It’s very important that you prepare your environment before you visualize so that you can see real habit change.
Yes, you can and should visualize anywhere, and whenever you need to. With that said, you’ll have better results if you have a quiet, positive environment than if you have a loud, negative environment.
What is a positive or negative environment? There are certain environments that just set us up for failure. For instance, if you’re in the middle of your family room with three kids running around, that’s going to be difficult.
Or, if you’re in the middle of a loud coffee shop (without noise-canceling headphones on), that’s going to be difficult. It’s better to be quiet. It’s better to be alone. You don’t want to have to fear anyone judging you. You shouldn’t care if they are… but you’ll probably feel a lot better if you are alone in the beginning.
You should also be somewhere you feel safe and happy. If you’re in an office situation where you’re constantly getting berated and feel incompetent, it’s going to be difficult to truly let your positive feelings come through.
You don’t want to associate your attempts to change your habits for the better with a negative environment. With that said, you can also use visualization to turn negative emotions and thoughts into positive ones.
Try to go somewhere quiet, where you feel safe and confident. Maybe that’s your bed in the morning, on your back deck, in the shower, or somewhere out in nature. It needs to be somewhere where you don’t have other distracting responsibilities, such as driving a car or watching children.
You can even create a little environment for yourself to help facilitate your visualization. Find a quiet corner of your home you can make more comfortable.
Find a great “spot” outside where you can go when you need to. Set up a place of meditation. You know your needs and personality best— do whatever you need to do to make sure you have successful visualization sessions.
Getting Distracted As You Visualize
One problem many people run into when they try to visualize their way to success is that they get distracted. Some people get distracted by external influences. Hopefully, that has been handled in the previous section since you’re taking care to have the best possible environment for your visualization sessions.
But, another problem is that you might get distracted internally. While you’re visualizing your way to success, other thoughts might sneak in. Maybe you’ll start to experience self-doubt. Maybe you’ll start to feel silly since this is all new to you. Maybe you’ll find your mind wandering and you wonder what you’ll have for dinner that night.
These are all very common problems. You need to learn to acknowledge these when they occur and to dismiss them. If you start to doubt yourself as you visualize, tell yourself it doesn’t matter— it’s your vision and you can dream up what you want to! It’s okay to dream big… in fact it’s a lot more than okay, it’s totally desirable and what you’re striving for.
Also, remind yourself that you’ve already set specific, measurable goals that you’re sure you can achieve. Remind yourself that others before you have been successful. If they can do it, you can do it.
This can all help you when you deal with self-doubt. Mostly, though, you need to dismiss that feeling of self-doubt. Again, over and over again, remind yourself that if others can be successful doing what you want to do, you can also.
In an ideal situation, your visualization sessions will be strictly positive sessions where you prime yourself for the real thing. The self-doubt will start to go away as you start to have true success with this strategy. You’re on an enlightened, important path and you’re changing every day. It will get easier and easier to dismiss the nagging doubt.
If you find your mind wandering, you should learn to recognize it. Don’t beat yourself up over it— just get back on track. Remember what you were doing, and why. You’re not having a session to think about what you’re reading or the TV show you watched last night.
Be aware of your thoughts and be okay with your thoughts… but also learn how to steer your thoughts back to where they belong. This will get easier the more you practice visualization.
Another problem is that you might start to feel silly. I completely understand this— it can seem strange to walk through your days and goals in your mind. It can seem strange to imagine yourself sweating and working out before a real workout session.
But, you have to tell yourself, does it really matter that you feel silly? What matters more— a few minutes of “feeling silly” for a couple of sessions or actually finding lasting habit change? I’ll take lasting habit change any day of the week.
Why do you feel silly, anyway? It might be because you’ve never done this before. It might also be your mind’s way of trying to get you to give up. You’re trying to change and humans shy away from change— we prefer to take the easy way out and that’s not what you’re doing, not anymore. You’ll get over the feeling as you start to practice daily visualization.
How Long Should Visualization Sessions Be?
I want to stress again that there is no right or wrong way to visualize. I think you should realize, though, that this process doesn’t have to take that long at all. That’s one of the wonderful things about it! You can do this in a matter of minutes a day. That’s right— in a matter of minutes a day, you can make dramatic, lasting change in your life.
Again, I suggest you start by visualizing the success you want to have in your day. See yourself accomplishing your to-do list and remember to work in all of the senses. That will make it more real and it will help you achieve when it comes time to work through your to-do list in real life.
There are bound to be certain projects you have to complete that really terrify you. These projects might seem so big and never-ending that you procrastinate on completing them and hesitate to start them in the first place.
In addition to helping you form new habits, visualization can also help you stop procrastination. Visualization really is a powerful tool, no matter what you’re trying to accomplish in your life. When you’re faced with a big project that you just can’t seem to start or finish, use visualization.
You should also revisit your short-term and long-term goals daily. Use visualization as a tool as you go through these goals. See yourself working through the habits you need in order to achieve those goals. If you do this daily, you’ll achieve your goals much more quickly than you ever thought you could. It’s an amazing thing!
Your visualization sessions can be just a few minutes long— but you’ll want to repeat them a few times throughout the day for different reasons and in different situations.
You’ll want to use them to work through your to-do list, for adopting new habits, and for achieving your goals. Soon enough, visualization will be a habit all on its own that you use to adopt better habits all around so you can achieve any goal you set out to achieve.
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