Success Advice

The Hidden Power of Imagination and How to Use It to Succeed

Published

5 years ago

Apr 3, 2019

Image Credit: Unsplash

Within all of us lies a hidden power. This hidden power could be the one thing you need to bring about your greatest successes. For many, this power is often underused and underdeveloped. For the mass of highly successful people, it is used every day.

Known as the “workshop wherein are fashioned all plans created by man”, the imagination is the workshop of the man. The term imagination simply means the faculty of imagining something that could be, without seeing it first. Imagination is when we form mental pictures of a future desired result, invention, business concept, service, organization, movement, etc.

Every great person has used the faculty of imagination and harnessed its power to accomplish. Imagination is one of the critical success factors in life, yet, sadly it often goes untapped for many of us.

The truth is that we can all develop our imagination to greater capacities if we just knew a little bit more about how our imagination works and how to use it!

Two Primary Forms of Imagination

There are two forms of the imaginative faculty according to Napoleon Hill: Synthetic Imagination and Creative Imagination.

Synthetic Imagination

Through the synthetic imagination, we make connections between concepts, ideas or plans from past experiences/knowledge and put them in new combinations to essentially “create” something new from something old. The synthetic imagination helps us to process old information based upon new information and bring the thoughts together to form a more complete idea. When a problem cannot be solved by synthetic imagination, we have the great opportunity of developing and harnessing our creative imagination.

Creative Imagination

Through the creative imagination, we make a connection with new thoughts altogether. Judge where these new thoughts come from yourself, but what happens with the creative imagination is new. A new concept, thought, idea or plan comes out of seemingly “nowhere” as a hunch or moment of inspiration. Our creative imaginations only work as well as our conscious minds are working at a very rapid rate. We must be thinking accurately and clearly to use our creative imagination with its greatest potential.

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” – Albert Einstein

The Great Untapped Resource of Many

If we do not know very much about how to use our imaginations for achievement, we have most likely allowed it to become weak and inactive. But just like exercising a limp or underused body to make it strong again, we can revive and make our imaginations more alert.

The best way to get started using the power of imagination for achievement is to make use of your synthetic imagination and start using your conscious thinking to it’s greatest capacity.

To use your synthetic imagination, spend some time everyday thinking and planning your future, starting with today. Just think! Just beginning to think and plan will wake up your imagination and cause it to seek connections from the past to new ideas to bring your plans into a reality. Reading is also important for the synthetic imagination. We can not connect old ideas to new ones if we never fill our minds with new ideas!

Making use of your conscious thinking simply means solving today’s problems with rational and common sense solutions. Some challenges we face day to day can easily be dissolved through rational problem solving and planning with common sense. Once we begin using our conscious minds at our highest rates, we can tap into our imaginations for the missing pieces.

Remember that ideas are the beginning of all great achievement. There are ideas lying dormant within all of us that can be connected and brought together with new ideas to form great ideas using the synthetic imagination. The creative imagination can help us most when our synthetic and conscious thinking has brought us as far as we can go. Then, we have to rely on inspiration and creative imagination to help us.

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.” – Carl Sagan

There is a reasoning capability within every person. This reasoning capability is really simple. Reason, in its most basic definition, means “a basis or cause, as for some belief, action, fact, event, etc”. In other words, reasoning is how you come to a conclusion based upon the information you input into your mind, whether through experience, circumstance, books, articles, mp3′s, or podcasts.

As you bring into your mind new information, how you reason with that new information to form conclusions is very important. It’s important because when you reason and come to a conclusion, it will in time become a belief. If you reason correctly, you will form accurate conclusions. If you reason incorrectly, you will form faulty conclusions.

Your conclusions become your beliefs. Once again, if your conclusions are incorrect because your reasoning is not right, your beliefs will be incorrect. If your beliefs are incorrect, your life will suffer. You will not be successful. If you want to see success beyond your wildest imagination, you have to start with reasoning correctly because your beliefs determine your feelings.

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Sarah Cappson

Sarah Cappson is an Author with over 3 years experience. She has her Master's degree in Foreign Literature from New Jersey City University. Her professional interests are focused on writing. In addition, she serves as writer for Essaysarea. She provides essay help for college students.

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How to Break the Cycles of Mediocrity and Manifest Your Greatness

There is no greatness without becoming and there is no becoming with authenticity

Published

3 weeks ago

Nov 16, 2023

Jamelle Sanders

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In just a few weeks, we will be wrapping up 2023. Can you believe it? This year has been absolutely incredible for me.

I have seen amazing doors opened, new relationships formed and I am seeing dreams realized in my life. While this seems like the hallmarks of a great year, this has also been the most challenging year of my life. With all of the change happening in my life, I have been forced out of my comfort zone and challenged to grow in every area of my life.

I can truly say that I have made the most of my moments this year and I have used everything as a catalyst for maximizing my greatest potential.

As a revolutionary leader, I have the pleasure of consulting and advising leaders around the world to fulfill purpose, realize their greatest potential and make an impact.

I want to share some insights with you that will help you to break cycles of mediocrity and manifest your greatness.

Everything legal must come through the matrix

I am sure that some of you are wondering why I am using the term matrix. However, what you have to understand is that I am trying to make a highly complex spiritual principle practical to understand.

Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, every life has an origin and I believe that origin is divine and begins with eternity. You are birthed from eternity and into time to fulfill a unique purpose and assignment in your lifetime and generation.

The matrix is simply the portal or vehicle that brings something out of the invisible realm and into tangible form. The problem with much of the teaching today is that it excludes the matrix. We are told to believe that success is instantaneous and overnight.

Nobody talks about how a dream progresses through stages beginning with visualization and ultimately culminating in manifestation. Without a matrix or portal then everything that you attempt to birth and build will be illegal.

The matrix not only makes you legal but it gives you the authority and power to function as the greatest expression of who you were created to be.

Every matrix has an incubation process

While many people admire and respect me today, I remember a time when nobody knew who I was or the significance of my message. How did I get to where I am today? I got here through an incubation process.

In other words, everything that has been destined for your life is incubating and awaiting a set time of manifestation. The problem is that most people live their entire lives idle and never initiate the incubation process.

What do I meany by that? Most people are living reckless and very few people are living intentionally. I am amazed at the number of people I have conversations with that have no vision, goals or strategies for their lives. They show great promise and they have undeniable potential.

However, without development they will die with their dreams still in them.

Everything that has been destined for your life must be incubated and converted to become realities born to time.

“Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint and begin to build.” – Robert Collier

You must give expression to that which is not yet born to time

When you think about a matrix or a prophetic incubation process, you have to understand that potential is often unrealized and untapped. In other words, your potential is in raw form and your potential cannot serve you as long as it is untapped.

The thing that makes me valuable is that I have the ability to convert potential into power. I have done it in my own life and I have empowered leaders around the world to do the same. How do you convert potential into power?

First, it is important to note that you have to perceive potential. If you cannot perceive your potential then you can never cultivate your potential. In addition, you must take the time to cultivate your potential. We often get excited about our capabilities; however, we never expand our capacity in order to realize our greatest potential.

In other words, the strength of your potential is only discovered through your willingness to stretch. The more we are challenged the more we are empowered to expand our capacity for greatness. Most of all, you must begin to express your potential. The expression of potential is different for every person.

For example, the expression of my potential is best demonstrated through the thoughts, ideas, products, services, books, etc.

For another person the expression of potential may look like a screenplay, artwork, sports, scientific discoveries, medical breakthroughs, etc.

Regardless of the form of expression, I know that you will live empty and unfulfilled until you make the decision to express your potential. The expression of your potential gives voice to your dreams, life to your vision, significance to your moments and activates your true power.

You must manifest your greatness

As a revolutionary thinker and leader, my work has impacted people around the world. I am grateful that my life is a source of empowerment to so many people. However, before anyone could ever benefit from my life, I had to make a non-negotiable decision to become who I was born to be.

I wish I could tell you that this journey is easy and that you will get there overnight. However, in a world that celebrates us for doing we are often criticized for being. As a result, I wasted a lot of time trying to be who other people wanted me to be instead of being who I was born to be.

There is no greatness without becoming and there is no becoming with authenticity. It is through our bravery to be vulnerable that we ultimately manifest our greatness. We do not bless the world by being a duplicate. We bless the world when we honor our difference. When you honor your difference you honor your potential.

Ultimately, your difference is how you manifest your greatness.

When you present anything but your authentic self to the world, you are playing small and you are robbing the world of your significance. Manifesting your greatness requires you to master your gifts.