Success Principle 11 – SEE WHAT YOU WANT

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”

When God promised Abraham a child, it was difficult for Abraham to see himself having a child at that old age because he felt both himself and Sarah have passed the age of child bearing. One day God led Abraham out to count the stars in the sky. God told Abraham that his children would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. God further changed his name from Abram (Prince of God) to Abraham (Father of many nations). Starting from that time, Abraham’s perspective changed and a new vision was born in him.  The rest is history. The process Abraham went through is called visualization. That is, you will simply have what you can see through the eyes of the spirit.

Visualization – or the act of creating compelling and vivid pictures in your mind – may be the most underutilized success tool you possess because it greatly accelerates the achievement of any success in three powerful ways.

1. Visualization activates the creative powers of your subconscious mind.
2. Visualization focuses your brain by programming its reticular activating system (RAS) to notice available resources that were always there but were previously unnoticed.
3. Visualization magnetizes and attracts to you the people, resources, and opportunities you need to achieve your goal.

When you perform any task in real life, researchers have found, your brain uses the same identical processes it would use if you were only vividly visualizing the activity. In other words, your brain sees no difference whatsoever between visualizing something and actually doing it.

When you visualize your goals as already complete each and every day, it creates a conflict in your subconscious mind between what you are visualizing and what you currently have. Your subconscious mind tries to resolve that conflict by turning your current reality into the new, more exciting vision.

This conflict, when intensified over time through constant visualization, actually causes three things to happen:

1. It programs your brain’s RAS to start letting into your awareness anything that will help you achieve your goals.
2. It activates your subconscious mind to create solutions for getting the goals you want. You’ll start waking up in the morning with new ideas. You’ll find yourself having ideas in the shower, while you are taking long walks, and while you are driving to work.
3. It creates new levels of motivation. You’ll start to notice you are unexpectedly doing things that take you to your goals. All of a sudden, you are raising your hand in class, volunteering to take on new assignments at work, speaking out at staff meetings, asking more directly for what you want, saving money for the things that you want.

Now, do you see yourself fulfilling that dream God has placed in your heart? Do you see yourself having all the resources you will ever need to fulfill God’s plan? Remember, whatever the mind can conceive and belief, the mind can achieve.

NOTE: Adapted from Success Principles By Jack Canfield.