the life you have realised in one year’s time.
Two types of Visualisation techniques
There are two types of creative visualisation techniques, each of which serves a distinct purpose, but for greatest effect, they should be used together.
Outcome Visualisation
The first technique is outcome visualisation, where you visualise the end goal, the outcome.
If your goal is to give a marvellous TED presentation, then visualising the positive outcome would be that you see yourself at the end of the speech. The audience is very enthusiastically clapping and cheering you. You seem like a light beam of confidence, success and happiness radiating your energy into the room. Afterwards, your loved ones are waiting for you and congratulate you on the successful speech and you get involved in all kinds of splendid conversations with members of your audience.
Make this movie as vivid and motivating as possible and hold it in your mind as long as possible. In another article, I will explain in detail how you can improve this visualisation for maximum result.
Process Visualisation
The second visualisation technique is Process Visualisation. It involves envisioning each of the actions necessary to achieve the goal you want. Focus on completing each of the steps you need to achieve your goal, but not on the overall goal itself.
This type of visualisation usually takes as long as the actual activity would take. An Olympic skier who mentally prepares his race of 2.5 minutes will during his visualisation also needs 2.5 minutes to complete the race. But the great thing of visualisation is that you can ski in slow motion, which is not possible in real life of course. The skier has much more time to evaluate every action he has to take than in real time. He probably also speeds his race up, to complete the race in 1 minute. If he has done that enough times, then he might end up setting a new Olympic record by winning the race in under 2 minutes!
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