Visualise your way to success.

Let me start by saying that there are 2 parts to this, thinking and thought. Thoughts are just ideas that pop into your mind, thinking is when you dwell on those thoughts and add substance to them. What I am writing about here in this section is the process from thought to thinking and what you do with that thinking.

Now let me ask you a question. What would you do if god heard everything you were thinking about and considered it a request and provided it for you? Doesn't matter in what concept you believe god to be, just go ahead and think on the question, then answer this, if this were the case would you change your thinking? You are more likely to come to the conclusion that this can work for you in 2 ways, both good and bad depending on what your thinking the result would be.

The image you have of yourself in your subconscious mind is the one that will be portrayed on the outside. If the image you hold is that of failure and lack that is what you will acquire.

Ok that may be a bit cryptic for some people so let me start on you a little easier and I will come back to that though later.

Have you ever seen the Olympic 110-meter high hurdles race? Have you noticed how the athletes practice the race, rehearse the hurdle technique whilst they wait for the starters orders? You see them raising their knees over an imaginary hurdle, their heads bob up and down; what are they doing? They are forming a picture in their mind of the actual race; they are seeing themselves racing down the track clearing every hurdle cleanly and efficiently just as they have trained for over many years. They are seeing themselves cross the line ahead of everyone else; winning the gold medal. However, it is of no use seeing the perfect race, seeing yourself with the gold medal if you have not prepared correctly to win. If you havnt done the training, spent the hours on the track perfecting your technique, spent hours in the gym building your strength, eaten the correct diet, visualising the perfect race will be of no use to you whatsoever.

So how does this work I hear you say? OK lets start this of simply. If I say think of a dog you will all have a picture of a dog in your mind right now. But it could be any sort of dog your own dog if you have one, one you saw on television, the neighbour’s dog constantly yapping. However if I say big black and tan coloured Alsatian dog with large white teeth and saliva dribbling from his jaws, you've a reasonably clear picture in your mind of the biggest nastiest dog you can think of. Now it just so happens I love Alsatians so don’t go writing me any nasty letters. You have simply visualized my words; my description has formed an image in your mind.

If I say I bet I can make you not think about pink elephants you will have just thought and visualized a pink elephant. Why? This simple children's trick works because to not think of something you must think about not thinking of it.

Our eyes take in millions of bits of information in a single glance and transfer this to our brain, which form the image, so we could say that we see with our brain not our eyes.

So what has this got to do with any sort of self-improvement I hear you ask? This is one of the most important self-improvement techniques; master the art of visualization and it will literally propel you to your dreams and goals. The reason most people fail to attain their goals or dreams is because of this technique, they may write their goals down, they may even speak them out loud every day, but they cant visualize themselves as having these dreams and goals. They have the dreams but they don’t have the mental picture of them having that dream or goal in their mind so the subconscious mind will not drive them to that end.

Soloman, one of the old Kings of Israel in the Old Testament of the Bible, in Proverbs 29:18 encapsulated the importance by saying “without a vision the people perish”. So do you have a vision? Want to know how this works? Or would you rather just perish?
It’s your decision.

When you have the image of your goal engraved into your subconscious mind in crystal clear clarity it will become part of your reality. Your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between the image you have painted of yourself attaining those dreams and the reality of your current position right now at this moment in time. Whatever image you consistently think about and hold in your mind that is what your subconscious will drive you towards. It will determine your actions to achieve that image.

If you picture yourself and the image you see of you in your mind is one of someone who is lets say lonely and sad, then invariably your outwards appearance will be the same. If you have a picture in your mind of a successful person who can't fail, then guess what the reflection on the outside will be. You will reflect that image on the outside as it is on the inside. You will carry an air of confidence about you, as you change from the negative image to the possitive image people will see the change, they will notice a difference in your appearence. Your outward appearence along with your actions reflect the image you hold of you on the inside.

But surely I hear you say it's the other way round. The image I have is an image of my current circumstances and my feelings. Not true and let me prove it to you.

Ok try this then, close your eyes (no not yet finish reading first) now think of a beach this could be your favourite beach or an imaginary one, on a hot summers day, got it, right now hold that mental picture and concentrate on that image make the sea calm and gently lapping at the shore line. Add a few palm trees into the background. Make the sky a rich blue in colour with the sun as a large yellow saucer. As your sitting there watch the birds land and fly hear their calls to each other, hear the gentle crash of the waves as they throw themselves onto the beach and hear the hiss as they retreat again to the ocean. Can you see the scene? Make it larger in your mind immerse yourself into the scene, feel the sand, feel the sun warming you. Hold that image for a short while, then make the image even more larger in your mind add a few more details make the colours more intense, or imagine the person you most want to be right at this moment be their with you, maybe a picnic set out. Feel the tranquility and peace of the place, see yourself their and hold that image for a few moments. How do you feel? Sad and lonely or are you feeling warm and peaceful? Why? Could it possibly be that you are reflecting the image that is inside of your mind just at this moment?

Yes I agree you can be affected by external images that you see and they can affect your emotions, a sad film may make you cry, but that image is temporary. I am talking here of the image you hold of you on a permanent basis. Some images will affect you more radically, some may even change you, I am thinking of the images we watched of the starving children in Africa back in the late 1970's and early 1980's which brought about LiveAid through Bob Geldof. That caused a change in many people, the image they saw of themselves changed. So if you want to be successful in what you are doing what image of yourself are you going to create in your mind?

If you create that image and then tell yourself that you are successful, your subconscious mind will become programmed to bring this to fruition. You will search out ways to make this image become reality. Your subconscious cannot distinguish between the mental picture you hold of yourself and reality. Your subconscious will create the desire in you to bring the image into being. With that desire come the motivations that will propel you towards that desire, that dream, that goal. This is another reason for writing your goals down, all you need to do is simply to re-read them and reform the image in your mind. The clearer the description, the more detailed that image is the better and easier it will be to achieve it.

So let me go back to the start, if you are thinking of yourself as successful and unable to fail and god grants you that request, how do you feel. Likewise if you see yourself as a failure in everything you do or attempt to do, and god grants you this how will you feel? Which way do you want to think, which way do you want god to grant those requests? I know which way I am selecting. Now don’t get me wrong here I’m not saying you can achieve this overnight, maybe not even in a few weeks or months, you will have to work at this. You will have to create the habit and then form the belief that what you are asking of yourself is in fact achievable and what you really want. Then you will see your desires, dreams and goals start to come into being you will have the motivation to get up and do whatever it is that needs doing to achieve them. Don’t think that you can just visualise your dreams and goals and they will materialize all on their own with you doing nothing but visualizing them. Its no good say a 45 year old man visualizing winning the Olympic 110 meters high hurdles race, that is not going to happen no matter how many goals you set and how much visualization you use, this must be realistic. Now the veteran games well that’s another story. Visualise it.

If you believe as I do in this; what image will you create of yourself? What words will you talk to yourself with? What dreams are you going to create?

Will you let your fears, doubts, possible self-judgment and judgment from others cloud these, only if that's what you want to receive? Do not dwell on these thoughts, simply think on the reasons why you will succeed. Do not allow other people to influence your dream, especially those people who have not succeeded in achieving their dreams. Most people do not want you to succeed, as that would then make you better than them. Why do you think our news broadcasts concentrate mainly on disasters and stories of failure? Could it possibly be because that’s what most people want to see? They love to see people fail; it makes their situation seem good. We love to create heroes, build them up to be superstars only to sit and gloat when they fall. Don’t fall into that trap; in fact I will set you a challenge and suggest that you conduct an experiment on yourself especially when you start to put these techniques into practice. Try to leave the newspapers unread, leave the news broadcasts turned off, isolate yourself from it all for a week or maybe two and see how you feel, see what a difference it makes. Ok I understand for some of you this will be extremely hard, some people use the national papers in their work. What I am suggesting is to leave the self-destruction news alone and see how you get on. Instead read a few human-interest news items the good news stories of people who have success and continue to have success every day. Leave the poison pen columns alone, do you really need to know that so and so has started smoking or drinking again because of a lost love.

Ok, now lets return to this concept of thinking like god. What would you do if I said you have to think like god? Most religions as far as I am aware state that you are a child of god or that you are one with god even you were created in the image of god. So if that's the case you have the mind of god and can therefore think like god. If you want to be really creative then you must think like you are god and if you think that way you have no excuses for failure because god cannot fail, whatever god thought of god created. If you don't know how god thinks just pretend for a while.

Now thinking along those lines what would you do, what would you create, what would you accomplish. Imagine it, dwell on it for a moment, just think you can create your own miracles for your life, so what are you now going to achieve in your lifetime what miracle are you going to bring about in your life. Now don't just think this for yourself, think about what you can do for others, your family, friends, what will you leave behind for them when your life is through. Why is this so important, simply because when you think in this way your subconscious will move you towards that destination. What miracle are you going to create in your life, in fact what miracles are you going to create?

As a child I was instilled with a great many Christian doctrines of those days. It was unavoidable my father was the pastor; all my relations were involved in the running of the church. One of the many doctrines I was force-fed was "the love of money is the root of all-evil". I like many other people missed the three vital first words "the love of" and it corupted my thinking for a long time. Its took me 35 years to get to the point of throwing that concept out of the window and replacing it with money is a necessary commodity today, in fact it is just as important as oxygen. It is simply what you do with that money when you have it that's the root to evil. I had a good job earning over £20 000, but I was in debt to the tune of £35 000 before I questioned that belief. Using the thinking like god concept and changing the image I had of myself along with all the other measures such as self talk and goal setting, I now earn way in excess of this figure I have halved my debts and I am living the life I want to live in total freedom plus I should add it took me less than 12 months to achieve this. The image I have inside of me has continued to grow and will continue to grow because as I achieve more I can believe for more and I give more. But best of all is having the resources and time to help other achieve the same results. And that's the biggest result getter going, because when you help others to achieve their dreams, goals or desires you achieve yours. Just think how you will feel being able to show others how to escape the poverty trap, how to aspire to their dreams and goals. Its the rule of the universe, god will not be in debt to you, the universe will not be in debt to you in any way shape or form, but you have to plant your seeds in good ground and nurture them to receive your harvest. But that is for another article.