Concepts such as visualization and affirmations were popular long before the term "law of attraction" became mainstream, and long before the success of movies like The Secret. The reason for that is because those methods work. However, like any success method, you have to do it right in order to get the results.

If you want to visualize your way to success, then you need to find a way to evoke the emotional response that the success itself will feel like once you have attained it. You can sit around all day long looking at mind movies of your successful march down victory lane, but if those movies or images do not evoke the proper emotional response, then your visualizations will have limited effectiveness.

Photo Credit: WazariThe challenge with creating visualizations that evoke an emotional response is that you have to find something to be emotional about. Then, when you do, you must avoid cluttering the whole thing up with so much extraneous crap that you can't even consciously think about it properly, let alone set your subconscious to work on it!

Getting Emotional 

In order to find something to be emotional about, you need to really make the commitment to eventually attain whatever it is. Sure, everyone wants to take a swan dive into a pile of cash, have a body like a super-model, or to have their dream home off the coast of somewhere beautiful, but does whatever you are visualizing for create such a feeling of happiness, fulfillment, success, or confidence that you literally can't stop thinking about it?

If your answer is "yes," then you're on the right track. However, if you had to think about it, then there is a good chance you are trying to visualize something into existence that you don't want as badly as you think you do.

Remember: The purpose behind visualization is to evoke a positive emotional response that is so profound, and so wonderful, that you almost don't even need the "real thing" because you already feel like you have it! As Napoleon Hill says in Think and Grow Rich:

Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small fire brings a small amount of heat.

Keeping it Simple

Most people are familiar with Einstein's famous "E=mc²" formula. In very simple terms, it means that all energy can be turned into matter, and all matter can be turned into energy. To get energy, you multiply the mass of your object times the square root of the speed of light. OK, have you got that?

Now, do it in your head.

Pretty ludicrous, right? Yet that is exactly the type of situation that we put our mind in when we try to visualize all of our dreams coming true, and we try to visualize it all at once. Neither the conscious mind nor the subconscious mind can accurately and effectively extrapolate that many images all at once, let alone evoking a corresponding emotional response.

It's like trying to walk and chew gum at the same time, all the while patting your head, rubbing your tummy, calculating the aforementioned E=mc², and also trying to balance your check book - and you're doing it all in your head! (p.s. - Don't forget the ATM fees, the revolving interest rates, the monthly service charges, and that check you wrote for little Suzi's school fund raiser!)

The only way that you are going to effectively visualize is if you find a way to keep it simple. You don't need to know every single detail that leads up to HOW you got to the point of where you are in your visualization, all you need to know is the details of that very moment.

• If you see yourself shaking hands with the people from Publisher's Clearing House because you just won a bazillion dollars, then all you need to feel is what it's like in that moment. Give no thought to how many magazines you had to buy in order to get there.
• If you see yourself with a ripped, chiseled body, and people all around you are drooling, stammering, and tripping over their own two feet because you are presenting such a God/Goddess-like visage for them to look at, then all you need to visualize is that moment. Give no thought to how many Ab Ripper X routines it took, how many times you had to do Plyometrics, or how much you love to hate Tony Horton.
• If you see yourself on the top floor of the downtown corporate headquarters in your corner office, all you need to do is feel what it feels like to admire the view in that moment. Give no thought to how many nights and weekends you had to work in order to get that promotion, or to how many years it took you to get there.

---

Visualization is one of the most effective tools that you have at your disposal when it comes to marshaling your own resources, not to mention the hidden resources that may very well be a part of your success, even though you can't see that part of the equation yet.

Practicing what I Preach

My personal goal is to be the very first Super-Star Diamond Coach for Team Beachbody. No one in the history of the company has ever done it, and I want that slot. For fame and for glory? No. Because having that slot will mean that I have helped literally tens of thousands of people to take control over their health, their wealth, their freedom, and their very lives.

How do I visualize changing the lives of tens of thousands of people? I simply see myself walking across the stage and being handed this diamond-studded pin by the CEO and the president of the company, and I feel what that moment feels like.

It may be beyond my capabilities to envision changing tens of thousands of lives, but I can certainly envision two guys handing me a shiny pin that represents the changing of all of those lives. By keeping it simple, I keep it real, and I can put myself in that moment dozens of times each day - complete with the feelings of being there.

What about you? What are you doing dozens of times each day? 

WHAT'S NEXT?

Become a Team Beachbody Coach and help me Change Lives
Change your OWN life with the Million Dollar Body Club®
Discuss this post at Personal Development Partners
Check out my Personal Development Products
Sign up for the Today is that Day Newsletter