The Fifth of 5 Goal Setting Mistakes Guaranteed To Bore And Sabotage You

“Picture yourself in your minds eye as having already achieved this goal. See yourself doing the things you’ll be doing when you have reached your goal.” – Earl Nightingale

The fifth mistake is simply this. You don’t create a picture in your mind that allows you to keep the goal front and center. You are not taking advantage of the power of visualization. But how does visualization work and how can it help?

How does visualization work? When we engage our imagination to see “in our minds eye” something we want or an outcome that we want to create, this is visualization in action. For example, it is often said that Michelangelo saw the figure of David in the rough block of marble before he started chipping away to reveal it. It is also speculated that Beethoven lost the ability to hear the full range of musical frequencies as his hearing began to fail. This showed up in his compositions from around that time, like Moonlight Sonata, where he began to make use of the lower notes. However, toward the end of his life when he was deaf, he again composed high notes into his work leading musical scholars to believe that he heard the notes in his imagination before he put them to paper.

How can visualization help? “When you visualize, then you materialize. If you’ve been there in the mind, you’ll go there in the body”. This quote by Denis Waitley, a psychologist to olympic athletes, helps us to see that it is possible to bring into reality almost anything you want in your life.

In an interview he did for the movie, The Secret, Waitley talks about the power of “visual motor rehearsal”. He says, “Using this program, Olympic athletes ran their specific event — but only in their mind. They visualized how they looked and felt when they were actually participating in their event.”

The biofeedback machines these athletes were hooked up to showed that “the same muscles fired in the same sequences as when they were actually running on the track.”

What did this prove? Waitley says, “If you can go there in the mind you’ll go there in the body.”

Just imagine. What if you could do that with your goals — the most mundane ones as well as the lofty ones. Drive a sporty new car? Own a house on the beachfront? Take a luxury vacation to an island resort of your choosing? Get the job of your dreams? Build a business of consequence that allows you to make a contribution to the lives of others and leave a legacy? I hear your disbelief. Seeing it in your mind is not enough. And just wanting it is not enough to attract it to you. I agree, wholeheartedly with you. But …

Visualization gives you a powerful place to start. It kicks you mind into that place of possibilities where you can formulate the plan, build the strategy, and get into action to bring the vision into reality, in other words, to make it materialize.

Sandy Alfonsi, who is a member of my mastermind group I facilitate, had a vision several years ago that started with a mission statement. She says, “It started with me as an insurance agent and financial planner. I wanted to be a one-stop shop for my clients. An omni — providing for all their business needs.”

Now, Sandy not only continues to run a successful insurance business but she has added a thriving financial wellness center, The Uptown Business Club, in the east end of the city of Hamilton, in Ontario, Canada, where she offers long and short-term leasing space for small business owners — coaches, lawyers, accountants, website designers — who, like her, want to move from meeting their clients in coffee shops, to bringing them into a high-end professional meeting place. Whether they need a small office, a boardroom, or a workshop classroom, it’s all there, including the specialty espresso coffees and catering.

She says, “I remember sitting up in bed and seeing it all happen. I knew what I wanted it to look like and my architect put my vision to paper.”

Visualization can also be used to help you be a better presenter. The most recent time I put this to the test was in giving a 10-minute presentation to over 125 people at a MoMonday’s Presentation event. Weeks before the event, I used my imagination to see myself standing tall and confident on the stage. Speaking with enthusiasm and power. I saw myself moving from one point to another by placing myself in various rooms within my house. Each room represented a different part of the speech.

When it came time to give the speech, I felt the adrenalin rush that comes with speaking in front of a crowd, but there was no panic, no anxiety. Of course, at the end, I felt I could have done better. There were a few thoughts that I left out but I didn’t allow that to make me falter, and no one was the wiser. The main message was delivered, in detail and on time. I got the first standing ovation of my life.

Visualization works. It can help you to experience “flow”. It allows you to move more quickly and easily towards your goal. You can even use visualization to become the person you want to be.

The late Dr. Nathaniel Branden, psychologist and self-esteem expert, used a method he called “Sentence Completion”, to help people change by increasing self-esteem, building confidence, and becoming more powerful by taking full responsibility for their lives.

Whether you want to create a little goal or a big goal. Set your life on fire or set the world on fire. Start with visualization. Engage your imagination and your five senses. Taste it. Smell it. Feel it. Hear it. See it. Experience it.