In episode 21, on building a health & wellness regimen I discussed the power of visualization. In today’s post, I want to uncover some different ways to make use of this powerful technique to help you build a self-care routine that works for you, or to manifest different results in your life.
What exactly is visualization?
Visualization is a powerful way to envision yourself getting different results in your life. The reason it’s so powerful is because it prepares the mind to do something new. Preparation is a key component of success. As well, visualization engages your creative human imagination, and that takes a lot of pressure off you when you’re trying to get new strategies going.
All you need to do is take a bit of time to yourself, close your eyes, take 3-4 deep breaths and allow your brain to get to a slower brain frequency. This is the alpha state – a state we reach fairly quickly once we close our eyes. When your eyes are open, your brain operates at a faster frequency – the beta state. This is the state of taking action, whereas the alpha state is the state that allows your imagination to soar.
Just as I discuss in episode 21 on building a healthy routine, you can apply the basic concept of visualization rather easily.Let’s say you’re super busy Amanda, an ICU nurse who works long days, and some occasional night shifts too. We know Amanda wants to better manage her self-care habit even during busy back-to-back shifts. The night before her day shift she could plan for your upcoming “long” day. Because Amanda knows she has a student from the university, she can expect to be a bit busier with that student throughout the day.
She visualizes feeling good in the morning, waking-up at 5:20am (before everyone else if she has a family). She imagines herself starting-off the day with a lemon drink. After visualizing that, can actually take that step by placing the lemon & mug on the counter as the cue. Busy Amanda also envisions doing a few yogic stretches on her mat after her lemon drink. Later she’d proceed to put her yoga mat out in the right place for her preparation. She might also envision the coffee brewing while she’s doing her yoga and then finishes up with getting her cup.
By doing this easy 2-minute thinking process in your mind, the night before, you end-up waking-up with a solid intention for the entire day. You can continue and envision how your shift will end, and prepare your space for when you come home and get ready for a restful evening.
The Purpose Of Visualization
The bottom line is in order to make positive changes in your life, you need to recognize the value of change. When you see the value of changing things, and you want an easier time at getting there, engage your own creative human imagination to get the ball rolling. When you spend time in visualization, you’re engaging a very important asset that can be used as a vehicle to taking action. In essence, the biggest asset that visualization offers you is enhanced productivity.
Visualization Improves Productivity
- You don’t waste your time doing things that are habit and routine.
- You also don’t waste your time on old habits and emotions.
- You take responsibility, in advance, for the one part of your life that matters most – you! Don’t you want to reach your full potential?
No matter how challenging your life might seem at times, by doing this simple and efficient practice of visualization, you can change the moments ahead of you, intentionally – at least the moments that you can control. You can’t control traffic. You can’t control other people’s reactions. But you can accept the present moment and envision for yourself how you will feel when you wake-up in the morning.
You have the power and choice, to choose how you want to feel in life. If you want to feel healthy or wealthy then spend some time imagining what that feels like. If you want to feel well-rested, grateful, joyful, compassionate, effective, and productive, the same rule applies here: visualize it first and allow your mind to guide you into action.
Our world is chaotic and down right crazy at times. With news feeds and social media being in front of us at a moment’s notice, we have to be purposeful in how we remain productive. It is all too easy to become engulfed in the chaos of our postmodern world. Yet by using visualization, as a productivity tool, you are inevitably controlling your body’s reactions to the world around you. You are essentially preparing yourself for success up ahead.
You can also use meditation to tap-in to the power of visualization, or a guided one like the one I recorded here, to help you relax and shift into a making pro-active decisions in your wellness journey.
How Do I Apply This To My Life?
Change and a new practice requires consistency. Here are 2 easy no-brainer strategies that have been the most effective for getting people results. These are also for 2 different types of learners:
Strategy #1 – The Phone Reminder: if it’s not scheduled, you will forget. And have the reminder go off at the time, you are applying an audio-visual strategy. If scheduled properly, you can realistically get this exercise done in a few minutes to even a few seconds.
Be it 9:45pm when you’re just about ready to shut things down for the evening or 5:30am when you visualize and plan for a meeting.
Strategy #2 – Sticky Notes: this way everyone is on-board. Sticky notes at the bed saying “wake up happy…remember you visualized this!!”
In our prior episodes, 24, 25, and 26, we discussed how fear can hold us back from making positive changes in our life. Fear is an ineviable emotion that most of us will come to know, consciously or unconsciously. Please check out those episodes if you’ve been struggling with some blocks that have held you back from achieving improved health & wellness, or better daily habits in your life.
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