Visualization is not daydreaming. It’s a focused technique where you do mental imagery and see things exactly as you want them to be. You’ve heard the saying “everything happens twice” (my paraphrase). This is an old belief that is now, like so many others, incorporated into many motivational speaker’s repertoire. What it means, though, is that we first create what we want in our minds and then it happens in our lives. It may not be right away but it will happen. I had wanted to do the cross country trek for over 30 years and thought about it in my mind so many times. It took 30 years but it finally got started. I put it that way because you all know that it didn’t get finished…yet. I’m still working on that. When I was a kid I only wanted 3 things – to be a doctor, to have a horse and to meet Mickey Mantle. I ended up with two of the three so that’s pretty good. 

Why did I put the subject line as I did? Because if you're like me, you may not have been using visualization the best way. I have only discovered this recently. Most people, including me, think that you should visualize the outcome you want and if you're specific enough and rehearse it, it will come. But what I have discovered is that it's really helpful if you write down potential adversities that you will encounter and then have specific visualizations of how you will be overcoming or dealing with them. You need to do this for every type of obstacle you can think of. If you go along with the everything happens twice, this make sense. If you just write the obstacles down and in writing figure out a plan then that is good too. You are still creating the solution in your mind, just not in a formal visualization. Try writing it out and then do a visualization -  watching yourself figure out how to get across the stream without getting totally immersed or watching yourself making sure your kids are safe while you're doing a business video without them barging in, when these things occur, it will be like second nature to implement the solution. 

This type of visualization makes so much sense for we all know that when we want something big, there will be things that are considered obstacles in the way. If we anticipate and visualize how to navigate despite the obstacle, they then are no longer obstacles. 

This is exciting to me and will be something I implement for Vol State training. 

Hope you have a great day - you will if you visualize it!