Achieving Goals
Achieving goals is much more difficult than just wanting it. It is said that practice makes perfect, and practicing visualization to reach your goals is no different. When used properly, this can be extremely powerful. As you think about your goals, consider the following.
Use your imagination to see yourself already in possession of your goal. Picture yourself with the healthy and fit body you have always desired, and literally feel what it is like to have it. You cannot achieve anything in your “outer world” until you first see it in your “inner world.”
Make decisions based on being the person you want to be, not who you are now. Why? The decisions you have made up to now have not gotten you the body you want so you must change your mindset. If you make decisions with a healthy body mindset, you are more likely to eat the right foods and exercise regularly.
Is Visualization for Real?
In one of the most well known studies on Creative Visualization in sports, Russian scientists compared four groups of Olympic athletes in terms of their training schedules and achieving goals:
- Group 1 had 100% physical training
- Group 2 had 75% physical training with 25% mental training
- Group 3 had 50% physical training with 50% mental training
- Group 4 had 25% physical training with 75% mental training.
The results showed that Group 4, with 75% of their time devoted to mental training, performed the best. “The Soviets had discovered that mental images can act as a prelude to muscular impulses.”[1]
Creative Visualization is distinguished from normal daydreaming in that Creative Visualization is done in the first person and the present tense – as if the visualized scene were unfolding all around you; whereas normal daydreaming is done in the third person and the future tense. Using affirmations that begin with “I am so happy and grateful now that…” is an excellent way to begin programming your subconscious mind to move towards your goal.
Visualization is another tool that Olympic athletes use to get their minds in shape for competition and achieving goals. In this technique, athletes mentally rehearse exactly what they have to do to win. Sports psychologists say that visualization boosts athletes’ confidence by forcing them to picture themselves winning. It also helps them concentrate on their physical moves, rather than on distractions around them.[2]
Visualize to Actualize
Remember, all things are created twice – first in the imagination and then second in the physical world. Read this excerpt from Napoleon Hill’s famous book, Think & Grow Rich:
The law of autosuggestion, through which any person may rise to altitudes of achievement which stagger the imagination, is well described in the following verse:
“If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don’t
If you like to win, but you think you can’t,
It is almost certain you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow’s will—
It’s all in the state of mind.
If you think you are outclassed, you are,
You’ve got to think high to rise,
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!”
Look again at the words that have been emphasized, and you will catch the deep meaning which the poet had in mind. Somewhere deep inside you is the seed of achievement which if aroused and put into action, would carry you to heights that you may never have hoped to attain.
Just as a master musician may cause the most beautiful strains of music to pour forth from the strings of a violin, so may you arouse the genius who lies asleep in your brain, and cause it to drive you upward to whatever goal you may wish to achieve.
Tips for Success
- Create an affirmation statement and visualize yourself with your goal achieved
- Put your affirmation statement in places you’ll see it often like your bathroom mirror, car and desk.
- Put it on a card and keep it in your pocket at all times. Read it when you wake up and before you go to bed
- Create a Vision Board – cut out pictures of your goal (i.e., fit bodies, athletes, etc.) and make a collage that you can view often. Get emotionally involved when you look at it.
[1] Robert Scaglione, William Cummins, Karate of Okinawa: Building Warrior Spirit, Tuttle Publishing, 1993, ISBN 096264840X.
[2] Fiona McCormack, “Mind games,” Scholastic Scope, Vol. 54, Iss. 10, New York: Jan 23, 2006
