Tag Archive for: creative visualization

7 Simple Ways to Change a Paradigm – Make a Paradigm Shift Today!

In this article, you’ll learn 7 simple and powerful ways to change a paradigm.

I’ll start by defining what a paradigm is, using definitions from Bob Proctor and others.

I will then cover the 5 specific things that keep a paradigm in place. When you know these, you’ll know why you stay stuck, and why it’s hard to change a paradigm permanently. If you want to make a paradigm shift, then you need to know what these are.

I then explain how paradigms are created in the first place. There are 5 components behind any paradigm. It is one or more of these that are behind all the unwanted paradigms in your life. I’ll also talk about the influence between the conscious and subconscious mind and how that keeps old paradigms in place.

I then cover my 7 simple and effective ways to change a paradigm. You can follow these step by step if you wish or take on some and add the others later. However, once you learn and apply them, you’ll be on the road to making the paradigm shift in your life that you desire.

Watch the Video Below:

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What Is a Paradigm?

Bob Proctor defines a paradigm as “a group of habits that are programmed in your subconscious mind that control your behaviour.”

A paradigm is a road map of events that have happened in your life and the meaning that you give to them.

Paradigms are known as set-points. Think of how the thermostat on a central heating or air-conditioning system keeps the temperature within a precise range.

The same happens subconsciously within us. We like life to be a certain way that feels comfortable. If life falls below this level, we make changes to improve things.

If it goes above, we start to believe that “life can’t be this good”, or “I don’t deserve this”, and we start to self-sabotage. Has this happened to you?

What Keeps Paradigms in Place?

There are 5 things that tend to keep paradigms in place. Knowing these will make it easier to change them. These are:

Sense of Identity

This is your sense of who you are in a certain area of your life. It’s normally defined using an “I am” statement. For example, “I am a fat and greedy person.”

All behavior comes from your sense of identity, so if you identify yourself as a fat and greedy person, then it’s going to be harder to change your paradigm to a slimmer person.

If you want to make a paradigm shift towards being calm and relaxed, but you identify yourself as “an anxious person”, then that’s going to create a conflict.

So you want to change your identity statements so that they are in the positive and towards what you want. For example, “I am a calm and relaxed person” or “I am a successful person”, or “I am a person that is good with money”.

Beliefs

Another one is your beliefs about what is possible for you.

Let’s say you wish to change your paradigm around money, but you have a belief that making money is hard or requires a lot of effort. So that belief is going to hold your existing paradigm around money in place.

Perhaps you would like to make a paradigm shift towards attracting the perfect person into your life, so that you can have a wonderful, beautiful, romantic, and loving relationship.

However, if you have a belief that dating is difficult or that all the best people are taken, then this will make it much harder to change this paradigm.

At a deeper level, you might have beliefs about not being good or worthy enough. This can really hold you back from shifting your paradigm in one or more areas of life.

Consistent Thoughts, Actions and Habits

Your consistent thoughts, actions and habits can also play a part in reinforcing your current paradigm or forming a new one.

How You See the World

This is your mental view of the world. Do you see the world as abundant, beautiful or do you see it as difficult or competitive, like a “dog eat dog” world.

Self-Image

This is how you see yourself. Your self-image is the internal sense of who you are and your ability to do things.

You Can’t Live Without Paradigms!

We couldn’t function in life without paradigms! We need paradigms to drive a car, to master a sport or to learn to play the piano or another musical instrument.

We have a paradigm for jumping out of bed when the alarm goes off or staying in bed and hitting the snooze button! Being motivated or not motivated is also a paradigm. Focussing on what you want versus what you don’t want, is also a paradigm.

How Paradigms Are Created

Paradigms don’t just happen! They are created, and often at a very young age! Knowing how they are created will give you some clues on how to change them.

Paradigms are created from habits that we gain as we grow up. Some of these habits serve us, others don’t.

They come from what people told you. This could be family members, friends, teachers, even the lyrics of songs. Examples include, “you’ll never amount to much”, “you’re useless at math, why don’t you just give up”.

When you are under the age of 8, you tend to naturally accept anything that family, teachers and friends tell you.  Even if its super negative or hurtful! The part of the brain that challenges these ideas is not fully formed until the age of 8.

If these limiting ideas are not challenged as you become older, then they become subconscious beliefs that drive your thoughts, feelings, and actions.

They also come from life experiences and the meaning we give them. And from other people around you, especially those you spend a lot of time with. Childhood friendships can influence your paradigms in positive or negative ways as well.

The 7 Ways to Change a Paradigm

My 7 ways to help you change a paradigm are listed in a logical order, so you can make this a step-by-step process if you wish to. Alternatively, you can try one or two for now and add the others later.

1. Identify Negative Paradigm and the Opposite Positive One

The current negative paradigm will either be in a specific area of life. This could be health, relationships, career, or money. Or it could be changing something about yourself, which will then improve all areas of your life.

Here are some examples.

  • Looking for solutions internally, rather than externally. This is a wonderful shift when dealing with health challenges.
  • Living in the present, instead of regretting the past or worrying about the future.
  • Moving from drifting to living with intention.
  • Changing your focus from lack to gratitude.
  • Transforming from a lazy person to someone that takes massive action.
  • Going from self-obsessed to focussing on others needs.
  • Switching from thinking about what you don’t want to what you do want.

2. Create a New Identity Statement

As mentioned earlier, all our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, actions, and habits come from our sense of identity. Our sense of who we are.

Many people say things to themselves that reinforce an identity that is limiting. For example,

  • I am an anxious person
  • I’m not a good mother

Also look out for identity statements that start with My”. For example, “my anxiety”, or “my addiction”.

When you spot these, change “my” to “this”. For example, “this anxiety”, or “this addiction”. This immediately changes it from something you are (part of your identity) to something you do (a behavior). It’s a subtle, but very important shift.

So create some new identity statements that support the paradigm shift that you wish to create in your life. Here are some examples.

Your new identity statement should begin with the words “I am”

Now repeat your new statement out-loud and in front of a mirror if you can. As you say them, notice how your body feels. Focus on the feelings behind certain words, such as motivated, successful or healthy.

Your subconscious mind will pick up on the feelings behind the words, far more than the words themselves.

As you’re saying this new phrase, look out for any resistance. This will often be a voice in your head that says something like “that’s not true” or “who are you kidding!”

It could also be a physical change, such as a muscle twitch when you repeat a certain word or phrase. Be on the lookout for these. They can be very subtle.

3. Identify New Beliefs

From the above identity statement, come up with some new empowering beliefs that will support this new identity statement.

For most people, it’s easier to start with limiting beliefs. So write a list of all those old limiting beliefs that no longer serve you. Then write the exact opposites. These will be your new positive, empowering beliefs.

Ensure that your new positive beliefs are about what you do want. For example, I can be calm and relaxed, as opposed to I don’t want to be stressed.

Here are some examples of positive, empowering, and supportive beliefs

  • I find it easy to come across really well in interviews
  • I am naturally good with money
  • Every day, in everyway, my health is improving.
  • I find it easy to make the right food choices
  • I can be natural and myself on dates
  • Dating is fun

4. Creative Visualization

Using creative visualization is a fantastic way to change a paradigm. This is because your subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between a real experience and one that is vividly imagined. When you imagine something clearly, it uses exactly the same circuits in your brain and nervous system as actually experiencing it! 

This is hugely powerful! It means that the more you imagine the outcome (or paradigm shift) that you desire, the more your brain begins to see it as something that you already have. It begins to feel natural and real, as if it’s already happened! 

It also helps dissolve any negative or limiting memories that might be keeping you stuck in your current paradigm.

When using creative visualization, imagine what you want in precise detail and use all the senses. Notice what you can see, hear, feel, taste, and touch.

Also, notice your empowering internal self-talk and the positive feelings in your body as you see this goal achieved in graphic detail!

To learn more about creative visualization, read my two related blog posts below

A Powerful Creative Visualization Exercise for Rapid Change

10 Steps to Transform Your Creative Visualization Skills

5. Affirmations

Your brain is constantly repeating affirmations and most of the time, they are negative! Do you ever say these regularly to yourself?

  • I’m stupid.
  • I always make mistakes
  • My memory is going
  • I always feel anxious

Well, these are all negative affirmations that are affirming what we don’t want.

So repeating positive affirmations is essential to redress the balance and help your subconscious mind focus on what you want, rather than what you don’t want. It’s a no brainer, really!

Positive affirmations that improve your sense of “enoughness” are a great place to start. For example,

  • I have enough money
  • I have enough friends
  • I have enough knowledge
  • I am good enough
  • I am smart enough
  • I am intelligent enough

These types of affirmations can really help improve your self-esteem, self-worth, and self-confidence.

Affirmations that start with “I am” are incredibly powerful too. For example:

  • I am good at making money
  • I am good at making friends
  • I am good at attracting the right people into my life.

When repeating affirmations, look out for resistance. This will either be a voice in your head that says something like “oh no you’re not” or “who are you kidding!”. Or it can be a slightly uncomfortable feeling.

If you notice this, change the affirmations to start with “I want”. For example,

  • I want to be good at making money
  • I want to be good at making friends
  • I want to be good at attracting the right people into my life.

This makes the affirmations less direct and will usually satisfy any inner resistance. 

After a few days, you can progress to “I can” affirmations. These are a little more direct. For example.

  • I can be good at making money
  • I can be good at making friends
  • I can be good at attracting the right people into my life.

To understand more about the different types of phrases used to start affirmations, check out my related article below.

How to Create Affirmations That Work Extremely Effectively

6. Faith

Developing faith can be a wonderful way to change a paradigm. Faith is taking action anyway, even when you don’t believe that something is possible, or that you can do it.

In most cases, people take action when they have some degree of belief that they can do it. However, this creates a catch-22 situation.

If you don’t believe something is possible, then you probably won’t take action. However, often taking action can be a catalyst for changing your beliefs. 

To change your paradigm, you’ll need to overcome this catch-22 situation. And the way to do this is by having faith.

Faith is also believing in someone or something that you can’t see or physically prove.

So faith is beyond belief. Faith comes from the heart, belief comes from the mind. Faith is trusting in the process or trusting in a higher power.

Faith is also focussing more on the What, and letting go of the How.

The main thing that gets in the way of faith is the analytical brain. When you can let go of the how or simply ignore this part of your brain and take action anyway, then you are acting with faith.

So whenever you don’t believe that something will work, but you take action anyway, you are acting with faith.

7. Get out of Your Comfort Zone

What do you think is the biggest thing preventing you from changing a paradigm? The answer for many people is fear. This could be fear of failure, fear of rejection, or fear of getting hurt.

The solution is to do the thing that you fear. To take action, in-spite of the fear. Or, as Susan Jeffers recommends, “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” Often, this means getting out of your comfort zone.

When you do something you fear, it will feel uncomfortable initially, but you’ll feel wonderful afterwards! Think of a time when you overcame a fear, and you’ll probably find that this is the case for you too.

Also, look at the things that people you admire do. What do they do differently? Start doing those things.  When you can do the things that other people are not prepared to do, then you’ll get the results (and the paradigm shift) that other people only dream about!

To Sum Up

Paradigms are essential for developing skills and habits. However, Paradigms that don’t serve you can be changed. It might take some effort, but it’s well worth it. So start applying one or more of these 7 steps today, so that you can make a paradigm shift in your life and reap the rewards!

Thank you for reading this article.  If you enjoyed it and found it useful, then please share it with other people, or on social media.

Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Paul

The 12 Best Self-Development Activities That Will Change Your Life

What are the best self-development activities?  The ones that work consistently, reliably and give you the results you desire.  In this article, you will learn 12 of the best activities to improve yourself quickly and effectively.

I start by explaining what self-development is and what it isn’t. I’ll then briefly share my self-development journey with you.  This will help you understand what is possible when you consistently apply self-development activities to your life.

I’ll then uncover the 12 best self-development activities for an awesome life.  Don’t feel you have to do them all! Just pick the activities that resonate with you. The ones you feel are most helpful right now.

Watch the Video Below:

Listen to the Podcast

What Is Self-Development

Self-development is about becoming more and wanting more in life.  It’s having greater success, happiness, or being more effective and proficient. It’s about developing your talents and potential and achieving your goals and dreams.

A key part of self-development is becoming more self-aware. This is understanding yourself and why you do things. It’s knowing your strengths and weaknesses. It’s being clear on your life’s purpose, mission and values.

So self-development is developing yourself by yourself. But perhaps with the help of other people, through coaching, therapy, reading books or watching videos.

The self-development industry in the US is worth $11 billion. Every year $500 million is spent on personal development products, courses and seminars. It’s a vast market!

What Is Not Self-Development.

Self-development is not being “fixed” by someone or something else. The power to change ultimately lies within you, not someone else.

It’s not learning personal development without applying it to your life. It’s not a dopamine hit. This is consuming self-development content purely to feel better now. This often leads to becoming a personal development junkie.

If you want self-development to be more than a hobby or entertainment, then it’s essential that you apply what you learn.

Would you like a step-by-step formula for success? Or to learn the rules that successful people follow? If so, click the button below to discover this for yourself.

My Self-Development Journey

My first experience of self-development was attending a seminar on stress management whilst at university. This was fascinating and encouraged me to learn and practice meditation.

When I moved to London, I became interested in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and was actively involved with the NLP practice groups in London.

There were three books that I read that had a massive impact on me.  There were.

At this time, I wanted to improve my social confidence and dating skills. I used self-development activities to help me do that successfully.

I had a wonderful life in my 30s. I got married, had many friends, a brilliant career and lots of opportunities to travel. So, I lost interest in self-development. 

In 2010, we moved to Sydney Australia and continued to have a wonderful life. However, I didn’t feel happy or fulfilled in my career, despite changing jobs several times. Now, in my 40s, I also had some niggling health issues that influenced my state of mind.  I became more interested in natural health. That then led me back into self-development and especially mind-body healing.

I decided to make self-development my career, so I invested in training to become a qualified clinical hypnotherapist and also launch the Self Help for Life online business and brand.

The 12 Best Self-Development Activities That Will Change Your Life

So now you know what self-development is, lets dive into 12 of the best self-development activities that have changed my life and I’m sure they will do the same for you too.

1. Affirmations

Affirmations are short, positive statements about what you want in life. You repeat these statements as often as you can. Repeating them out-loud is most effective, but silently to yourself is good too.

Affirmations help replace those repetitive negative thoughts that keep you stuck. You’re already saying negative affirmations to yourself, so you’re simply replacing these negative affirmations with positive ones.

Related Articles

How to Create Affirmations That Work Extremely Effectively

How to Write Affirmations that are Believable and Get Results

An alternative to affirmations is Lofty questions. You can learn about these here.

2. Meditation

Meditation is highly effective for reducing stress and anxiety. Meditation helps you gain a greater awareness of your thoughts and feelings. And when you’re meditating, you can change those thoughts and feelings, or let them go.

The easiest way to meditate is to focus on your breathing. Close your eyes and focus on breathing in and breathing out.  Whenever your mind wanders (and it will frequently, especially if you’re new to this), then accept that this is fine.  It’s completely natural.

Then as soon as you notice your mind wandering (and this could be a few seconds after your mind wondered), gently bring it back to your breathing.

Another option is guided meditations. This is listening to a recording of someone giving you relaxing suggestions. You then focus on the words being said. There are thousands of guided meditation recordings available and also guided meditation mobile apps.

3. Creative Visualization

We naturally use our imagination. However, it’s typically for worst-case scenarios or things we are afraid of. Just like thinking negatively, we imagine negatively too.

Creative visualization allows you to counteract negative imagery by vividly imagining what you want instead. It’s seeing situations and activities going the way you want them to go. Creative Visualization is often known as mental rehearsal, especially in sports and athletics.

Creative visualization is much more than seeing the positive outcome in your mind. It includes hearing and feeling it too. You want to engage all the senses, even smell and taste if you can.

Olympic athletes use creative visualization all the time. It’s an essential part of what they do to become the best in their sport.  They might not consciously use creative visualization, but they definitely do it unconsciously. 

Related Articles

A Powerful Creative Visualization Exercise for Rapid Change

10 Steps to Transform Your Creative Visualization Skill

4. Self-Hypnosis

Self-hypnosis is like guided meditation.  However, it’s more goal oriented. People use self-hypnosis to increase motivation or confidence. Or to stop a bad habit such as smoking, overeating or drinking too much alcohol.

The easiest way is to listen to a self-hypnosis recording. There are thousands of those available and some are more effective than others.

I use and recommend the self-hypnosis recordings created by Uncommon Knowledge. Their website is https://hypnosisdownloads.com. 

You could learn how to hypnotize yourself without using self-hypnosis recordings. I cover this in one of the related articles below.

Related Articles

How to Hypnotize Yourself | A Self-Hypnosis Tutorial

Self Hypnosis and Meditation – What’s the Difference?

5. Journaling

When we keep thoughts in our head, this can lead to overwhelm and confusion.  It’s very easy to blow things out of proportion. To make it much bigger than it really is.

Journaling is writing your thoughts on paper (or in a computer file). When you do this, you gain a fresh perspective, a calmer mind and greater clarity. Writing can help release emotions too.

For the best results, write your thoughts on paper. However, if you prefer to type your thoughts on your computer, tablet or smart phone, that’s fine too.  The most important thing is to do it!

6. Setting and Achieving Goals

Most people use self-development activities to improve or change their life.  This starts with setting goals, so you’re clear on what you want to achieve and by when. Goals provide a focus for all the other self-development activities.

When you set goals, this gives you the desire and motivation to consistently work on self-development activities. You have a specific reason and benefit to work on yourself.

I encourage you to set SMART goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound.

Start by setting goals for this year, and then smaller quarterly or monthly goals.  Equally important is reviewing your goals regularly, at least monthly. Check that you’re on track and make any adjustments to maximize your chances of achieving these goals.

Related Article

How to Set and Achieve Your Goals

7. Coaching

A one-on-one coaching session is a highly effective form of self-development. An excellent coach will ask you direct, dedicated and personalized questions to help uncover your blind spots.

They will help you expand your beliefs about what is possible for you. A professional coach will also identify and help you change any limiting beliefs.

An important benefit of coaching is goal setting with accountability. It’s much harder to wriggle out of a goal that you have shared with a life coach.  You are accountable to the coach. If you fail to achieve the goal, you will need to explain your reasons (and excuses) to your life coach.

In the same way as a Personal Trainer will drive you to do 30 push-ups, when you only feel like doing 20, a skilled coach will spur you to achieve your goals faster and expand on what is possible.

8. Therapy

Therapy differs from coaching. It helps heal past events that stop you from moving forward in your life right now. Therapy helps you deal and resolve traumatic events. Or childhood events that shape your beliefs about what is possible for you right now.

There are different types of therapy.  These include counseling and various forms of psychotherapy. If you see a psychologist, they will often use Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

There is also hypnotherapy, which is what I specialize in. Hypnotherapy can help deal with, heal and resolve past events. Or it can be more solution focused, which makes it similar to coaching.

If you would like me to be your therapist or coach, then this page provides further details.

9. Overcoming Fears

One of the best self-development activities is overcoming your fears. I believe that fear is the biggest barrier to success. It’s fear that keeps people stuck. One of the fastest ways to grow and improve yourself is to overcome fears.

Do things that scare or frighten you, especially those that won’t affect you physically. For example, public speaking, talking to strangers, tough phone calls or recording videos.

Perhaps it’s having that difficult conversation with your partner or boss that you’ve been putting off for weeks.

Rather than tackling your biggest fears head on, you can start gently.  Break down your biggest fears into smaller action steps. As you complete each step, your confidence and experience will grow and you’ll feel more able to overcome the bigger fears.

Another way to strengthen your fear muscle is to do something new, unfamiliar or a little uncomfortable each day.  This could include going to a new café, trying a different food or exploring a more efficient way of doing a task at work.

10. Completing Challenges

A challenge is when you invest a significant amount of time and energy to achieve something monumental in a relatively short space of time. Here are some examples.

  • Training and then running a marathon
  • Starting a business
  • Changing jobs or your career
  • Losing a significant amount of weight.

When you set challenges, it forces you to step up and become more.  Challenges help you prove that you can do something, that you thought was difficult or even impossible.

Challenges are fantastic for overcoming habits and for achieving the more important and meaningful goals in your life.

For challenges to work effectively, you want to specify an exact amount of time.  This could be 30, 60, 90 or 100 days.  For me, 100 days works incredibly well.  I started Self Help for Life and my Hypnotherapy business in 100 days.  You can achieve so much in 100 days when you put your mind to it. It’s also long enough to make it a habit.

I do a 100 Day-Challenge every year and I use Gary Ryan Blair’s 100 Day Challenge program to motivate me, inspire me and keep me accountable during that time.

Related Articles

How to Change Your Life in 100 Days

100 Day Challenge Review | Gary Ryan Blair

11. Taking Action

I touched on this earlier, but it’s so important! Learning a new self-development activity, tool or technique is useless if you don’t apply it to your life. Or a Stephen Covey says “to know and not to do is not to know”.

So here are some examples:

  • Reading and learning the most effective dating techniques versus going on dates
  • Researching the most effective ways to speak in public versus speaking in public
  • Learning all the different ways to make money on the internet versus starting an internet-based business.

Knowing is easy. You can gain the knowledge by going to university or surfing the web. All the information you need is readily available.

Doing is applying what you’ve learned and testing it out.  You’re not fully committed at this stage.

Living is taking consistent action on what you’ve learned. You improve through repetition. This leads to consistent and predictable results.  The action becomes a habit and perhaps even part of who you are.

12. Expressing Gratitude

The key reason for doing self-development activities is to achieve something that we don’t already have.  It’s easy to become focussed (even obsessed) about achieving goals and major life changes.  This can lead to unhappiness and frustration, especially if the goal takes much longer than you intended.

It’s easy to forget what you have now and the good aspects of your life. Therefore gratitude and appreciation are so important.

Take a few minutes to be grateful for what you already have. Write all the things you’re grateful for and that you appreciate. Create a gratitude journal and list additional things each day.

Focus on simple things such as having enough food, good health, a safe and comfortable place to live or enough money. Be grateful for waking up and experiencing another day of your life.

Related Article

The 11 Benefits of Gratitude and How to Practice it Daily

To Conclude

So now you have a list of the 12 best self-development activities, including many of the ones I do regularly. If you want to crush your goals, be happier more fulfilled and more successful, then apply some of these self-development activities to your life and reap the benefits.

Thank you for reading this article.  If you enjoyed it and found it useful, then please share it with other people, or on social media.

Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Paul

A Powerful Creative Visualization Exercise for Rapid Change

Creative Visualization is a fantastic way to achieve goals and improve your life more quickly.  There are lots of ways to practice creative visualization. In this article, I have identified the best ways and combined them into a powerful creative visualization exercise.

You will discover what creative visualization is, how it works and the benefits of doing a creative visualization exercise regularly.

I will then uncover a powerful 4 step creative visualization exercise that will help you make rapid changes in your life. Use this exercise to improve a skill, change a habit, or improve your ability to manifest with the Law of Attraction. You choose the goal and then with practice, creative visualization will work its magic!

Watch the Video Below:

Listen to the Podcast

What Is Creative Visualization?

Creative Visualization is using your imagination to picture goals and things you want to achieve in life. It’s also known as mental imagery or mental rehearsal. It’s a wonderful way to reprogram your subconscious mind.

Your brain and nervous system cannot tell the difference between a real experience and one that is vividly imagined.  This is the reason Creative Visualization works so effectively. When you vividly imagine the things you want in life, your brain and nervous system will believe that they already exist and will act accordingly.

Why Use Creative Visualization?

There are so many positive benefits to using Creative Visualization. It helps increase motivation and desire. When you visualize and take action, you will achieve your goals more quickly. Remember, taking action is important too.

It activates the creative part of your subconscious mind.  This floods your mind with fresh ideas and other ways to achieve the goal. Ideas that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.  I call this the “ideas machine”.

It influences the Reticular Activating System. This is the part of your brain that notices people, resources, opportunities and circumstances that help you achieve your goal.

You have already seen the reticular activating system in action. For example, when you buy a new car, drive it home and notice many other people with the same car.  To learn more, read this article on the reticular activating system and goals.

Creative visualization helps you feel motivated and take inspired action, with less reliance on willpower. As a result, you achieve far more. Also, it’s much more enjoyable when you take inspired action.

It positively influences your thoughts about what you’re good at, bad at, and what’s possible and not possible for you. Creative Visualization influences the actions you take both consciously and unconsciously.

When you use creative visualization to change your self-image and sense of who you are, this influences your beliefs, values, actions, and behaviors.

Now, I reckon you’re already using creative visualization without knowing it!  A superb example is planning your next holiday. You take action by booking your flights and accommodation. Perhaps you book some tours or activities too.

You then look forward to your holiday. You do this by imagining or visualizing it. Perhaps you imagine the destination, what the accommodation might be like and the places you might visit. I’ve done this many times and often when I arrive, the destination and hotel is very different to what I imagined!

So you’re already using creative visualization. This article will help you develop a skill that you already have. This is the power of your imagination.  

Related Article: 10 Steps to Transform Your Creative Visualization Skills

The Basics

So you now know what creative visualization is. You also know the amazing benefits of doing it. So, let’s cover how to do it.
Find a quiet, relaxing space where you won’t be disturbed for a few minutes. Then think about an area of life that you want to change. Identify a goal or outcome for this visualization session. What would you like to be different or better?

I recommend choosing one specific goal for each visualization session. If you have multiple goals in different areas of life, then use a separate visualization session for each.

Goals where creative visualization can work its magic include:

  • Developing a new skill. For example, being confident in social situations or presenting.
  • Improving a sport.
  • Having more money or success in business.
  • Overcoming a health challenge, perhaps by visualizing your body healing.
  • Intimate relationships. Meeting someone new or improving your existing relationship.

So as you can see, the sky is the limit in terms of what you can use this for.

Once you have decided on the goal or outcome for your creative visualization session, set a timer for 5, 10 or 15 minutes.

The 4 Step Creative Visualization Process

This visualization process incorporates two fundamental visualization techniques. These are association and disassociation.  More on these shortly.

Step 1: Relax Body and Mind

When you relax your body and mind, this slows down your brainwaves from the Beta state to the slower Alpha state.  The Beta state is normal waking awareness. People with high levels of anxiety will have a faster brainwave speed towards the top of the Beta range.

The Alpha state is a relaxed, meditative state where your brain can focus more on one idea or concept. In this brainwave state, you can influence your subconscious mind much more powerfully and effectively than in a normal waking state. 

Here are two ways to relax your body and mind

  1. Use my rapid relaxation exercise to relax completely in 6 minutes. You can download this here.
  2. Take a long slow deep breath in, followed by a long slow deep breath out.  Repeat this for 2 to 3 minutes until you feel relaxed, calm and centered.

Step 2: Visualize on a Movie Screen (Disassociated)

This is seeing yourself in the visualization, rather than seeing it through your own eyes.  The technical term for this is disassociated. It’s visualizing yourself in a movie where you are the major character. 

You can imagine being in a cinema and watching yourself on this enormous cinema screen. Or watching yourself on TV from the comfort of your own couch.
Or you could watch a movie of yourself on a computer, tablet or smartphone. Use whatever feels right for you. For this creative visualization exercise, I will use a movie cinema.

Imagine yourself going into a movie cinema. You sit in the seat with the best view of the screen. You see the lights dim, and the movie begins. Visualize a gigantic movie screen. The bigger the better.

On this movie screen, see yourself doing the skill perfectly. See yourself having achieved the goal or outcome. Make it vivid and incredibly detailed. The more detailed the better.

When you first start visualizing, it will be a little hazy, but like any skill, it will get better with practice. Your imagination is like any muscle. It gets better and stronger with practice.

As you see yourself in the movie, notice your facial expression. Notice yourself smiling. Observe how you hold yourself, that confident posture. Then notice other people in your movie.  See them smiling at you. Notice their positive response to what you say and do.  

Now bring in other senses. Listen to what other people are saying to you. However, remember that you are still visualizing disassociated, so see yourself and the other person communicating perfectly on the movie screen.
Perhaps the other person is giving you positive feedback, some brilliant advice or words of appreciation or gratitude.  Notice other sounds. Perhaps there is music.

If you’re visualizing being an amazing presenter, hear the audience cheering, clapping and see them smiling. Then notice how this feels in your body as you watch the movie. I’ll explain this a little more. When you watch a blockbuster movie, you experience a wide variety of emotions.  These could include excitement, suspense, inspiration or sadness. You experience these emotions in your own body in response to the movie.

So notice the feelings and emotions in your body as you watch yourself in your own movie.  Perhaps its excitement, inspiration or motivation. It’s how you feel as you watch yourself.  If you’re still confused, then I promise this will make more sense when you read step 3 below!

Also, visualize the movie as if it’s happening right now. Notice a calendar on the wall with today’s date. Visualize yourself having the skill and already achieving the goal.

Step 3: Visualize Through Your Own Eyes (Associated)

In this step of the creative visualization exercise, you repeat the visualization. However, this time, it’s through your own eyes. The technical term for this is associated.

So instead of watching yourself on a movie, TV, computer, tablet or smartphone screen, you see it through your own eyes.

You can switch from visualizing on a screen to visualizing through your own eyes in two different ways.

The first way is to imagine floating out of your seat and towards the screen. See it getting larger and larger until you float through the screen and become the principal character in your movie and see everything through your own eyes. 

The second way I learned from Jack Canfield. It works best when you visualize being in a movie cinema. You imagine yourself getting out of your seat and walking towards the cinema screen.  Just below the screen is a door.  You open the door and go through it. On the other side of the door, you become the movie and see everything through your own eyes.

So you are now the principal character in your own movie. You are the actor.

Now repeat the visualization and make it vivid and detailed. Visualize yourself performing the skill or activity perfectly through your own eyes. See yourself having achieved your goal or outcome.

Notice other people.  See them smiling at you, admiring you or giving you the thumbs up. Hear them cheering, clapping, congratulating you and giving you positive feedback. This time you’re hearing this through your own ears.

Now add positive self talk. Notice what you think or say to yourself as you achieve this goal or perfect this new skill.  This will add a whole extra dimension to your visualization.

Become aware of the sensation of your best clothes on your body. Notice your relaxed and confident posture. Observe the positive feelings and emotions that you experience. This could be feelings of success, accomplishment, happiness, joy or fulfillment.

Step 4: Multiply and Integrate

The last step of this powerful creative visualization exercise is to multiply and integrate. Now there are a few ways to do this. I’ll cover two of them right now for you.

Both these methods may seem wacky or strange.  That’s okay. Try them out with an open mind and see what happens. Also, what might seem weird or strange to you often makes perfect sense to your subconscious mind. 

Small Holographic Image

This also comes from Jack Canfield. You start by returning to the movie cinema in your mind and sit back in that same seat that you were in earlier. You then imagine grabbing the movie screen and shrinking it down to the size of a cracker. You put this cracker in your mouth, chew and then swallow it.

Then imagine the little pieces of this cracker in your body. However, each piece is a hologram.  Each piece is your entire visualization movie as a small holographic screen. Imagine these little holographic screens in your stomach, your bloodstream, and feeding every cell in your body. Notice your entire body light up with these little movies, just like a TV shop with 50 TVs all displaying the same channel.

Floating Future

This method comes from Ben Harvey at Authentic Education. You imagine putting this visualization in your shirt or trouser pocket. Then imagine floating out of your body and towards the sky. You look down and see your life as a timeline. 

Notice where the past is and where your future might be.  Then float above this timeline towards your future to the exact time when you want this visualization to happen.

When you get to this future time (or have a sense of it), take the visualization out of your pocket and drop it at that point. Then notice everything between now and this future point automatically change.  Observe all the decisions and actions happening automatically.

Also, as you take this visualization out of your pocket and drop it, imagine it multiplying and filling the entire sky between the present point and this future time.

Then float back down into your body, knowing that you will automatically make the decisions and take the actions to achieve the goal that you’ve been visualizing.

Practical Creative Visualization Exercise Tips

To finish, here are some practical tips to help you master this creative visualization exercise.

First, remember that it takes repetition to impress deeply on your subconscious mind. So you want to visualize regularly, every day for one or two months to get the best results.

Second, it takes practice to master this creative visualization exercise. It’s just like learning a sport, musical instrument or any new skill. The first time you do it, you won’t be very good at it. You’ll find it hard to concentrate, and your visualizations will be hazy and lack detail. As you continue to practice, you’ll get better at it. That’s when the results will become more noticeable for you.

Third, incorporate this creative visualization exercise into a daily morning routine.  This is one or more things that you do as soon as you get out of bed and before doing anything else.  This will ensure that you practice it consistently.

Finally, watch out for cognitive dissonance. This is when part of your brain (often that nagging internal voice) questions whether this will work or whether you deserve the goal you’re visualizing. This is completely normal and quite common.

However, as you visualize consistently each day, you’ll notice cognitive dissonance reduce.

Related Article: 10 Steps to Transform Your Creative Visualization Skills

To Conclude

Now you understand what Creative Visualization is and the benefits of doing it. And you have a powerful 4-step creative visualization exercise at your fingertips.  Enjoy using this exercise and experiencing the powerful benefits of visualizing regularly.

If you enjoyed reading this article and found it useful, please leave a comment or question below. I would love to hear what you think! Please also click on the stars below to rate this post. Also, feel free to share this article with other people or on social media.

To help you improve your creative visualization skills, I encourage you to download my guided creative visualization MP3 by clicking the button below.

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you are having a wonderful day!

Paul

10 Steps to Transform Your Creative Visualization Skills

Creative Visualization when done correctly is an immensely powerful way to reprogram your subconscious mind.  It is also a skill that improves with practice, just like learning a sport or musical instrument.

Scientific studies have shown that creative visualization actually changes the neural pathways in the brain.  This is often known as neuroplasticity.  Other studies have shown that creative visualization influences gene response, anti-body count and this has been proved in blood tests.  This is great news if you want to use creative visualization to improve your immune system or help with healing.

Here are some of the areas in life where creative visualization could help you.

  • Improving a sport or general fitness level.  Olympic Athletes have been using creative visualization for many years and see it as an essential part of their training.
  • Increasing performance at work or in your business.
  • Making more money
  • Improving your relationships
  • To generate the creative juices to write, paint or compose music.

The list is endless.  I reckon creative visualization could help improve almost any area of your life.

To get stunning results with creative visualization, you need to practice it the right way.  Keep reading to learn the 10 steps to transform your creative visualization skills.

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1. Be in a relaxed state

The purpose of creative visualization is to reprogram your subconscious mind so that you automatically do things differently in the future.  For this to work, you need to reduce the impact of your conscious mind. This is best done by slowing down your brain waves to an Alpha or Theta brain wave state.

We are naturally in Alpha or Theta just before falling asleep and when we wake up, so these are excellent times to practice creative visualization.  You can also get into an Alpha or Theta state through meditation or self-hypnosis.

2. Visualize on a large cinema screen.

Many people simply close their eyes and start to visualize on the back of their eye lids.  This creates small images that aren’t compelling to the subconscious mind.  So instead, imagine that you are sitting in the best seat of a large cinema.  You are the only person in this cinema and the screen is huge! – You will project the images of your future on to this gigantic cinema screen.

creative visualization - self help for life

3. Acknowledge where you are now

Start by acknowledging, accepting and being grateful for where you are now, what you have now and how far you have already come.  You are probably already in a much better position than most people in the world.

This step is crucial.  It puts your mind in a state of positive expectancy and increases your vibrational energy (important for manifesting).  It also bridges the gap between where you are now and what you want.  Sometimes this gap can be huge and unbelievable at first.  Acknowledging where you are now will help bridge that gap and reduce the chances of the critical conscious mind getting in the way.

4. Start small and get bigger

After acknowledging where you are now, start visualizing the smaller positive changes and then move to the larger ones.  This will help increase your belief and its often easier to make the smaller changes more real when just starting out with creative visualization.

Your visualization can then unfold like a movie plot with all the exciting goals and dreams coming true at the end!

5. Use all your senses

When visualizing, use all 5 senses.  Notice the sounds, how you talk to others, how they talk to you and how you now talk to yourself.  Feel the sensations as you touch, taste or smell this new thing that you are creating in your life.

Let’s say you are visualizing a new luxury car.  You could notice the sound of the engine, your favourite music on the high-end car stereo.  Or notice the sensation of turning the steering wheel or the g-force when going around corners.  Perhaps you would smell the leather seats or the feeling of air washing over you when you have the top down.

Although we use all 5 senses everyday, most people develop a preference for one of them.  It’s usually either Visual (seeing), Auditory (hearing) or Kinesthetic (feeling).  When visualizing, notice the sense that works best for you and focus more on that sense.  However, don’t ignore the others.

Ideally, you want to make your visualization a 5 sensory experience.  By doing this, you activate the same areas of the brain that are used when you are having this experience for real.  So your brain thinks you are actually having a real experience!  How powerful is that to reprogramming your subconscious mind!

6. Use emotions

Incorporating all 5 senses will help bring emotion to your visualization.  However, you can also consciously turn up the emotional level of your visualizations.  Really stir-up the emotions and feel the excitement, exuberance, passion, happiness, fulfilment or whatever other emotion it is for you.

Bob Proctor states that Thoughts + Emotions = Attraction.  Many people under-estimate the emotional component to manifesting.  Ensure that you maximise your emotions when visualizing.  This will rapidly speed up your results.

7. Focus on the what – forget the how

When using creative visualization, focus on what you want to achieve or manifest.  Don’t get caught up in the how.  Once your subconscious mind has a full sensory experience of what you want, it will help you find the how.

8. Let Go

You now want to let go or release the visualization to the universe and let things happen.  This is probably the hardest step, but it will come with practice.  You want to achieve a state of positive expectancy.  It’s a similar feeling to ordering a meal in a restaurant.  Once you place the order, you don’t worry about whether it will arrive or not.  Instead you have a state of positive expectancy.

Worry, anxiety, frustration and other negative feelings will short-circuit the commands you have just given to the universe (and your subconscious) through your creative visualization.

Having said that, it is okay to repeat the same visualization multiple times.  Just make sure that you let go after each visualization and maintain a state of positive expectancy.

9. Finish off with “Let this or something better happen”

Complete your visualization with the affirmation “Let this or something better happen”.

10.  Take Action

After you finish your visualization, do something to make it happen.  This might be reading to gain some knowledge, looking at the house or car of your dreams.  By taking some kind of action, you establish an intention.  You are showing the Universe that you are serious.  This also helps reduce any fear or worry about achieving something big.

To take you through the above 10 steps, I have created a Guided Creative Visualization MP3 recording for you.  Its completely free and you can download it by clicking the button below.

Download my Guided Creative Visualization MP3 here

I hope you enjoy putting these steps into action and noticing your Creative Visualization skills flourish as a result.

This article is based on a webinar on Creative Visualization by Vishen Lakhiani and Lisa Nichols.   This is part of their FREE Introductory course that you can access here.

Thank you for reading this article.  If you enjoyed it and found it useful, then please share it with other people, or on social media.

Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Paul