“Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blue print, and begin to build.” — Robert Collier quotes
What if you could step into your future, experience your success, and look back on how you got there?
What if you could do a dry run or walkthrough of your future accomplishments and actually feel your results?
In Brilliant Nlp: What the Most Successful People Know, Say & Do, David Molden and Pat Hutchinson write about a simple but effective technique from their Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) experience, that you can use to visualize your success.
Step 1. Mark a Space on the Floor to Represent Now
Find a place on the floor to start from. This place represents “now.”
Molden and Hutchinson write:
“Find a quiet space where you can visualize the journey of achievement. Mark a space on the floor to represent ‘now.’ “
Step 2. Walk to a Point in the Future and Take a Look Back.
Take a step into your future. Walk to some point on the floor that represents your future. Then stand on that spot and take a look back and feel your success. Imagine you achieved all of your outcomes.
Molden and Hutchinson write:
“From this space walk to a point on the floor a particular distance away to represent the time you think it will take to achieve your outcomes. Stand on this point and look back to ‘now.’ Spend some time feeling what it’s like to have achieved all your outcomes.”
Step 3. Walk to a Point Further in the Future and Take a Look Back.
Walk to a next point on the floor that represents a time even further into your future. Imagine you have achieved all your outcomes. Feel your success. Visualize what you did to achieve your outcomes.
Molden and Hutchinson write:
“Next, walk a little further into the future and turn around. Look back to ‘now’ again and visualize what you did to achieve your outcomes. Make sure your internal language is in the past tense.
Once your mind has grasped the idea that you have already succeeded, visualizing what you did as opposed to what you have to do is a much more creative, insightful and far less stressful process. It’s very powerful, and great fun too.”
Key Take Aways
Here are my key take aways:
- Do a dry run of your future. Mental simulation is a great way to do rapid pattern matching. Stepping through your future and asking your mind how you got there, puts your mind into a resourceful state. It goes into problem solving mode. You might be surprised at the results.
- Incrementally render your future. You can frame out your future and gradually add detail. Framing out your future will help you figure out the big rocks before getting stuck in details. You can add detail over time.
- Iterate on your future. Doing multiple dry runs might be better than getting stuck on trying to figure out too much. The more you do it, the easier it will get and the more you’ll think of.
- Pay attention to surprises. Maybe the grass isn’t greener on the other side of the hill. Maybe it doesn’t feel like you thought it would, and you really want something else. Maybe you find you’re missing key skills or abilities. Use the experience for reflection and consider whether you really want another path.
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