Success Coaching And Visualization – Part 1

I’ve discussed the use of visualization many times before.  In my performance coaching I call mental imagery, mental rehearsal or mental practice.

In success coaching I call it visualization or imagination. Regardless of what I or anyone else calls it, it is a powerful tool to achieve your personal goals and personal success.

For me, success coaching is about getting my clients to deeply experience their goals.  I want them to experience so deeply that they create an unstoppable desire, back by action, to achieve their personal goal.

So today in this success coaching session I’m going to take a different perspective on visualization in hopes that you’ll get just how powerful it is!

Imagine you are walking to your home across a field. When you are almost there, you notice that a tree has fallen across your path blocking your way. Your thoughts immediately turn to how you are going to solve the momentary problem and get home.

You begin looking for ways to climb over it, perhaps push through the branches, or maybe walk around it. You would be highly unlikely to simply give up on getting home and camp out for the night.

In this circumstance, you are exercising activity. Your end point (getting home) is so real and compelling that you don’t give up, not even for a minute. The barrier in your way appears to be a temporary distraction and you immediately move into problem solving mode, secure in the knowledge that you will achieve your goal.

Imagine if achieving all of your personal goals were as simple as walking home across a field.

How much easier would life be if, when confronted with an obstacle, you remained so completely secure in your end goal that you didn’t pause for a moment to consider an alternative to your success?

Imagine if the achievement of your ideal life felt as natural as walking through your front door at the end of the day. There is a way that you can create this same surety, determination and purpose with your personal goals. It is through the use of visualization.

Why Visualization Works

If I asked you to visualize arriving home at the end of the day, I’m sure you would have no trouble doing so. Arriving in our home is a very familiar activity. It seems natural and normal to us because we do it most days. It is easy to visualize.

In fact as you’re reading this, I suspect images of your own home are bubbling up easily in your mind’s eye with no pressure at all. I bet you can see your home; you know what it sounds like and smells like and you know what it feels like to walk through the door, don’t you?

With success coaching, the challenge is with bigger goals and aspirations as they are part of the ‘unknown.’ We have never lived them so they don’t seem naturally with us.

The image of our end point is not so strong in our mind that we view barriers as temporary blockages. In fact the end point is so unfamiliar to us that we see barriers and blockages as bigger than they are.

We start to think: maybe this goal is impossible? Maybe it was just never meant to be.

Success Coaching and Hope Training

In success coaching maintaining your hope for the future is difficult to do when your vision of that future is shaky. Yet hope plays a crucial role in a person’s life.

Research has indicated that people with high levels of hope are much more likely to face and overcome obstacles and are likely to rate higher on a range of success indicators such as academic performance, athletic achievement, interpersonal effectiveness and physical health and well-being. (Snyder, 2000) People who are able to clearly “see” a brighter future, are much more likely to achieve it.

Language vs. Images

Another important aspect of visualization is that it is using a different part of the brain. The right side of the brain is the side that we use to be able to visualize things.

Visualizing images, pictures or stories using the right brain supports another way of learning. A great deal of our previous learning has been done through the use of language which is a left brain activity.

Visualizing a situation opens up the creative elements of our brain and permits us to see things in a new or different way. In addition to this, the space that we create to visualize is a meditative space. The stillness of a meditative space ensures there are no distractions and it allows us to use another part of the brain.

Looking at your life in many different ways supports you in being able to really “see” where you want to go, i.e. your personal goals and personal success.

Your self-vision connects your subconscious and conscious minds and this informs your path forward. The beauty of visualizing your vision is that it takes a purpose and starts to turn it into specific images and ideas and possibilities.

You may have a similar purpose to someone else but when you visualize your purpose it will be completely different to another person’s. This is what makes you unique and your journey unique. Visualizing brings creative thoughts to life and helps us to see them.

Success Coaching Application

Helicopter View

By focusing on the end point of a journey, you develop helicopter view. From a helicopter you can easily see that there are many pathways to any destination. One of the differences between high-hope individuals and those with low-hope is that high-hope individuals recognize this simple fact.

If they hit an obstacle, they don’t think; “Oh no this is impossible!” they think; “This pathway hasn’t worked, I’ll find another one.” Like the person encountering the tree in our beginning story, instead of shifting into despair, they shift into problem solving mode. They look at all the possibilities; going around the barrier, going over it, pushing through it, climbing under it and so on.

Your Own Visualization Exercise

Below is a link to an audio of a visualization track from my Mental Training for Personal Success.  It takes you through a visualization process.

Please sit back and relax, get yourself into a comfortable position and when you are ready listen to the audio and take yourself through your very own visualization exercise.

Celebrate what you see once you are complete, take notes of your visualization and refer to them.

Tell a friend or your coach about what you visualized. Speaking out loud your visualization – your vision, will bring it into your conscious mind and into a new space for you to hear and see. Some believe that speaking out loud what you want to create in life, brings it about. Go ahead and give it a go…what you do have to gain?

It’s putting out to the universe your intent and creating it.

https://www.warriormindcoach.com/blog/audio/Future-Success.mp3

Personal Success Contemplation

• Have you ever had a goal or desire that felt absolutely natural and normal?

• What were the factors that made if feel this way?

• Have you ever had an area of your life that you wanted to improve but you couldn’t clarify exactly what you wanted from it?

• What is the relationship between visualization and achieving your goals?

• How have you used visualization in your own life?

• Listen to the audio and do your own visualization. What did you see?

If you’d like to find out more about personal success coaching and how it can help you achieve your personal goals request an Introductory Consultation today.

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