Some people are not aware of the power of visualization and all that it can do for our lives. But actually, we are all engaging in visualization throughout the day. However, many of us are stuck in visualizations of what we do not want, rather than what we do want. People often use visualization to imaging negative outcomes or to worry about the future. Sometimes we even worry so much that we seem to make the very thing happen that we don’t want to happen!
Visualization is not just a new age technique for manifesting. Instead, various athletes, musicians, and other successful people use visualization and mental imagery to make their dreams come true in their lives. Research has proven that people who do visualizations to create a positive experience before they engage in the activity.
An exercise psychologist from Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio found that people who did a workout in their minds were able to increase their muscle strength capacity by 13.5% as opposed to those people who actually did the activity with an increase of 30% muscle strength (From mental power to muscle power— gaining strength by using the mind, Yue, Guang). This means that just by visualizing in our minds we prime our body to create successful outcomes.
Research done by Newmark in 2012 also demonstrated the efficacy of visualization and guided imagery in sports performance utilized after the Russian 1984 Olympics (Cases in Visualization for Athletic Performance, Newmark, Thomas).
Basic Steps to Visualization
To begin visualization, you want to know what you want to manifest in your life. Knowing what you want to achieve will help you to create a visualization that will make your dreams come true. But first, you have to know what your dreams are, what you desire and how to make it happen, or at least, which step to take to get you to the next level.
Begin by describing the vision in detail. Maybe you want to record your vision into a microphone in order to clearly hear yourself express what you want with your own voice. You may feel more comfortable writing down your dreams in a journal and exploring how you can write your life into a new existence. Both of these practices help us to create a clear picture of what we want to create.
The next step is to begin visualizing what you want to manifest. You can visualize the circumstances or you can visualize the process or even skip all the way to the outcome. The most important part is to link the vision with the feelings you will feel when you complete the task and get to your dream place.
Taking daily action is essential. We cannot make great changes overnight if we do not take action each day. We need to set ourselves up for success each day by returning to our vision and making sure we keep in contact with our dreams. We want to continue to access our manifestations and change them as we gain new information.
We need to stay strong in order to persevere and stay on top of our goals. When we are not directing our lives, we can end up working for others or wishing we had access to different opportunities that are more fulfilling. When we are faced with challenges, we can continue to visualize our successes and find a pathway out of any situation.
Visualization provides a proven method for exploring mindfulness and engaging in meditation in a goal-oriented fashion. We can participate actively in the making of our lives through visualization.
