That's
a big title to live up to, but assuming you're willing to do the work,
the technique will more than match the title. The method is simple:
Clearly and persistently envision your goals. In detail.
That's
it. Everything else flows from it — the work you do, the ideas for what
to do, the motivation to do it, the insights into how to solve problems
— all this springs forth naturally when you clearly envision your goals
often.
It's a good idea to set goals and write them
down. But deliberately visualizing your goals in detail adds so much
power to goal-setting, it'll put you in another league.
"But,"
you might be thinking, "whenever I set a goal, I already have a picture
of what I think it will be like." And I'm sure that's true. But have
you closed your eyes and relaxed and imagined your goal in its
completeness? Have you envisioned all the details you can come up with?
And have you done that many times?
My guess is:
Probably not. Visualizing goals is one of those things you often hear
successful people mention, but you hear it and ignore it, for one reason
or another. I ignored it for a long time because I wasn't very good at
visualizing. But making mental pictures is a skill like any other, and
I've gotten better with practice.
If you're ready to
take your life to a whole new stratosphere, start envisioning your
goals. Give it twenty minutes at a time. Sit down, close your eyes and
relax as deeply as you can. It's best to sit up so you won't fall
asleep. Sitting up rather than lying down also helps you control your
visions better. On your back, your images tend to drift.
If you relax first, it will be easier to envision positive outcomes. When you're not relaxed, fears and worries are more likely to pop up in your visualizations.
Once you're relaxed, imagine the accomplishment of your goal. See what you would see. Start with how you would know.
For example, I envision a million subscribers to AdamLiKhan.com. When I
accomplish the goal, how will I know it happened? I would look at my
stats and see the number 1,000,000 (or more).
After
you've reached your goal, what will you do? Who will you tell? What
will you do next? Visualize all these things. See the look on your
spouse's face. On your kid's face. How will you feel? See and feel and
hear all this and more, in detail. Hear what they would say and how they would say it.
Let yourself become absorbed in the vision.
Doing
this regularly has tremendous consequences. First of all, it will put
you in a good mood more often. When you have a clear goal, when you know
what you want and are working toward it, your mood will rise.
One
of the most powerful consequence of envisioning your goals is the way
it changes your interpretations of ordinary events. You will find
yourself naturally — without trying — reframing
the events of your life in a more constructive way. For example, after
envisioning my goal of a million subscribers, the next day if a reader
writes to me and says, "I'm unsubscribing because your articles are too
long," how do I take that?
Normally I might feel bad,
at least a little. But with a clear, tangible, envisioned goal, this
same comment doesn't bring me down. Instead, it makes me think, "I
should look into this because if this is a common opinion, I could get
more subscribers by keeping my articles short."
See what happened? My clearly envisioned goal caused me to automatically reframe the criticism in a constructive way.
You'll
find this happening a lot. Annoyances or upsetting events are
transformed into the perfect lessons to help you get where you want to
go.
The most noticeable consequence of regularly
envisioning your goals is the way it changes how you think about your
goal and how you can make it happen. Solutions and ideas pop into your
mind spontaneously. Something about getting a clear mental picture of
your goal stimulates your creative powers.
It feels
like reverse engineering. When I imagine my goals, it gets me to think
about how it happened. What led to the accomplishment? I'm looking back
from the future, and I can see things I need to be doing now for
that to happen. It's a very natural process, but produces surprising
insights and great ideas. I have often thought, "Why didn't I think of
that before?" Something about envisioning the goal changes the way you
see the space between then and now.
You already set
goals. You already work toward them. Now add one more thing: Envision
your goals clearly and in detail. It will lead to more accomplishment
and better moods. I can see it now. Can you?
Adam Khan is the author of Self-Help Stuff That Works and Cultivating Fire: How to Keep Your Motivation White Hot.
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