Visualisation is something that you and I are born with but what does that mean?
You can use visualisation right now.
You can use visualisation even when you don’t want to. Visualisation can happen against your will.
Please, as you scroll down through this do me one favour and don’t think of pink elephants.
Thank you.
Visualisation is a way of helping us to see more clearly into a situation that may or may not come up in the future.
If you have been reading me for a while now, you know that I am a big fan of meditation. Meditation has been helping me to start the day right. I do it first thing after making my bed and doing my morning motivation. Morning motivation involves self-talk, affirmations and gratitude. I finish with meditation because it takes the longest. Meditation is a useful means of refocusing myself so that I can take on the day.
Part of my meditation now involves setting intent for the day and what is it that I want to accomplish that day. That involves doing visualisation exercises.
What are the visualisation exercises I hear you ask on the other side of the screen?
They are simple and do not require too much-complicated thought.
You just imagine yourself in the scenario that you will be in. You believe everything going well for you.
In case you think that this is just some new age nonsense, which you’re entitled to do. Let me point to one of my childhood heroes as a means of proof of the system.
Arnold Schwarchaneggar is a big believer in the power of visualisation. He would imagine everything going well for him. Arnold could see himself going through the motions. He would see the best version of reality coming true for him.
It should be noted that Arnold also put a lot of hard work in and there was definitely struggle involved. Arnies’ life has by no means been perfect. Look how far he has come. From the Austrian hills to a multiple Mr Universe. Defying all odds to be one of the biggest box office draws to the governor of California.
Visualisation didn’t put him where he is, but it could be argued that it helped.
Scarcity v abundance
When you’re dealing with people in the day to day think of how often they make excuses not to take action. I include myself in this bracket. People don’t not out of careful consideration but out of fear.
You probably know someone who is in a toxic relationship, and they know it too.
You tell them that they should get out. They can’t, not because of any deep love or sense of duty to that person. It’s because they’ll struggle to find someone again.
How does that make sense to you?
The truth is it doesn’t. They know that, and you know that. It’s ridiculous.
People would rather be in a bad relationship than spend time by themselves. They would instead take comfort in the bad than a moment of being unsure.
This is a scarcity mindset, and so many people have it in some form or another, and it is a death sentence. It’s killing you.
This scarcity mindset has been drummed into us over thousands of years. You and I are descended from the ones who endured ice ages, famine and war. You and I come from the ones who awaited the next disaster.
Here’s the thing.
You and I are living in the best possible time. If you are reading this, you are fortunate. Not because my writing is that good, I mean it is but you know? You have a certain degree of privilege. You have all these forms of distraction competing for your attention, and you’re reading me. Thank you. If you’ve access to the internet and time to read this, then you’ve more than the majority of people who have ever lived on this hurtling rock. That you and I are even alive puts us ahead of the majority of all existence.
You’re probably thinking where am I going with this?
What I’m saying is that you already have so much more than everyone and everything else. Why are you afraid of owning what you have?
Take my aunt.
I love her, but she is one of the most negative people I have ever met.
When my grandma died, we all went to the funeral home to bring her to the church. In the car was mum, dad, sister, aunt and me. It was one of the most frustrating car journeys. My aunt wastes so much of her time on negative hypotheticals, “What if this goes wrong?” “What if this happens”. I found it boring and annoying. She was wasting so much mental energy by attempting to engage everyone in coming up with solutions to bad scenarios that hadn’t happened. In fact, none of her worries came to pass. She had such a scarcity mindset that she could not see things going well. They went as well as funerals can.
You have to use visualisation for good.
How I use visualisation, how you can.
I do stand up on occasion. Sometimes it goes well sometimes not so much. Now it doesn’t matter because it will go better than most stand-ups I’ve done in the past. My worst sets are average at best because rather than going over my set, right before I am set to go on stage, I visualise. I imagine myself being the funniest person in the world.
“The world, slow down Kieran, you’re not that funny”. You might be saying that, but I’m quoting that little negative voice that lives inside my head.
When you’re visualising, you have to go big. I close my eyes and see myself getting up on stage. I’m enthusiastic, big smile and I’m able to hit all the notes and all the beats perfect. I can see the audience, they don’t just giggle, they are on the floor, rolling around losing bladder control. Paramedics are called in, defibrillators are used on people, but then they get caught up in laughing. People flat out die I’m that goddamn funny. I can’t finish my set because of the roar of the crowd.
That’s the visualisation.
The reality on the other hand.
The reality.
Reality is much different, but I’m more confident thanks to visualisation.
Next time you’re in a situation where you’re nervous, let’s get rid of the word nervous first. You’re not nervous you’re excited. You’re excited that people are coming to spend time in our company how lucky for them.
Visualise it going well. Make the image so big that it even shuts up that negative voice. That negative voice is a small child front row in an IMAX screen watching the movie of how well your life is going. It’s too engrossed to speak.
You can see it can’t you?
