“See things as you would have them be instead of as they are.” – Robert Collier
Visualisation is the process of using your imagination to create exact images in your mind of things you wish to attract into your life and mentally practicing the steps you would take to attain them.
Visualising daily puts you in the right mindset to achieve your goals by aligning your thoughts and emotions with your desire. When your thoughts and desires coincide, you have the momentum to actively work towards your goals. Working towards your goals increases motivation and self-belief which starts a positive cycle. Also, when you visualise having achieved your goal, you start to feel the emotions that you would feel when you actually achieve it (e.g. happiness, confidence, self-accomplishment) which helps it manifest quickly.
In addition, visualising can help you work through unproductive habits and beliefs that hold you back such as procrastination, self-doubt and fear. It is a simple way of communicating your desires to your subconscious mind because it’s easy for the mind to comprehend images. The subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between real and fake (i.e. your imagination), so if you spend some time visualising your desire daily, it will soon be in your reality.
Starting a visualisation practice is fairly simple. You sit down in a quiet place, close your eyes and imagine yourself having attained your desire. Try to incorporate all five senses in your visualisation and try to feel as if it is actually happening. To begin, try spending around five minutes and slowly up the time once you get more comfortable and confident. Also, if you usually meditate, you can try merging it with your visualisation practice because it will be easier to focus once your mind feels calm.
I prefer doing my own visualisations, but you can find some online (e.g. guided visualisation) or in books (suggestions below). Some people say that the act of daydreaming also counts as visualisation so if you are someone that enjoys daydreaming on public transport (like me), this is the perfect opportunity for you to manifest your desires.
Lastly, getting into the habit of visualisation is not easy. I struggled a lot in the beginning to create images of what I wanted and kept getting distracted with irrelevant thoughts of what I didn’t want. Therefore, it might take you a little while to be able to visualise without being distracted by your monkey brain. As always, be patient with yourself, be proud of yourself for taking steps towards achieving your goals and remember it will get easier with practice!
Book suggestions: Creative Visualisation by Shakti Gawain, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod.