How to Visualize More Effectively for Greater Success

Visualization is a wonderful tool to achieve success in life. If you understand the power of visualization and the tools and techniques to visualize, you can build a positive attitude and condition your mind constructively to accomplish your goals and objectives successfully. 

In this regard, you must understand the power of visualization. What is visualization?  It is the ability to see your future where what you seek to achieve has been accomplished. You must learn how to visualize achieving your success. 

It is rightly said that a battle is won twice — first in the mind and second in reality. That means you must have a mental script first and then the real script. You can become what you want to become if you visualize yourself effectively. 

Your mind churns out thoughts constantly whether you like it or not. When you visualize, the internal chatter slowly disappears and the internal calm gradually surfaces. It clears the clutter from your mind and provides clarity to your thoughts. Attaining such a state, you will be able to control your mind and life. 

Research shows that the people who practice visualization have a higher probability of building their habits and achieving greater success. Visualization helps you “rewire” your connections and change your habits. It reorients your conscious and subconscious thought processes and eliminates bad habits. 

It eliminates distraction and enhances your concentration. It strengthens your subconscious mind, helps you dream big, serves as internal motivation, and develops the internal locus of control to make things fall into place. 

It helps align the outside world with your inside world. It aligns your physical print with your mental print. 

“First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.” ―Aristotle

Arnold Schwarzenegger once remarked, “The mind is really so incredible. Before I won my first Mr. Universe title, I walked around the tournament as if I owned it. I had won it so many times in my mind, the title was already mine. Then when I moved on to the movies I used the same technique. I visualized daily being a successful actor and earning big money.” 

World Champion Golfer, Jack Nicklaus has said: “I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp in-focus picture of it in my head.” 

Even heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, used different mental practices to enhance his performance in the ring such as: “affirmation; visualization; mental rehearsal; self-confirmation; and perhaps the most powerful epigram of personal worth ever uttered: “I am the greatest”.”

Visionary leaders harness the power of visualization, persuade others to collaborate and work together and convert their vision into reality. 

A Blueprint to Visualize Effectively 

Visualization is a simple, yet powerful tool to achieve your desired outcomes. Here is a blueprint to visualize effectively: 

• Sit in a quiet place, take a couple of deep breaths, close your eyes, and imagine the environment. If you want to bag a Nobel Prize, start imagining that you are bagging the Nobel Prize. 
• Set aside a few minutes a day. The ideal time is when you first wake up, after meditation or prayer, and right before you go to bed. What would you do? Put yourself in the chair that you would like to occupy someday, in the office of your dreams, doing what you excel at. 
• Use your five senses to make the power of visualization explosive. Combine the elements of sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch to visualize achieving optimum outcomes. What kind of lifestyle would you like to have? Think of the house that you would like to wake up to, the things you would like to see around, and the kind of ambiance that must define you personally and professionally. When you are mentally living in that world, your mind will push you to achieve that world in real life.
• Emphasize means and processes, not ends. Once you have seen your dream world, try to see the path that takes you there and identify the milestones in the path. You must create a blueprint mentally and go step-by-step to solidify your means. Develop the attitude first; the rest will follow. Do not focus on too many goals at a time. The human mind is effective when you focus on one activity at a time. After acquiring one habit effectively, you can visualize acquiring another. In this way, you will be able to achieve your objectives easily.  
• Retain that blueprint in a written format. Be clear about them. Revisit and review them regularly. Use concrete words.  Use visuals to retain for a longer time and visualize effectively. As Robert Collier remarked, “Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint, and begin to build.”

The most valid question here is, do you know what you want?

If you are studying engineering, then you will become an engineer. Period. But what after that? What kind of job, what kind of organization, what kind of growth and what is the destination? This is something only you can decide for yourself. You may start by having a role model before you. Who is it that you want to be like?

When you want to grow as a celebrity or an extraordinary achiever, observe the visuals of successful people in your sphere. It will motivate and help you become like them. Alfred A. Montapert said, “To accomplish great things we must first dream, then visualize, then plan… believe… act!” 

Therefore, visualization does not alone bring you success nor will it bring you overnight transformation. Visualization is the first step to accomplishing your goals. 

Other steps include investing your hard work, smart work, and wise work consistently and following it up constantly to bring out the required behavioral changes to achieve amazing success which provides meaning to your life.

It is a well-admitted fact that success occurs mentally first and then in reality. It is rightly remarked, “The body won’t go where the mind has not gone first.” Charles Garfield observed, “I’ve discovered that numerous peak performers use the skill of mental rehearsal of visualization. They mentally run through important events before they happen.” 

Hence, you can also visualize excelling in your career and leaving a mark for others to follow. Your success or failure depends solely on your mindset. Build your mindset with a positive attitude and approach by visualizing success.