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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011
The secret to getting exactly what you want from life -- from the man who has! A businessman who has built up, owned and sold software companies, a nightclub, a bed and breakfast (plus a couple of alehouses), author Robin Nixon knows that worldly success has little to do with the world. It begins with one's self--and one's deepest thoughts. When altered, your thoughts have the ability to impact your behavior and immediate universe, and, indeed, your destiny. Known as "Creative Visualization," this powerfully simple tool has adherents as well known as Oprah Winfrey. In Creative Visualization For Dummies, Robin Nixon gives you the practical tools for pinpointing your goals, becoming more assertive and self-confident, and increasing energy levels and creativity--while on a new journey of self-fulfillment. * Includes useful visualization techniques and exercises that help you tune into the mind/body connection * Offers psychological approaches that allow you to take real steps towards success and happiness For those interested in finding a new direction or finally creating their own luck, this tell-all guide--from the man who's capitalized on its secrets--will offer an inspiring game plan for a new beginning.
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Creative Visualization For Dummies®
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Table of Contents
Creative Visualization For Dummies®
by Robin Nixon
Creative Visualization For Dummies®
Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, LtdThe AtriumSouthern GateChichesterWest SussexPO19 8SQEngland
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Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex, England
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-119-99264-6 (paperback), 978-1-119-99342-1 (ebook), 978-1-119-99421-3 (ebook), 978-1-119-99420-6 (ebook)
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall
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About the Author
Robin Nixon is a technology and motivational author who has written books for McGraw-Hill and O’Reilly, as well as publishing over 500 articles on topics including technology, self help and the environment. He has been the director of Internet and software development companies in both the UK and US, as well as running hotel and dining businesses in both countries. For the last 25 years Robin has practiced creative visualization on a daily basis in both his personal and business lives. This is Robin’s 9th book.
Author’s Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Nicole Hermitage for commissioning this book, Kerry Laundon, Jo Jones, Mike Bryant, Andy Finch, Carrie Burchfield, Jennifer Bingham and Charlie Wilson for helping me to bring it to completion, and everyone else who has helped to create this book, and without whom it would not be the same.
Dedication
For Julie
Publisher’s Acknowledgements
We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.
Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:
Commissioning, Editorial, and Media Development
Development Editors: Jo Jones and Charlie Wilson
Commissioning Editors: Nicole Hermitage and Kerry Laundon
Assistant Editor: Ben Kemble
Development Editor: Brian Kramer
Copy Editor: Andy Finch
Technical Editor: Mike Bryant
Proofreader: David Price
Publisher: David Palmer
Production Manager: Daniel Mersey
Cover Photos: © iStock / Dmitry Melnikov
Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)
Composition Services
Project Coordinator: Kristie Rees
Layout and Graphics: Cheryl Grubbs, Kim Tabor
Proofreader: Broccoli Information Management
Indexer: BIM Indexing & Proofreading Services
Brand Reviewers: Carrie Burchfield and Jennifer Bingham
Introduction
People have known that creative visualization works for thousands of years, but only recently have they named the practice and put it through studies to prove its efficacy. Creative visualization is based on the simple observation that when you imagine something, such as a goal in life you wish to attain, you’re then able to bring that desire to fruition. In fact, often only by first visualizing something can you develop the idea or ignite the creative spurt that goes off in your brain like a light bulb.
But creative visualization isn’t just useful for being creative; it’s also a powerful personal development tool you can use to modify traits that are making you unhappy, increase your levels of energy and stamina, become more confident, and enjoy life more fully.
Almost without knowing it, we all use visualization on a daily basis when daydreaming, or thinking about people, places, and things. Visualizing is something we do naturally, which creative visualization simply harnesses into a more structured form.
Furthermore, creative visualization can help you to achieve goals in life that you’ve otherwise found hard to achieve. Using powerful visualizations you can clearly focus on your aims, set the right goals, and imagine attaining them. By doing so you bring forth the desire and commitment to overcome obstacles and stick with your ambitions until you achieve them.
This book also shows you how to use creative visualization to overcome anxiety and phobias, increase your mental and physical wellbeing, improve your sleeping patterns, revise for exams more efficiently, overcome procrastination, and much, much more.
With such a range of benefits resulting from bringing creative visualization into your life, reading this book and trying the exercises can open up a whole new way of thinking and living, and can help you make the changes you want in your life.
About This Book
Unlike other personal improvement systems you may have tried, I believe that creative visualization is the most natural and easy means of achieving the changes in your life that you desire. After you get the hang of creative visualization, the techniques are so obvious that you may wonder why you never used them before. And you also begin to see results very quickly, which in turn spurs you on to keep going and use creative visualization even more in your life.
And making creative visualization part of your life is so easy! After you’ve practised visualizing a few times, you barely notice that you’re visualizing because the techniques become entirely embedded in your regular routine and merge into your way of life. More than that, though, because you can make the visualizations as beautiful as you like, they’re a joy to use and you enhance your life simply by practising them.
This book’s main aim is to get you started on the road to bringing creative visualization into your life. The practice has worked wonders for me and thousands of other people, and I know that once you get these techniques under your belt, your enjoyment of life and sense of fulfilment is going to be greater than ever.
Please note, however, that wherever I mention the ability of creative visualization to help with your personal health – for example, by assisting you to become more relaxed and lower your blood pressure – I’m not suggesting that you ignore medical advice in preference to these techniques. Far from it, in fact. Modern medicine has a tremendous ability to help with all manner of illnesses and ailments, so always consult a doctor or licensed practitioner when you first notice any health problem. Always think of creative visualization as an enhancement that helps increase the effectiveness of everything you undertake – including professional medical treatment – and not a replacement for it.
Conventions Used in This Book
To help maximise the clarity of information in this book I adopt a few conventions:
Italics are used for emphasis and to highlight new words or define terms.
Boldface is used to indicate the key concept in a list.
A monofont is used for web and email addresses.
Also, when I refer to the psychological concept of the unconscious mind, if you prefer you can read this as the better-known term subconscious mind. Either term refers to a sort of consciousness bubbling underneath your main consciousness and which remains alert and active at all times. You may also choose to think of this mind as the soul.
Within each chapter you find a set of mental flash cards, which you’re more than welcome to replace with your own, and I encourage you to do so. The best visualizations are the ones that you create for yourself because you may find them easier to remember and may work better for you.
What You’re Not to Read
To make this book as interesting as possible. I include anecdotes and simple mental flash card visualizations throughout. You can choose to ignore these sections if you prefer because they serve merely to augment the main text of the book.
Foolish Assumptions
In writing this book, I make the following assumptions about you; I hope they aren’t too presumptuous:
You’re a human being, the same as me and everyone else on Earth.
You have aspects of your life that you want to change.
You may have tried other personal improvement systems, perhaps with less than satisfactory results.
You’re ready to move on to a new level in your life.
You want to be a happier, more confident, and more fulfilled person.
How This Book Is Organised
This book is divided into five parts, which include 21 chapters. The table of contents lists all the headings, allowing you to find the bits that interest you easily and quickly. Following is an overview of the major sections.
Part I: Introducing Creative Visualization
In this part of the book, I introduce creative visualization, explain how and why it works, and detail some of the things it can help you to attain or achieve. I also describe how you can prepare yourself so the visualizations provided in later sections have the maximum benefit.
Part II: Discovering How to Visualize
This part of the book covers the main types of visualizations, including unguided, guided, audio, visual, and written visualizations, as well as the power and purpose of positive affirmations. It also shows you how to start making changes in your life to reach your desired goals and how to choose the best times and locations to practise your visualizations.
Part III: Visualization Exercises for a Happier, Healthier Life
In this part, I get down to the nitty-gritty and provide numerous exercises you can practise to improve your outlook on life, achieve success, and feel and express a wider range of emotions. I explain how to limit the effects of stress, anxiety, and negative emotions, how to increase your levels of energy and stamina, how to quit unwanted bad habits, and how to rid yourself of fears and phobias. I also provide many exercises to help improve your relationships with others.
Part IV: Using Creative Visualization to Achieve Success
This part of the book concentrates on helping you to set and achieve goals, from improving the way you present yourself to others, managing public speaking, being a good leader, and motivating people, to improving your physical prowess in sport and enhancing your physique. I also deal with improving your results in education, getting a good job, and attaining promotions and pay rises. And I reveal several exercises you can practise to enhance your creativity.
Part V: The Part of Tens
This part of the book provides four chapters containing a selection of simple visualizations you can use to bring about positive changes; tips on top places to visualize; books, blogs, websites, and videos you can use to find out more about the subject; and ten of the best benefits of using creative visualization.
Icons Used in This Book
This book contains icons to indicate particularly useful pieces of information:
Under this icon, I provide practical advice for using.
This icon indicates a visualization exercise you can try for yourself.
Note these sections of text, because they contain ideas that are worth remembering.
This icon highlights some pitfalls and errors that you want to avoid so that your change programme proceeds as smoothly as possible.
I hope that the real-life stories I include under this icon prove useful and inspiring.
I often include specific examples to help illustrate visualizations or techniques; tailor them as necessary to help yourself attain your personal goals.
Where to Go From Here
If you want to discover everything I know about creative visualization, by all means read this book conventionally from start to finish. But, as with all For Dummies books, the chapters are also self-contained so you can dive straight in wherever you like (although if you’re new to visualization, Part I provides an invaluable grounding in the subject).
So, if you just can’t wait or you’re already comfortable with the basics of creative visualization, go straight to the relevant chapter. For instance, if stopping smoking is your concern, leap to Chapter 10, and if you’re keen to work on your shyness, Chapter 12 is the one for you.
Simply use the table of contents or the index to find the right chapter or section, and start solving your problems and improving your life.
After you’ve read this book, I believe that you’re going to realise better than ever that the world is truly your oyster and that you can achieve your goals when you put your mind to it.
So please continue to practise the creative visualization techniques because they can help you through all parts of your life. And show others how to use the techniques too, so they can also benefit from the remarkable results creative visualization brings. Now go out and enjoy life to the full!
Part I
Introducing Creative Visualization
In this part . . .
You’ll learn all about what creative visualization is and how powerful a tool it is for changing many aspects of your life. You’ll see how the mind and body are closely connected so that simply through visualizing you can develop your personality and emotions, as well as your body. You’ll also learn how creative visualization can help you to accomplish your goals in life, and even help rid yourself of bad habits and phobias.
Chapter 1
Unlocking the Power of Your Mind: Introducing Creative Visualization
In This Chapter
Understanding how visualization works
Considering the power of creative visualization
Examining the connection between body and mind
Over the years many techniques have been invented to help people with their personal development, including activities such as meditation, relaxation, hypnotism (and self-hypnosis), Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and many, many more. But all these different techniques have one major thing in common: they require the use of imagination, generally through visualizing yourself in particular ways or situations.
Without referring to ‘creative visualization’ by name, developers and proponents of personal development programs have always understood that (when suitably directed) the mind contains the power to help make dramatic changes in a person’s life. Only recently, however, has creative visualization become a technique in its own right, fully equal to (and some say even more effective than) many other personal development systems. This chapter talks you through the power of the mind and how you can use it to visualize creatively.
Discovering How Creative Visualization Works
Creative visualization is the basic technique underlying positive thinking. It is used to bring changes you desire into your life, such as achieving goals you set, modifying unwanted behaviours (for example quitting smoking) and enhancing feelings and emotions (for example becoming happier and more self-confident). It is also a good tool for improving physical performance (as used by many top athletes) and enhancing your physique.
Creative visualization is something you probably do quite often (to one extent or another) without even realising it. For example, when was the last time you daydreamed? If you’re like most people, it was probably today (perhaps within the last hour or so), because daydreaming is one of the most common human activities – but daydreaming is really nothing more than unguided or unstructured visualization.
When you daydream, your thoughts tend to flit about, resting on one idea after another, in a similar way to dreaming when asleep. Often, if something is on your mind, your daydreams keep returning to whatever that thing is and then drift off again before later coming back to that subject. Usually the flitting is guided by connections between ideas with each new thought reminding you of something else, so you follow a thread of thought.
Daydreaming allows you to achieve many things because you’re generally relaxed when you do it: when you’re waiting for a bus, taking a coffee break, being a passenger in a car, and so on, you distance yourself from your thoughts and let them take their own journey. And in doing so, in your mind’s eye you see (or visualize) these daydreams, noticing the faces of people you think about, places you’ve been, and things you’ve done, like little mental movies.
It is believed that the purpose of daydreaming is to help people make better sense of the world as they encounter it. Unlike sleep dreams, daydreams tend to be somewhat more logical in their flow and based around actual people, things, and events. By running them through your mind over and again you sort your experiences, saving them in your memory in such a way that the important details are more easily recallable.
We can harness this natural pastime to our own ends by learning to replace unguided daydreaming with guided creative visualization. By doing this we have much greater control over our visualizations, the effects they’ll have, and how effective they’ll be at bringing changes we want into our lives.
Humans are very good at pattern recognition and quickly notice (and make a mental note) when things are somehow related to each other. For example, have you noticed how often you see a new actor in a movie and think to yourself ‘that person is just like so and so’? This sensation is your mind automatically recognising similarities between the two people, and daydreaming is one of the times when this type of recognition occurs. With daydreaming you build a better understanding of the relationship between things in the world. Pattern recognition is used in creative visualization to connect two or more ideas, people or emotions together in order to bring about changes you desire.
Using the power of affirmations
One of the simplest personal development techniques and a superb companion to creative visualization is using positive affirmations. Affirmations repeated daily have helped numerous people, due to the fact that people’s unconscious is always listening and likes to believe what it hears (another reason to try to be always positive).
The term unconscious mind was coined by Sigmund Freud and is used in psychology to refer to the thoughts we have that are out of reach of our consciousness. However, outside of psychological circles the phrase subconscious mind is often used in its place, probably because it has connotations of greater awareness than the former term. Therefore wherever I use the word ‘unconscious’ in this book, please feel free to exchange it with the word ‘subconscious’ if you prefer.
Researchers found that in meetings just one person repeating his opinion twice is sufficient for participants to later recall that person’s point of view as the main agenda or theme of the meeting – often without remembering who brought that subject up. That’s something worth remembering next time you’re in a meeting and have an important issue to discuss!
If you take the time to re-affirm your ambitions and desires every day, you start to believe every word you say and your unconscious mind helps to slightly reform your personality so that the beliefs, emotions or intents behind the affirmations become a part of your personality, helping your goals to become actualised. This happens because your mindset changes each time you use your affirmations so that you become more motivated and more confident that you can make the changes you desire, and so you put more effort into and spend more time working on these goals.
Setting, re-affirming, and achieving goals
Creative visualization allows you to start taking control over aspects of your own life that you want to develop or modify, such as your emotions, actions, habits, phobias, and so on. You do so by choosing specific goals that you re-affirm continually through visualizations and affirmations, until you begin to achieve them. If you choose to try and conquer your fear of heights, for example, you need to hold positive visualizations in your mind when going to a high location, so that your fears are minimised. When you do this over time you become desensitised to the fear and the positive visualizations have an ever greater effect. Chapter 11 explains more about how this works and provides several visualization exercises.
Don’t worry if you believe that you have difficulty in visualizing because anyone can visualize. For example, what colour is your front door? And how many rooms are there in your house? In order to answer these questions, almost without realising it you visualize your house and take a good look at it with your imagination. This is the process used in creative visualization, in which common things and experiences you can easily recall or imagine are used as seeds and then expanded upon.
One of the keys to using visualization successfully is to understand that you aren’t trying to become someone else, or to change other people. Instead your aim is to focus on yourself and your psychological makeup, and then to develop your own personality in order to have a richer and more fulfilled life. By doing so, your relationships with others and interactions with the world prosper.
If you don’t currently have any specific goals in mind, use an exercise to help you locate aspects of your life that you want to change. Take a look at Figure 1-1, the Cartwheel of Life. This tool helps give you a quick overview of the extent of your personal development to date.
Figure 1-1:The Cartwheel of Life.
Imagine that the cartwheel represents how you travel through life. It comprises a central axle with 12 spokes attached, each of which represents a different aspect of your psychological makeup. Each spoke is divided into eight parts. The farther along a spoke a particular attribute extends from the axle, the more complete that quality is in your personality.
Ideally, to travel as far as you can in life you want each of these qualities to reach to the wheel’s rim, because if only one or two of them make it to the edge, the rim falls off, the wheel breaks, and you aren’t going anywhere. On the other hand, with three or four attributes extending to the rim you can progress through life (although somewhat carefully), but any bumps in the road that you encounter may well cause the wheel to break and bring you to a crashing halt.
For example, without sufficient resilience you may give up too quickly when you encounter difficulties. Without optimism you may be less likely to set out on difficult projects. And without motivation you may find it hard to achieve your goals. The same goes for all the various qualities in the wheel. Although they are all emotional or psychological traits, they are all needed not only for your emotional wellbeing, but also for you to succeed materially in life.
If you can get half a dozen or more of these qualities sufficiently matured in your life to reach the cartwheel’s rim, the wheel is much stronger and better able to travel over rough roads. As you progress through life’s journey and invest the time into extending more spokes towards the rim, you find that you can travel faster, farther, and through far more rugged terrain.
Certainly it would be a very rare person indeed who had all 12 cartwheel spokes reaching to the rim – like most people I’m probably only halfway there. But the point is that this metaphor allows you to get a feel for how far you’ve come, and how far you’ve yet to go.
Spend a few minutes examining the cartwheel and, if you can, make a copy of it and shade in each spoke with a pen or pencil up to the point at which you feel you’ve progressed so far. After completing all the spokes, you have a basic diagram of your current personal development, which you may want to retain so you can refer to it in the future and see how you’ve progressed. You also now have a very good idea of areas in your life that you may like to work on, and for which you may want to set goals.
Improving skills with mental practice
Most people have effective imaginations and their daydreams often branch out into ‘what if?’ scenarios in which they visualize things that they want to experience. If you have something negative on your mind, sometimes your daydreams revolve too much around these thoughts and you can become anxious or depressed. Negative thoughts can predominate because whatever is current in your life tends to get the most attention and analysis, which shows just one reason why thinking positively as much as possible is so important.
By following the thread of thought in a daydream, you tend to analyse the ideas, events, or people you think about and, each time you move your attention to a related new thought, the connection between these thoughts is reinforced in your mind. As you can see in the later section ‘Connecting your brain with your body’, this reinforcement and the connections made between your thoughts are stored physically in your brain.
Creative visualization aims to replace unguided daydreaming with structured visualizations to build new connections or neural pathways – but only those you want to create. In essence, when you use creative visualization techniques, you’re consciously reprogramming parts of your brain, creating new connections where you want them (or reinforcing existing ones) and allowing unwanted connections to wither. This is the process that occurs in our brains throughout life as we learn things in the normal course of living. But with creative visualization we can harness the process to learn new behaviours and modify emotions.
Minimising and removing negative emotions
When you’re mastering creative visualization, your life is a ‘glass half full’ kind of life. For example, when you focus on what you don’t want, like being less fat, you’re still thinking about the concept of fatness, and as a result your unconscious focuses in on it. Instead, visualize being thinner so your unconscious thinks about thinness. In the same way, for example, the cartwheel exercise in the earlier section ‘Setting, re-affirming, and achieving goals’ works best when you use it to consider how far you’ve progressed in each area of your life, not how little.
Whenever you find yourself tempted to think negative thoughts, try to visualize something positive instead. If you feel sad, remember a happy time and think about it. If you’re angry, visualize something peaceful, such as relaxing on a deckchair at the beach. Or if you’re susceptible to feelings of low self-worth, remember one of your positive achievements and dwell on that.
Your own psyche is also helped if you don’t have negative thoughts about other people. Yes, I know, everyone loves a good gossip, but speaking or thinking negatively about someone else just sends negative messages to your unconscious, and in the long run you feel worse not better. Therefore the old saying ‘If you have nothing good to say about someone, say nothing’, makes a lot of sense.
Engendering a positive and motivating attitude
You can reduce negative thoughts and emotions by building an automatic response so each time you notice an unwanted thought you take the time to deal with it. Of course, it’s not always that easy. For example, if I say to you ‘Don’t think about chocolate’, that’s going to be the only thing you think about!
Instead you have to be sneaky to get past your unconscious and the best technique to do so is to acknowledge your negative thought or emotion, accept it, and let it go without acting on it. Go to Chapter 8 for exercises on letting go of negative thoughts.
At the same time, remind yourself that this thought isn’t the real you (or the you that you want to be) thinking, and use your affirmations, which soon become your new way of thinking. Your attitude then markedly improves over time. You’ll notice it, and so will other people who may even remark on your improved outlook or change in demeanour.
Ordering the cosmos
The idea behind cosmic ordering is that you harness the power of positive thinking and the creative energy of your thoughts in order to manifest whatever you desire. Followers believe that there are no limits and you can ask for absolutely anything you desire, such as a new love or a new house, money or wealth, health or healing.
You may have read that UK TV personality Noel Edmonds attributes his extraordinary career resurgence to something called ‘cosmic ordering’. In my view, the more likely explanation for his comeback success is that he used to be a famous TV personality (already a big help). With the help of his reflexologist, however, who recommended the practice, he regained his self-confidence by putting his faith in cosmic ordering and writing down his hopes for the future. Now this is a well-known positive thinking reinforcement technique that psychologists have understood for many years, and the likelihood is that it did help boost his confidence and so he probably presented very well with TV bosses who then rehired him – but whether the cosmos granted his wishes is a matter for debate.
No scientific evidence exists for cosmic ordering, but the techniques used are certainly the same as those in positive thinking and creative visualization. Therefore, psychologists and biologists tend to look for a mental or physical process that achieves the attained results in their scientifically controlled studies.
Making Changes in Your Life with Creative Visualization
The changes you desire may include becoming a calmer and happier person, overcoming procrastination, increasing your motivation, and so on. Or they can be physical changes such as losing weight, reducing aches and pains, or increasing stamina.
Before you use creative visualization, decide to make real changes that can be measured in terms of results in your own life (seen both by you and others) and in terms of performance, whether academic, physical, or otherwise. That way you can attain the most benefit and, when you come to look back at the results, you know for certain that the visualizations worked (and can continue to do so).
Listening to your inner self
The best way to start making changes in your life is to listen to your inner self. By this I mean try to understand what it is that you truly desire from life, and the things you do and don’t like about yourself and how you interact with the world. To do so, you want to achieve a calm and detached state of mind so any painful thoughts can be considered without too much discomfort, and to avoid being overly swayed by strong emotions. Chapter 3 includes advice on how you can quickly relax yourself and provides techniques for reducing stress and anxiety to help with this.
The first few times you visualize you may have difficulty getting started because thoughts are racing through your mind and your concentration wavers. If you experience this problem, try the following simple relaxation exercise:
1. Take a few deep breaths and then clench all the muscles in your body. Include your face through your body to your arms, legs, hands, and feet.
2. Hold this position for a few seconds and then slowly exhale. As you do so think to yourself ‘toes relax, toes relax’, and then ‘feet relax, feet relax’, and feel your feet become light and comfortable.
3. Proceed slowly with ‘calves relax, calves relax’, followed by ‘knees relax, knees relax’, and ‘thighs relax, thighs relax’. Carry on until your legs and feet feel pretty good.
4. Continue through your pelvis, stomach, chest, shoulders, neck, mouth, eyes, forehead, and mind, in that order. Each time, think the relaxation command twice while all the time breathing gently and steadily.
Looking at the history of creative visualization
Although the power of positive thinking has been known about for thousands of years, the technique became established only in the last hundred years or so, after a number of books were published on the subject. Therefore, the subject of creative visualization as a personal development technique is relatively new and still developing.
The world at large was first introduced to the techniques used in creative visualization with the work of Wallace Wattles, who wrote The Science of Getting Rich. In the book, which was published in 1910, Wattles discusses the importance of maintaining ‘a certain way of thinking’ in order to achieve financial success, by using mind-training techniques to attain a state of positivity and self-affirmation’.
This book was followed in 1916 by The Master Key System by Charles F. Haanel, who was an American entrepreneur, author, and millionaire, and has been claimed to be the inspiration behind Bill Gates’ success at Microsoft. Gates is said to have discovered the book while still a student at Harvard, and was apparently so impressed by it that he dropped out of college to form the world-famous company.
Within a couple of decades the power of visualization became even more widely known when the blockbuster title Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill was published in 1937. This book was founded on Hill’s earlier 1928 work The Law of Success, which was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie (a billionaire and firm proponent of writing down your goals), and was based on interviews of around 500 American millionaires over 20 years.
One of the earlier book’s 16 creeds is: ‘You must have imagination in creating your definite purpose and in building the plans with which to transform that purpose into reality and put your plans into action.’
Think and Grow Rich further distilled his creeds into 13 ‘steps toward riches’, some of which are desire, faith, auto-suggestion, imagination, and persistence.
This exercise is very effective when you feel highly strung and you can also use it when you have difficulties getting to sleep at night. Properly performed the process takes up to five minutes, after which (if you still aren’t relaxed) you can repeat it again if necessary.
Setting goals that you want to achieve
When you’re relaxed, you can use this state of mind to accomplish many things. To start with you’re in the best frame of mind to start choosing the goals that you want to visualize about. Try thinking about things in your life that you want to change, whether relationships, finances, health, or something else, and then try to narrow these down to a handful of goals. Go to Chapter 2 for more information on identifying areas in your life that you want to modify.
I can’t tell you specifically what these goals should be because everyone is different, but the numerous visualization exercises in this book cover a very wide range of typical goals and ambitions. If you’re still having difficulty deciding exactly what to change, have a browse through the book – whatever stands out to you is likely to be something that deep down you have an interest in; so go ahead and explore it.
When you’ve come up with a handful of goals that every time you consider them seem more important to you, you’re ready to start. Any goals that seem to get less important are either already being achieved or not really of that much interest to you, so you can ignore them.
Changing unwanted behaviours to desired ones
No doubt you have behaviours that you’re unhappy about. For instance you may have decided that you shout at the kids too often when they misbehave and would rather reduce that knee-jerk reaction. Or maybe you’re in the habit of having a bowl of ice cream each evening while watching TV, which isn’t helping your weight, and so on.
Behaviours such as these tend to start simply and then over time become habits that you find hard to break. Humans are creatures of habit, and forming habits is something everyone does. So the answer isn’t simply to stop doing the behaviour, because most people find that next to impossible. Instead you need to establish new habits to replace the old ones.
One of the more powerful visualization techniques is the interrupt – also known by psychologists as a pattern interrupt – in which a new pattern replaces the old one. For example, to shout less at the kids you would visualize a situation in which this happens, such as one of them kicking a football into a window and smashing it (which would make most parents angry).
To discover and develop the interrupt technique, imagine a scenario that makes you so angry that you’d shout at someone. Visualize this event right up to the point at which you begin to shout, but instead see yourself exhaling as rapidly and deeply as you can, followed by counting slowly to ten. Now repeat the visualization over and over again, each time breaking away from the point at which you would shout into the breathing routine. After a few run-throughs this interrupt becomes natural and fast and you’re ready to imagine another circumstance that makes you shout, with which you can also visualize the interrupt and switch to deep breathing.
After you’ve visualized a number of these situations, you’ll find that any new scenario that you think up has you going straight to the breathing without even considering the shouting. Practised over time you can find that you do indeed shout less and less. And the same goes for breaking the ice cream habit, teaching yourself to swear less, or any other behaviour you want to change. Visualize an interrupt, in which you do something else, just before (and replacing) the behaviour; the interrupt can be as simple as having a glass of water or blowing your nose.
Achieving goals you previously thought impossible
As long as you’re realistic and keep your goals within the realms of possibility, you can find that creative visualization helps you to achieve even the most seemingly impossible ambitions.
A quick search of Google reveals that the range of people using creative visualization to achieve amazing results is huge, which goes to show that everyone can use the same techniques to achieve major changes in their lives.
For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger used visualization techniques to become a seven-times Mr Universe, a movie star, and Governor of California. He says:
I visualized myself being and having what it was I wanted… Before I won my first Mr Universe title, I walked around the tournament like I owned it... I had won it so many times in my mind that there was no doubt I would win it. Then when I moved on to the movies, the same thing. I visualized myself being a famous actor and earning big money... I just knew it would happen.
The more frequently you visualize something that may appear impossible to achieve, and the more you increase your positive expectations of attaining it, the greater the chance you have of doing so. Only by consistently focusing on the positive outcome you desire, and strongly believing you’ll obtain it, will every fibre of your being work towards this outcome, so that you’ll be ready to seize any and all opportunities that come your way, and even make your own. The point is to never give up as giving up is the only way of confirming to yourself that you’ll never be able to achieve your goal.
A vestige of visualization
Roger Bannister, the first man to run a sub-four-minute mile, says he used creative visualizations of breaking the record many times before the race. In golf, Tiger Woods also uses visualizations to help him compete at the highest levels, as does Jack Nicklaus, who says his secret to success is ‘10 per cent technique, 40 per cent position, and 50 per cent creative visualization – a mental picture of a successful shot’.
The list continues in science and technology. At the age of 16 Albert Einstein used creative visualization ‘thought experiments’ to discover that the speed of light is constant, by visualizing himself sitting on a cart chasing a point of light. He said: ‘Words or language do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. My elements of thought are images.’ And Thomas Edison and his great rival Nikola Tesla also visualized, the latter claiming that he ‘did not need drawings of any kind in the design process’.
In the arts, Chopin was a well known visualizer and Beethoven, who went totally deaf, had to imagine all his later compositions as he composed them. Walt Disney was a great visualizer, though he called the process ‘imagineering’. Popular UK entertainer and hypnotist Derren Brown uses visualization for many of his ‘tricks’, such as his astounding memory feats.
Exploring the Mind/Body Connection
Although much of the human nervous system is under automatic control – for example, controlling of the heartbeat, regularity of breathing, core temperature, and so on – the body is also highly connected with the brain. You can therefore communicate with your physical body using creative visualization, to help improve fitness, combat fatigue and illness, and decrease pain.
Connecting your brain with your body
Reflexologists say that the soles of your feet have different parts (or zones) corresponding to various organs in your bodies (and that hands have similar zones too). Acupuncturists take this idea further, claiming that hundreds of points on your body (when stimulated with needles) have effects on other parts of the body. Certainly, all nerve endings lead directly to the brain via long connections and therefore all parts of the body are connected via the brain to all other parts of the body.
In several studies, patients undergoing treatment who have been asked to visualize, have become healthier far more quickly than those patients who only received treatment. Examples of visualizations that have been tried include imagining your white blood cells as being warriors being set loose on cancerous cells to destroy them, or imagining healing nutrients being sent via the blood directly to a wound to help it heal more quickly.
Now I would never advocate using creative visualization in place of following prompt and professional medical advice. But used in conjunction with the latest medicines and treatments, creative visualization has been shown to enhance the results and speed up healing.
So considering your whole self when using creative visualization makes good sense. And if your goal is to feel happier, achieving this state benefits your mind and body; after all, depression can lead to aches and pains and bad posture, resulting in other physical ailments.
Adopting an upright posture and a smile while visualizing does wonders for increasing the results and your general feeling of wellbeing. This approach is known as positive biofeedback. Check out the later section ‘Using biofeedback to change your emotions’ to find out more about positive biofeedback.
Getting to know neurons
All human organs are connected to the spine and brain – and therefore to each other – via synapses, which are junctions that permit neurons (nerve cells) to pass an electrical or chemical signal to other cells. Neurons join with each other using these synapses to create new pathways that allow electrical signals to pass along them, transporting information around your brain (and other parts of the body).
The human brain has about a hundred billion neurons, with each one connected to an average of a thousand others, making for a massively interconnected system.
When a neuron receives signals it decides whether to act upon them by determining whether they’re strong enough to be passed onto other neurons. If a neuron receives a signal from only a few other neurons it may well perceive this signal as random noise, much like the fuzzy screen and hissy audio you used to get on older, untuned television sets. And it doesn’t activate its own mechanism to retransmit the signal to other neurons. But if lots of other neurons send it a signal, the neuron activates and the signal is passed on.
The connections between neurons aren’t fixed. Babies have relatively few connections, but as they develop and learn, neurons continuously sprout new links to other neurons. When the result makes sense and (for example) helps to pick up an object, the connection remains and is reinforced by many nearby neurons also connecting to form additional pathways, so that people get better and better at picking things up. On the other hand, when a connection turns out to be useless because it didn’t help, it isn’t reinforced.
This constant rebuilding of pathways is known as neuroplasticity, a theory that focuses on how the brain can rewire itself to forge new connections and break cycles of negative thinking and acting.
Thinking with your heart as well as your mind
Looking more deeply into the mind/body connection, if you ask someone where he feels sadness, he very often points to his heart, as people do when asked about where joyful feelings come from. You rarely see people point to their head unless they have a headache.
This behaviour is easily explained, because a universally accepted sign for love is the heart, because people often feel emotions deep within their bodies, not inside their heads. When you’re in love your heart goes all a flutter, and when afraid you can feel sick to the pit of your stomach. Emotions have a real physical effect as well as a mental one.
Therefore when visualizing you’ll substantially enhance your results by imagining that you’re physically feeling and engaged with the visualization, and not merely performing a mental exercise.
This is understood in several personal improvement techniques. For example, there’s a concept in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy called the ‘ABC Model’ which states that our thoughts and actions create our emotions, which result in our behaviours – both wanted and unwanted. First comes an activating event, which is interpreted according to our beliefs, resulting in a given set of consequences. An example of this could be as follows:
Activating event: Your boss asks whether you’ve completed a piece of work.
Beliefs: You may think: ‘My boss thinks I’m not working hard enough and is trying to catch me out.’
Consequences: You say defensively, ‘I have nearly finished’, although you still have a lot more to do. This results in you feeling annoyed and resentful, which causes stress.
In this instance it’s most likely your boss simply needs the piece of work and has not formed any conclusion about your work ethics. With a different set of beliefs you can understand this and not end up feeling accused and stressed out.
Using biofeedback to change your emotions
Biofeedback
