Create Your Ideal Future In 10 Minutes A Day

“Whatever goal you give to your subconscious mind, it will work night and day to achieve it.”  ~Jack Canfield

Last week I challenged you to begin the practice of visualization to be able to clearly create your future identity because without having a clear vision for your future, it can be difficult to create it. Did you give it a try? What? You forgot. It was hard to start. You got busy. You just didn’t have time. Hmmm…

Sure, I’ve heard all those reasons (aka excuses)😉 before.

But what if I told you that research shows, you can dramatically increase your odds of creating your ideal future by practicing visualization in as little as 10 minutes a day? Do you have 10 minutes to spare for the sake of making your dreams a reality?

That’s right… While in order to get the best results, it is vital to be consistent with a daily visualization practice, you don’t need to spend all day thinking about your goals for visualization to be effective. In fact, I don’t actually recommend spending too much time in visualization because it can hinder you from being present and living in the moment. Which is in fact, an essential part of living a joyful life.

Maybe it would help if we start with a fuller understanding of the benefits of visualization:  

Visualization techniques have been used by some of the world’s most successful high performers for centuries. The practice of visualization helps them create their desired outcomes by accomplishing one goal or task at a time with hyper focus and complete confidence.

Jack Canfield, author of Chicken Soup for the Soul, along with others who have researched the benefits of visualization, believe that using visualization techniques to focus on your goals and desires, yield four very important benefits:

1. It activates your creative subconscious which will then generate creative ideas to achieve your goal.
2. It programs your brain to more readily perceive and recognize the resources you need to achieve your dreams.
3. It activates the law of attraction, thereby drawing into your life the people, resources, and circumstances you'll need to achieve your goals.
4. It builds your internal motivation to take the necessary actions to achieve your dreams.

In short, visualization is effective because it harnesses the power of our subconscious mind!

When you begin to visualize your goal as complete, a “conflict” or disconnect, is created in your subconscious mind between what you are visualizing and what you currently have. Your mind is hard-wired to resolve these conflicts by working to create a current reality that matches the one you have envisioned.

Visualization activates the creative powers of your subconscious mind, motivating it to work hard at creating solutions. You’ll begin to experience heightened levels of motivation and most likely, find yourself doing things that you’d normally avoid, but that will take you closer to success.

Visualization also has a way of boosting your success by calibrating something called the Reticular Activating System (RAS), which serves as a mental filter for the millions of thoughts streaming into your brain at any given moment. In essence, it’s responsible for your ability to focus.

The RAS automatically sifts through all the data coming in and filters out unnecessary information so the important stuff can get through. Programming itself to work in your favor without you actively doing anything.

In the same way, it also seeks information that will validate your beliefs. (Remember last week when I spoke about how important it was to let go of old limiting beliefs to visualize your future identity?) See, the RAS filters the world through the parameters you give it, and your beliefs shape those parameters. The RAS helps you see what you want to see and in doing so, influences your actions. So if you think you’re always going to be overweight, you probably will be. If you believe you’re a hard worker, you most likely are.  

If you train your RAS (which thinks in pictures more than words) by consistently visualizing your goals, your RAS will filter through and reveal the people, information and opportunities that will help you achieve them.

Now are you starting to see not only the benefits but the importance of visualization?

This practice feeds the RAS the pictures it needs to start filtering information that aligns with your goals. As a result, your RAS will start to pay attention to anything that might help you achieve your goals – information that it otherwise might ignore.

When you look at it this way, visualization or even The Law of Attraction doesn’t seem so mystical does it? Focus on your fear of failure and you will invite failure into your life. Focus on success and your brain will seek and tune into ways to succeed, inevitably creating more success. It’s not magic, it’s your Reticular Activating System influencing the world you see around you.

Or course, I realize that creating the future of your dreams isn’t quite as easy as this all sounds. But I do believe that your RAS can be trained. And in doing so, it does set you on the right path to make your dreams a reality. Visualizing what you want and then letting your subconscious and conscious work together to make it happen is where it begins.  

But if you’re still not sure what to do or if you’ve tried visualization before and think it’s just not for you, be sure to check in next week. I’ll be sharing several simple techniques you can utilize to affirm your desired outcomes.

Still not sure what your ideal future looks like or the goals you need to set to get you there? Let's figure it out together. Schedule Your KickStart Session to begin!