It’s upsetting, but I realize a good many of the people reading this and other habit change articles I’ve written in IMIT will not end up practicing daily visualization. They’ll read this and know it’s a good idea. They’ll know they should do it.
But, they won’t do it. Some will though. Those who will make it a daily part of their lives, like you (hopefully), will be able to change bad habits and adopt any amazing, wonderful habit they want to.
Remember— it’s one thing to read a self-help book or article and decide that something is a good idea. It’s another thing altogether to actually put it into practice and know that you are going to make it your mission.
I want you to visualize daily. I want you to use visualization to change your habits and achieve your goals. That’s why this next part might surprise you. I know that you have an incredible number of things you want to change about yourself.
You have so many habits you’d like to change and so many goals you’d like to reach. It was hard enough when I asked you to focus on one reachable goal per month and one changeable habit per week. But now, I want you to hold off on all of that.
Yes— that’s right. Don’t start that process until you’re sure daily, vivid visualization is a fully formed habit of yours. You shouldn’t have to even think about it— you should wake up each day, automatically visualizing your success for the day. You should have it built in to your schedule (and completely expected) to visualize your habit-change and goals every day.
So, don’t focus on moving forward with your habit-change until that’s a reality. If you have made visualization a habit, it will be VERY easy for you to move forward and change your habits and reach your goals.
This is really the first step that will make all the other steps as smooth as butter. Of course, you can definitely succeed with habit-change and goal setting without visualization; it will just be more difficult. You’ve gotten this far and I know you’re pumped up about using visualization for habit change. That’s why I know you need to drop everything and make this a priority.
Goal— Make morning visualization a habit.
That’s your first goal.
How are you going to do it? Brainstorm! I suggest you set a reminder that goes off on your phone, right after your alarm does. Or, set it on your computer. Write it on a sticky note and put it on your computer or your bathroom mirror. Put it anywhere you will see it first thing in the morning.
Ideally, you’ll set it electronically right now, to go off every morning for 30 days so you don’t have to think about it. It takes around a month or more to make something a habit, so set yourself up for success. Make it so that you don’t have to remember it and you’ll be a lot more likely to follow through with it.
Now, all you have to do is write your to-do list every morning. Your to-do list should contain around 6 things that you must do that day. Everyone has things they must or should do every day— focus on yours.
After you write your to-do list, visualize yourself happily and successfully going through it. Go to your happy, distraction-free zone as you do this. Visualize using all of your senses to make the experience more real.
That’s it! It only takes a few minutes. Do this every morning for at least a month.
After that’s become a habit, add a visualization session at nighttime, where you visualize yourself achieving the major goals you’ve set for yourself. After that’s become a habit, add a mid-day session where you visualize habit-change.
Have you made visualization a daily habit of yours, at least three times a day? Are you feeling comfortable with it and ready to use it for long-term habit-change? Then, it’s time to move on so you can change your habits and achieve your goals. You can follow through with my general habit-change strategy and know that, with visualization, your chances of success are that much higher.
Visualization should become a habit in and of itself. It can then help you achieve habit-change in all other areas of your life. Practice daily and it will become like second nature to you.
Mind Movies and Vision Boards to Help You Along
Visualization is simple, fuss-free, and it works, right? But, there are some additional visualization tools you can use to boost your chances of success even further. These tools can help with your efforts to change your habits and achieve your goals.
I’m talking about mind movies and vision boards. These are simply physical representations of the visualization you do in your mind. These are great motivators and can be really fun to create.
It really doesn’t matter which type you create or even how many you create. These are simply motivational mindset tools for you— you do what you feel will help you the most. You’re going to create a mind movie, vision board, or both to look at on a regular basis. This really works, and it works well.
Let’s go over vision boards first. These can take any form you’d like. The idea is to find and collect images, quotes, words, and so on that represent the habits you’d like to adopt and the goals you’d like to achieve. You can create a poster board and cut out magazine pictures. You can make an online collage. Do whatever works for you.
Let’s say you want to get into shape. You can buy a fitness magazine and cut out pictures and snippets of articles that represent the habits you want to adopt and the goals you want to reach related to your fitness. You can then glue these representations to the pasteboard. Then, you can display the pasteboard where you’ll see it on a regular basis. You’ll see it when you’re conscious of it and when you’re not. This board will help to work on your mindset, will give you “food” for your visualization sessions, and more. Doing something like this can really help you achieve your goals.
You could even use something modern, like Pinterest. Let’s say you want to successfully start your own business and become financially free. You could open up a Pinterest account or start a single board on your current Pinterest account where you collect images, articles, and more related to the type of business you want to run.
You can find articles and images that represent the success you want to have. You can then make this page your homepage on your computer so you see it every time you log on.
The idea with both of these models is that you constantly feed your conscious and subconscious mind. This will help you visualize and it will help you change your habits. When you constantly see images related to the goals you want to achieve, you’ll naturally take steps and adopt habits that will make it a lot more likely that you’ll be successful. Try it— this is one of the secrets of people who are very successful when it comes to habit-change.
If you prefer, you can create something called a mind movie instead. This is simply a movie form of what was described above. Some people find these even more motivating because they can feature music and sound, and can therefore be stimulating to more of the senses.
It’s not difficult to create your own mind movie. You can use something as simple as PowerPoint. Gather images you like from around the web (legally). Write quotes and phrases you enjoy, to go with the images. Find music that motivates you or do a motivational voiceover for your video. You can save your PowerPoint as a movie (a built in feature) and upload it to YouTube. YouTube has royalty free music you can add in right from the site. If you’d rather not add it to YouTube, you can just keep the video file locally on your computer.
For an example of a mind movie that I created for myself and to inspire some of my followers to do the same years ago, you can watch here:
Feel free to watch it yourself as often as you like until you make your own. I used Powerpoint and Animoto to easily produce mine. The music was something that came licensed with the Animoto account that I paid for back then.
Watch your movie regularly. Look at your vision board regularly. Make it a habit to look at these things and add to them. Your goals and desired habits will change over time so these tools should reflect that. Visualization combined with a vision board or mind movie can be a powerful combination for your success. This can help you keep up with visualization and habit change daily.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download