This bootcamp is designed to help you gain insight into who you are, and help you determine the best approach to improve your life.
Welcome Back to Day Ten of our Self Improvement Boot Camp. This is David Riklan from SelfGrowth.com.
In Day 9, we learned about the importance of Learning from your Mistakes. Today, we are going to cover a very important area, Vision and Visualization.
Vision and Visualization are really two equally important topics that I am going to combine for this section. I also want everybody to keep in mind that this lesson can be tied into several other lessons in this boot camp, most notably Goal Setting and Identifying Your Desires. I’ll explain how these topics tie together in a moment.
Let’s start by defining Vision. To me, vision is the ability to know where you want to go and to see where you fit into the grand scheme of things. It’s your reason for being. It’s your life’s purpose. Once you have identified this, it becomes a type of compass for you. It keeps you focused in times of trouble and serves as your guide in making decisions about your future.
Maybe your life’s purpose a simple one - You want to earn a good living, raise happy children and retire healthy. Maybe, You want to have a fulfilling career, and be an integral part of your community. Maybe you want to make a difference in the lives of the elderly, or people with disabilities or abused or homeless people. To me, a personal vision is the big picture that ties together your Desires and enables you to focus on your goals.
Personal Visions could focus on your own life or you ability to impact the world around you. They could cover one area or cover many areas.
There are some prominent historical figures who had a Personal Vision that impacted the world. Abraham Lincoln’s vision was an end to slavery, and to promote equality in the human race. Gandhi’s vision was the independence of India from the British.
Do you need a Personal Vision to have a successful happy life? No, you don’t. Does a Personal Vision help focus you with everything that you do? Absolutely! One way to get you started with your Personal Vision is to answer this question? Imagine, just for a second, that you’ve inherited a windfall of cash from a relative or won the lottery. Working to pay your bills was no longer your prime focus. What would you do with your life?
Let me illustrate the importance of having a vision by telling you a little bit about my own personal vision. My personal vision is to continually grow mentally, physically and spiritually and to help provide information to other people so that they too can continue to growth mentally, physically and spiritually. My second personal vision it to keep re-evaluating my personal vision and make sure it remains consistent with my thoughts and my feelings. A personal Vision can change as you change and grow as you grow.
I started out this lesson with the importance of having a vision. The second thing I want to discuss is Visualizing or what some people call visualization. This is very different from Vision. The simplest description of visualizing is “the act of seeing your future success through positive mental images.”
I want to share another quote with you. This one is from Earl Nightingale about visualization and goals. He suggests that you “picture yourself in your mind’s eye as having already achieved this goal. See yourself doing the things you'll be doing when you've reached your goal.” The clearer the picture, the better. Many people promote this technique, and studies in sports have demonstrated its success. For instance. at the height of his career the golfer Jack Nicklaus always attempted to "see" the successful drive or putt before attempting it. Earl’s method of visualization essentially asks you to start at the end. Begin with the end in mind.
Let’s apply visualization to goal-setting. For example, if you would like to buy a new car by the first of next month, you’ll want to envision a mental picture of you driving that new car, or showing it off to your friends and family. By keeping that positive image in your mind’s eye, you’ll effectively be pushing yourself even harder to fulfilling your vision.
If you’re having trouble creating a clear mental image of your success, I’d like to share a couple of tips with you. Having something tangible to look at to help push you toward your vision can often help. For instance, let’s say you want a new car. Cut out a picture of the car you want, and paste it up in a prominent place where you can look at it whenever you need some motivation or stimulation. Try to remember this picture in your mind as often as you can on a daily basis. Remember that images are the language of the subconscious mind. Believe me – visualization works.
I’d like to leave you with another quote – this one is one of my favorites, mainly because of its simplicity. It comes from Walt Disney, and all he said was - “If you can dream it, you can do it.”
At this point of the program, feel free to review any of our previous sessions. We’ll talk again on Day 11.
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