It’s one thing to SAY you WANT something, another to make it a goal. And still another to visualize yourself ACHIEVING your goal. The last option is often the most powerful yet least appreciated.
Visualization has been cited as a game-changer by athletes like Olympian Kerri Walsh, celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, and Jim Carrey, and influential business people like Bo Bennet and Harvey Mackay.
Are you utilizing the power of visualization?
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What Are Visualization and Rehearsal?
Rehearsing your own success is not just for the rich and famous, though. It is a powerful tool for everyone, from parents at home to kids applying to college, business owners, and everyday staff workers.
Many people are asking how to make a change in their lives. I hear this question every day from my clients. Action toward our goals is crucial, but if you want to put a superpower fueling your goals, visualization and rehearsal are the keys!
They are ways of putting yourself into a future of your choosing.
It's like designing your future self, your best self.
You mentally imagine a goal or desire in a way that feels like you’re already living that reality. It’s similar to the famous saying by William Arthur Ward:
“If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.”
One of North America’s top athletic and yoga companies, Lululemon Athletica, spends a huge amount of money, time, and effort to mindfully prepare its employees for success.
Using goal setting, this company asks every single employee to delve deep into what they want their future to look like. Employees craft a 10 and 5-year plan and consistently journal from the perspective of their future self, envisioning the life they aspire to lead and the person they aim to become.
This application involves imagining and visualizing the details of their future achievements, the values they hold dear, and the impact they wish to have on the world around them.
By stepping into this envisioned future, they can align their current actions and decisions with their long-term aspirations.
Why would they invest unless it paid off!? According to Stock Analysis, in the fiscal year ending January 28, 2024, Lululemon Athletica had an annual revenue of $9.62B with 18.60% growth.
Impressive, right?
Creating a roadmap that guides us toward desired outcomes is not only effective but crystalizes clarity tremendously. This practice promotes purpose and direction that cultivates resilience and internal motivation, empowering us to overcome obstacles and stay committed to our goals.
Why put so much time, energy, focus, and income into imagining what the future might look like in 10 years?
Why Set Goals? Why Visualize?
Knowing how to achieve goals and achieving goals are BOTH important in creating a fulfilling life and career.
Just like a carpenter begins with a very specific design to create beautiful or useful pieces of furniture, to create a life you love, you need to define what is important to you. And when you take time to visualize the future, you encourage yourself toward a more compelling and meaningful future.
More and more individual and companies are realizing the importance of rehearsing their future.
Lululemon is just one example of a place that knows that investing time into employee goal-setting will pay off exponentially. They exemplify how organizations can profoundly impact their employees' personal and professional growth by investing in goal-setting and visualization practices.
Workers will become inspired, active participants in their community, forward thinkers and proactive.
Putting yourself INSIDE future goals benefits your business and builds well-rounded personal lifestyles, too.
How to Visualize: Practical Ways to Put Visualization into Your Daily Life
Whether at home or the office, you can practice imagining and rehearsing your desires and goals with tools like Mind Movies and goal journals.
Mind Movies is a great digital vision board allowing you to upload your own pictures (or you can choose from their library) to create a movie of your ideal life.
For many of us, actionable exercises help us rehearse future goals. Using Mind Movies, you create a video of the sights and sounds of your future goal, making a visual meditation where you can dive into the feeling of your future. Combining intention, visualization, and elevated feelings is an effective tool to help manifest your dream. Watching a movie of a possible future with images and affirmations imprints in a powerful way.
When goal journaling, you write out the future you imagine from the perspective of yourself already living it. Use “I am” and “I do” statements, putting your goals into the present tense so they seem not only achievable but completely real.
As an added boost to your successful mindset, try power posing (aka the “postural feedback effect”) to give you the confidence to live the life you visualize.
One science-based explanation of power posing is Amy Cuddy’s TED talk about how body posture affects your mood and helps to create successful communication.
Visualization Creates a Better Future
In the end, when you visualize your goals coming true, and you empower yourself to make them a reality, you are CREATING your own future...rather than waiting for it to happen.
It is an inside job.
We often return to this concept at Heartmanity—that you have the insight and knowledge within you already. Tapping into that potent potential inside yourself is a matter of practice and coaching your brain to work in new ways.
