If I could give you one piece of advice for moving quickly into the life of your dreams, it would be to visualize once a day for 4 minutes.
Visualization is a practice of focusing your mind upon the end result you want to create. This allows you to “put yourself in the picture” and imagine what the end result will be like before you get there. It’s a powerful manifestation tool that’s been proven to help people achieve their goals and create change.
I visualize nearly every day (and have for the past 40 years). These are the 9 guidelines I follow. They’re not rules. You can come up with your own, but these work for me and I’ve got some rationale behind each one that I’ll share…
1. Once a day is all that’s necessary.
You don’t need to do it more. With one serious shot, you’ve created enough of an impression to convey the dream to the Universe. Let it go. Get back to the present moment. Take weekends off if you like. Such is the leniency of life’s magic.
2. No longer than 4 minutes at a time.
If you try to visualize longer, you’ll invariably begin daydreaming and then getting angry with yourself for losing focus. Then you might start labeling yourself with adult ADHD and begin believing you can’t visualize. You can. It’s simple. Give it just a few minutes each day.
3. Ritualize it.
Make a daily routine of it, like you do for brushing your teeth. In advance, choose the following: the time of day, the specific room in the house, a chair in that room. You’ll be far more likely to stick with a ritualized practice than trying to visualize whenever you think of it and can spare the time.
4. Imagine every conceivable detail.
Sights, sounds, colors, textures, aromas. Make it as vivid as possible in your mind. The more details you conjure, the more believable it will be; and the more believable it is, the more emotion you will feel; and the more emotion you feel, the faster the manifestation.
5. Feel it.
Throughout each session, get into a space of joy. Fake it if you have to. Imagine hearing congratulations from friends and strangers. Smile ear to ear. Feel yourself bursting with the happiness you anticipate. Imagine the absolute happiest time of your life, so far, and replicate that feeling. You don’t have to know why you’re so happy; just allow yourself to feel it! It’s joy you’re after anyway, which is life’s ultimate end result.
6. Script it in advance.
A minute or so before you begin visualizing, decide upon a scenario you’ll imagine moving through. Decide where you’ll be, who with, doing what, when, why, etc. For example, you might be pushing a grocery cart through a parking lot looking for your gorgeous new car. After you load it with your grocery bags, you’re off to your new office space to see if the package from your publisher arrived. Yes! Your new book translated into Swahili was delivered at 9:29 a.m. You show it off to your co-workers before leaving for the local high school, where you will give a talk on entrepreneurship. By scripting it in advance, you may feel more engaged and be less likely to daydream.
7. Put yourself in the picture.
Imagine yourself inside each image, experiencing all the details you’re visualizing: seen from your eyes, heard from your ears, felt in your heart. This is your life, this is right now, this is happening to you. Let it be your hands on the steering wheel of your dreamed-of car. Your palm in someone else’s palm as you walk side by side together down the beach. Your toes in the sand.
8. Dwell from the end result or beyond.
Visualize your life as it will be after your dream comes true. It’s already done. You’re already celebrating. Everything is amazing, better than you imagined it would be. Now, what are your new dreams, your new priorities, your new challenges? This perspective implies you’ve hit a total home run. That everything worked out. That you did it (not that you are doing it). Imagine your life a week, a month, or a year after the dream has come true. The only way this perspective could ever come to pass is if the dream has come to pass… and so it shall, with the freedom you’ve left to Divine Intelligence to find the shortest, fastest, most harmonious way (maybe even in ways you haven’t thought of).
9. Get physical when visualizing.
Really! This is just an extension of Guideline 5, which is worthy of the extra attention. As you sit there and imagine that your dream has already come true… physically celebrate! Wave your palms, pump your fists, wipe imaginary tears from your eyes. Perhaps stand up and do a little happy dance. Belt out a few “Whoohoos!” Why? To ramp-up your energy into an elevated, emotional place of ecstasy. It won’t matter if you’re “faking it.” Feel it! The rate at which your “thoughts become things” is all about the emotion you attach to those thoughts. Joy is pure “rocket fuel” for manifestations.
What are you visualizing for your life? Love, adventure, prosperity, peace? These 21 guided visualizations will help to get you there.
