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Imagine it to live it
What becomes real in your mind
will become real in your life.
Visualization is the process of creating an experience or intention in your
mind, before you have it in your life.
Global superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger has made several references to
visualizing his goals before he actually achieved them. Michael Jordan, the
legendary basketball player, claims that he visualized the type of player he
wanted to become before he found success. In fact, top athletes often use
visualization. One of the best tennis players ever to grace our planet, Roger
Federer, says he uses it in his training regime. These sportsmen are training
and performing to perfection – within their minds.
Psychologists Alan Budley, Shane Murphy and Robert Woolfolk suggested
in their 1994 book that mental practice results in better performance than not
physically practising at all.
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The brain patterns that are activated when you
imagine
an action are very similar to those that are activated when you
physically perform the action, so visualization can actually train your brain
for the event.
When we visualize what we desire, not only do we align ourselves to vibrate
on the same frequency as the object of our visualization, but we also
influence our subconscious mind in the same way as we do with affirmations.
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The brain and the nervous system
cannot tell the difference between what
is imagined and what is real.
We can take advantage of this. If our brain believes that the ideas we’re
feeding it are true, then our life will begin to reflect that, too. If you imagine
yourself to be more confident than you currently are and the brain thinks it’s
true, you’ll be more confident!
Engage your senses
When we talk about visualization as a process, we don’t mean creating single
mental images. You have to create scenes, not pictures. In those scenes you
must involve all your senses: taste, sight, touch, smell and hearing.
Go into as much detail as you can. For example, if you want a new car, don’t
just picture the car. Put yourself in the car, driving it around. Think about
how you feel while driving it; the sound of the car; the sight of other cars on
the road; the temperature of the air around you, and so on. Live the
experience as if it were true in that precise moment. Get creative with your
scenes. Really bring them to life by making them bright, colourful, loud and
big. All you need to do is close your eyes and start creating.
It’s important to create a scene that makes you feel good. Your imagination
should ignite positive emotions, and this requires a lot of focus, so always do
it in a quiet place where you can relax and distance yourself from any
distractions.
When I use this technique, I get confirmation
that I’m doing it effectively when I start
to feel a little tingly. That is, I begin
to feel as if it is actually happening
and it fills me with excitement.
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If you find it hard to create visuals in your head, there are things you can do
to help yourself. Vision boards are very popular. Collect pictures and
clippings that depict what you want to manifest and fix them to a board. This
will help you clarify your goals, and you can place the board in an obvious
place in your home to keep you focused on their intentions.
I like to keep a vision board as well as practise visualization. I don’t keep a
physical board, but collect images on a personal website and try to spend a
few minutes viewing it every day. This has worked well for me. I even
manifested my dream proposal to my life partner by gathering images on
Pinterest, a popular vision board platform, of how I wanted it to look.
As a teenager, I used to produce music as a hobby. I was a big fan of a group
called So Solid Crew, one of the biggest acts around at the time. I had their
logo printed onto my school pencil case. In class, I daydreamed about
working with them.
A year or two later, a member of So Solid Crew, known as Swiss, released an
album called 
Pain ‘n’ Musiq
. I absolutely fell in love with this album and
would listen to it day and night. It put me in a trance and I’d visualize myself
working with Swiss and creating great music together.
Remarkably, it wasn’t long after this that I did have the chance to work with
Swiss; through a musical artist and mentor of mine called Clive, who
happened to be friends with him. Eventually the three of us collaborated on a
few songs, before just Swiss and I worked together.
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