How Visualization Can Help You Reach Your Goals Faster
Visualization is a powerful tool that I’ve used over the course of my career to reach some of my biggest goals.
In case you’re new to the Connect To The Core Blog, I often speak about mindfulness and how I use tools like meditation, yoga and journaling to bring me into the present moment. Visualization is another important piece to that puzzle that I have yet to dedicate a full post to – until now.
In this blog I’m covering what visualization is and why I believe it’s critical for success, some easy ways to implement visualization into your life, and why visualization is only the first (yet extremely important) step to conquering your goals.
What is visualization and why is it so important for success?
In the context of goal-setting, visualization is a practice that can be used to help visually motivate or stimulate someone to take action. It can also be used to relieve anxiety, rehearse a presentation, enhance confidence and gratitude, and so much more.
I believe that writing a goal down is one thing (and a great thing to do so you can read it out loud) – and visualizing yourself actually achieving that goal and physically feeling the emotions that come along with that success takes it to a whole other level.
When you attach emotion to a goal and visualize it as reality, your mind will begin to act in alignment with that – as if you already have it. Meaning that you’ll be that much more motivated to take action.
Tony Robbins also recommends visualization to anyone looking to level up their life and experience more fulfillment. If you’re curious, you can check out this link for a full walkthrough of how he uses visualization as a daily practice (1).
How to implement visualization into your life
Now let’s talk about two of my favourite ways to weave visualization seamlessly into your life. The first and most obvious one that I’m sure will shock all of my regular readers – meditation.
I often speak about meditation in the context of clearing your mind and getting nice and quiet, or in other words – being present. With that said, it can also be used to visualize some of your biggest goals and dreams or even to practice an upcoming presentation (2).
In the earlier days of my career before I would deliver any kind of speech, I would always visualize myself up on stage knocking it out of the park. Not only did this help with my confidence, it was also an awesome way to practice beforehand.
For goal-setting – there are tons of guided visualizations out there and you can also take your own approach to it. There’s no right or wrong way to visualize achieving something, so pick whichever physical position/method works best for you when implementing this practice into your life.
The second way to practice visualization? Create a vision board (3). What I like about having a visual representation of my goals (displayed somewhere I can see) is that it’s a constant reminder of what I’m going after in life, and the act of looking at it requires little effort on my part.
To create a vision board, I like to write down my goals first and get really clear on what those are. If you’re not as big on vision boards – you can pause at this step and instead of gathering images to accompany these goals, simply visualize what you’ve written down on paper.
If you’re going the vision board route – spend some time on Google and find images that represent the life you want to create, and do your best to choose images that evoke a positive emotional response. You can even print out your goals and include those on the board, or choose words that inspire you and use those.
Here's an example of a vision board I might create with the goal of becoming a confident public speaker:
Visualization is just the first step
As I’m sure you’ve noticed at this point, there’s an entire next step to this process that goes beyond visualizing what you want, which is taking action.
Visualization is an amazing place to start. It can help get you motivated to conquer your goals or nail that presentation. In order to achieve them though, it’s important to take daily action to get there (4). Break your goal into bite-size pieces and approach it that way.
Now that you’ve experienced what your goals will feel like in your inner reality, there’s no stopping your outer reality from making it happen.
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Sources
2. 5 visualization techniques to help you reach your goals
3. 13 Visualization Techniques to Help You Reach Your Goals
4. New to Visualization? Here Are 5 Steps to Get You Started