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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!

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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