Your imagination has a lot of power. Try this right now: imagine a bright yellow fresh lemon. Got it? Cut it in half and lift one juicy half to your mouth. If you are really imagining this then your mouth will produce additional saliva, guaranteed. Who cares about more saliva? Well, this is a fun little demonstration of your power to imagine and create a physical reaction based purely on thoughts. We do this all the time without thinking about it: our hearts beat more quickly during a scary scene of a movie, we turn red at an embarrassing moment.
You can use your power of imagination to see the worst and create fear and stress and be stuck or imagine the best and create excitement and energy to navigate to success.
Think of a time in the past when you were struggling or worried about the future; it could be thirty years ago or just a few years ago or anywhere in between. The key is that you imagine the scene of a time in the past when you were unsure of your future. Got it? Now, imagine you are entering that scene and giving your earlier self a gentle hug and saying, “all will be ok and work out.” Now, imagine yourself five or ten years into the future: your business is thriving and you are living the life of your dreams that is completely aligned with your purpose. Got it? Next, imagine that future you coming here now and putting your arm around your shoulders and assuring you that you will make it and all is great.
If this feels too “new agey” for you then consider that world class athletes (like those starting in the Olympics this week) regularly use this type of technique to improve their performance and avoid their fear of failure. Also, see this Harvard Business Review blog post, “Choose the Fantasy World You Live In.”
Of course, imagining is the first (crucial) step, next is taking some small steps to start living into that future vision.
What do you think about this process for using the power of your imagination? How do you use your imagination to navigate to success? Please share in a comment
Special credit and thanks to Mary Morrissey who taught me this process of imagining into the future.
Photo credits: {tribal}, gilderic
Paula, I liked your Feb 12 post quite a lot. I had just read the Einstein quote in another book. I believe that we all can control our future to the extent that we have positive or negative thoughts about situations. Our thoughts can guide our actions in such a way as to create “self fulfilling prophecy”. I have seen examples of this myself and work to have positive thoughts about difficult situations. I find that it helps minimize my stress and most of the time the result is much better than I originally expected. Thank you for your positive messages. Bob Fairey
Thanks Bob. I agree completely that our thoughts often create our reality in a powerful way (for the good or bad). Minimizing stress is always a good thing! Paula