How I’m taking 3-minutes a day to transform mine.
The potential power of visualization has recently captivated me. I’ve never fully understood it, therefore I never put it into practice. I’ve used it more as a dreamer would, a “wouldn’t it be nice if…” sentiment rather than a daily practice.
But haven’t we all heard countless stories of celebrities and billionaires who use this practice with regularity and intensity to create, what seems to us, a pretty fantastic life? Google “celebrities” and “visualization” and you’ll hear all about Will Smith, Oprah, Michael Phelps, Lindsay Vohn, and countless others who attribute at least a portion of their relative successes to the practice of visualization.
I’ve never used it as a tool to create my reality and looking back on how I got where I am now leads me to believe I’ve been missing out.
Let me get you up to speed: This is what the last 20 years have looked like for me in a nutshell: Began my career in Accounting. After three years, I realized I hated Accounting and I quit the industry altogether.
I decide to give Graphic Design a shot. Somehow with zero experience, I land a job at a daily newspaper. Love it. After two years I decide it’s time for a change. Get another job in Graphic Design, stay on for a few years, and then become completely miserable working for people who are less than stellar.
At that point, I get married and two months later quit Graphic Design altogether and decide to become a Personal Trainer. Start my own business. Absolutely love being a trainer, but struggle mightily building a business from the ground up. I have no plan. Never have!
Current day: my business is growing painfully slow and every day I thank my lucky stars for my handsome and supportive husband.
And here we are.
My A-Ha Moment
My life is unfolding literally one step at a time directly in front of me. In fact, I’m never certain of where I’ll land until my foot makes contact on whatever unsolid ground I plant it on. I never had a five-year plan — other than “make money”, which surprisingly still has yet to pan out.
And then one day, not too long ago, I thought that maybe it’s time for a focused, centralized, and structured plan.
And that’s when I had an epiphany. I quickly grabbed my phone and began typing and here’s what gushed out:
We see and focus with our eyes. What we focus on we see. I’m a visual learner and visual people need to see in order to understand.
When we see our faults because they’re easy to focus on. We know what they look like — either by looking in the mirror or by looking over our past and seeing where we are because of all our past decisions. We can see where we are right now and how we got there and that’s all we can “see”.
To change what we see, we have to change our focus. It can’t be on what we did in the past to get where we are — it can’t be on our failures, we’ll only then continue to make more because that’s what we’re focusing on. What you look at you move towards — like driving.
We need to focus on the unknown. The invisible and the uncertain because all we see is what’s right here, right now and there’s more to it than that.
Visualizing sets into motion actions that can get you to that image. Not the image you see this instant, but a new image of your making.
Change your focus. Make it so you see something else. That will bring it to life.
That was the actual brain dump — conscious flow writing. I was thinking faster than I could write. It was as if life nunchuked me over the head and my brain started pouring out all this, dare I say, wisdom and insight.
Things immediately became clear to me. I never gave much stock to visualizing because it didn’t make sense to me. Now, it makes perfect sense and if you’re not using it to your advantage, I believe you, and I are missing out.
When you create your vision, you create your future. When you back it up with intention, you become unstoppable.
What I’m learning about visualization is that it connects you to your creative subconscious; the idea generator, the problem solver. Gears begin shifting, lights turn on, calculations are made, and all this is happening under your own roof, without you realizing.
We see it manifest as “coincidence” or “chance happenings”. But it’s more than that. We created the shift, no one else. And the bigger our dream, the harder it is to create, the longer your subconscious will produce the energy to go after it. It wants to fix the friction created by where you are and where you want to be.
But if you have no vision for yourself, no idea of where you want to go, then there is nothing for the subconscious to work on. (Which has been my last 20 years!) I’ve been making choices, creating change, but doing it more spontaneously than systematically — by the seat of my pants, never once taking into consideration life 6 months, a year, or 5 years ahead.
Imagine the intensity you could create when you couple your vision with intention. You become a force to be reckoned with because intention determines outcome. It’s a commitment to carry out an action — intentional action in which there is nothing more powerful.
Last week I introduced a simple three-minute challenge and once you have created your crystal-clear vision, we’re going to then turn those three-minutes into a meditation creating and focusing on intentions — the actions you can carry out on a daily basis to strengthen your commitment.
Simplify to amplify.
Excitement can override rational thinking and when you begin to bridge the gap and find solutions on how to get from A to B — it’s exciting to think of all that potential you possess, leaving you taking on too much at once — a recipe we’ve all perfected over the years that creates frustration and burnout.
Resist the urge to change all the things at once and focus on simplifying your goals. By simplifying, you’re increasing your focus while limiting distractions — like putting blinders on.
Simplifying is taking on one or two goals, never more. And then it’s deciding how I am going to experience my days, directing each action to as best I can to make the future image I created a reality.
This is not a perfect practice, but it’s one worth undertaking if you feel lost and uncertain about what you’re exactly doing with your one chance here with this life.
Why visualize?
Reawaken your connection to your soul, your passion, your calling, your happy place.
It’s not a replacement for doing the hard work, but it can serve as motivation. Keeping your vision front and center will keep you on track. Add intention and action to that and slowly you’re going to feel the changes happening.
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In case fitness is your jam, and you’re having trouble getting into the flow, I have a free 14-Day Perky Butt Challenge that can get you started up again!
AM Costanzo is a wellness coach, a motivational junkie, loves a-ha moments, and loves to help people feel strong, powerful, and downright fabulous in body and mind!
