motivation

Sep

2021

How to Start with Visualization

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Did you know that some successful people like Olympic athletes hired visualization coaches to help them achieve their dreams? That is because visualization is a super powerful tool that helps high achievers reach their goals. Visualization helps them create their dream lives in their minds. It allows people to believe in this new reality that is manufactured in the mind. This brings about a new level of confidence to accomplish their goals. So, how to start with visualization?

Benefits of Visualization

Visualization is a mental exercise that allows you to focus on the future rather than the now. It makes you imagine a life that you could have. Why is it effective? Well, according to Jack Canfield, a motivational speaker and a co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul; Visualization gives you the following benefits:

1.It Activates Your Creative Subconscious

Did you know that brilliant ideas in the arts, businesses, sciences and other fields all came from the people’s creative subconscious mind? People’s imagination can produce genius thoughts; something that your conscious mind will have a hard time producing. You can get to this state if you find a quiet place to close your eyes and calm your mind. You need to let go of all the stress, worries and all negative emotions.

2.It Programs Your Brain

Instead of focusing on your difficulties, your brain will be reprogrammed to look at solutions. You will be able to readily perceive and recognize the resources available at your disposal. You will be able to find little ways or things that will take you one step closer to your goals.

3. It Activates the Law of Attraction

Since your brain has been reprogrammed to focus on the positive, this activates the law of attraction in your life. You will become a magnet, attracting people, resources and even circumstances and events into your life that will lead you closer and closer to your goals.

4. It Builds Your Internal Motivation

What separates successful people from those who are not is the level of perseverance. All the knowledge, talents and skills in the world are all useless without perseverance. Perseverance is persistence. It is the ability to stand up again when you fall. It is to continue working on one’s goals despite the challenges and difficulties. Visualization builds your internal motivation. It gives you your ‘why’.

How to Start With Visualization

It is easy to start with visualization more so if you understand the benefits behind it. But first, you need to be very clear on what you want. Your goals should be clearly defined. Once you have that figured out, all you need to do is set aside a few minutes of your time. Then sit in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and imagine.

What do you want to achieve?
Where do you want to be in the future?

Imagine the future as VIVID as you can. Imagine as if you are already there. It is a world wherein you are already living your dream life. Include all the details in your visualization. Activate all the five senses. See, hear, feel, taste and smell your ideal future.

Repeat this mental exercise daily. Choose the time of the day where you are most relaxed. That can be either in the morning, as soon as you wake up or at night, before you go to bed.

Sample Visualization

For example, your goal is to have a new car. Before you start your visualization, you need to be very clear first on what car you want, what is the model, the color, etc. Once you figure all these out, you are now ready to start visualizing.

Imagine yourself waking up in the morning, in your room smelling the air. You should be able to smell the morning breeze. Imagine all the details in your room. Then, you stand up and get ready for work.
After taking a bath and dressing up, you now go to the dining room to eat your breakfast. What is the food on the table? Imagine eating and tasting the food on the table.
Once you are done, you are now ready to leave for work. You now stand and get your car keys. What is the logo on the key? What does the car key look like? Imagine holding the car key in your hand.
You can now proceed to go to the garage. There, you see parked in the garage is your car. What is the brand, color and model of the car? You click the car keys to enter the car.
Once you get in, you can smell the interior of the car. You turn on the engine and you leave for work.
On your way to work, you turn on the radio of the car and you listen to music with a smile on your face.

To make it more powerful, it helps to create a vision board. A vision board is a visual representation of every aspect of your dream life. Then, expect amazing results.

Good luck!

Feature Image by Игорь Левченко from Pixabay

Jul

2021

Benefits of Being an Underdog

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The truly successful know the benefits of being an underdog because they maintain that mindset. People who continue succeeding are those who still maintain the habits that they practiced when they were still underdogs. This is especially useful when they face new or unplanned challenges.

If you are starting a new career, a new business or restarting your life in some way; then you can consider yourself as starting from scratch again. You are in a great position to take advantage of being the underdog.

1. Your Goals, Your Rules

As an underdog, you are not obligated or pressured to declare your goals to the world. You can work quietly and in peace to achieve success. Change your direction when you need to and correct mistakes as you go along. Only you will notice most of these things.

This doesn’t mean you have to do things alone. You can slowly build your own network of people , even find mentors, who can help you in different ways. One of the benefits of an underdog is that you can go about this in your own way and at your own pace. It’s your call who you choose to work with and why.

2. Stronger Motivation

Most underdogs are less pressured than those who are already successful because people around them have low expectations of them. However, this only serves to fuel their motivation to succeed. Underdogs are not afraid to fail because they know they can learn from the experience.

Since you’re just starting out, you don’t have the pressure of having to keep up with your own reputation or defend your title or position as top dog in your field. Because of this, you have a stronger urge to prove yourself and impress the top dogs. You can surpass your own and other’s expectations as long as you work diligently and consistently.

3. Very High Creativity

Underdogs don’t often have the resources and social network that top dogs have. What they do have plenty of is creativity. With limited resources, you must find creative solutions to overcome obstacles along the way. You learn to analyze and manage your limited resources to get the best possible outcome. You have the courage to try out new ways of doing things.

Since you need to do everything yourself; you learn to do what you can with what you have and delegate where you need to. One of the benefits being an underdog is you also learn to prioritize and allocate time, personnel and other resources more efficiently. These skills will come in handy when you progress on to bigger goals in the future.

4. Everyone is Rooting for You

Although underdogs are less pressured from high expectations; people who see them going after their goals empathize with them. After all, aren’t we all underdogs until we reach the top? That’s why underdogs usually enjoy a lot of empathy and support from many people.

Underdogs tend to help others and root for each other. They are a fan of each other’s talents and skills. It’s always fun to get together with other underdogs and celebrate your wins. With underdogs, small victories are always cherished moments.

As an underdog, you are a bundle of potential. You are only competing against yourself. You are only limited by your own imagination. Being an underdog means that you have every opportunity to surprise everyone with your success. So good luck! We’re rooting for you!

Feature Image: Original Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash.

Oct

2020

Life-Changing Lessons from Walt Disney

Reading Time: 4 minutes

If you can dream it, you can do it.
– Walt Disney

Have you ever been to any Disneyland park around the world? If you have been there, you will probably agree that there is something magical about the place. A Disney experience is such an emotional experience. It is like being in a world of imagination where everything is joyful and blissful. It magnifies all your senses. Minus the crowd and the long lines, Disneyland will make you feel like a child again, full of laughter and dreams. Disneyland truly deserves the title as the “happiest place on earth”. But did you know that everything that you see and feel in the Disney parks all started in the imagination of one man? Yes, millions of people around the world can feel and experience the Disney magic today because one man was able to dream it and visualize it. It’s all thanks to Walt Disney. Take some inspiration on some life-changing lessons from Walt Disney.

The Story of Walt Disney

Walter Elias Disney, popularly known as Walt Disney, was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois. He was one of five children. At a tender age of seven, he already started working. To help his family make ends meet, he worked as a newspaper boy. While in high school, he attended the night classes of the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. At 16 years of age, he joined the American Red Cross as an ambulance driver in France, after being rejected by the army for being underage during the first World War.

After the war, he became a night watchman. While working he began drawing animals at night. Although he wanted to become an actor at first because of his love for Charlie Chaplin, he opted to become a newspaper cartoonist instead. After his own cartoon “Laugh-O-Gram” became popular, he was able to acquire his own studio that produced a seven-minute live action and animation called Alice in Cartoonland. However, the studio went bankrupt after a few years in operation.

After some time, Walt, and his brother Roy decided to move to Hollywood to start anew. There, they created a character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit together with cartoonist, Ub Iwerks. They were then able to strike a deal to have their cartoons distributed. Unfortunately, the rights to their cartoons were stolen by the New York Distributor.

The Birth Of Mickey Mouse

Out of desperation, they produced a new cartoon based on a character named Mickey Mouse. The audience was not impressed but the team did not give up. On the third animated film, Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse became an instant hit!

Video Credit: Walt Disney Animation Studios

In 1929, Disney introduced Mickey’s friends – Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto. In 1937, the first full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was shown in movie theatres. The movie earned $8 million dollars despite the Great Depression happening at that time. The film made Walt Disney a millionaire.

The Birth of Disneyland

Despite the financial success brought about by the film production company, in Walt Disney’s mind, he still envisions an imaginary world of fairy tales. Unfortunately, investors were wary. Even his brother Roy, did not support him with his new idea. Still, Walt Disney persisted. After being turned down 302 times, he finally got financing for his dream in creating the Walt Disney World.

In 1955, the first Disneyland Theme Park opened in Anaheim, California. Today, there are 14 Disney Theme Parks around the world: 2 in California, 4 Disney parks and 2 water parks in Florida, 2 in Tokyo, 2 in Paris, 1 in Hong Kong and 1 in Shanghai. As of 2018, about 726 million accumulated visitors were recorded to have visited the Disney parks since they opened.

Life-Changing Lessons from Walt Disney

Walt Disney’s life story is so inspiring that there are so many life-changing lessons the we can learn and apply in our lives:

1.Nothing is Impossible

Walt Disney grew up in poverty but this did not stopped him from reaching his dreams. If he just accepted his circumstances back then, then he would have not been able to inspire millions of people around the world today.

If you are born poor, it’s not your mistake, but if you die poor it’s your mistake.
– Bill Gates

2.Stand Up After Failure

Walt Disney did not just fail once or twice. He failed multiple times on his businesses. He also was rejected 302 times before he was able to secure funding for Disneyland. What is inspiring is how he was able to stand up despite all the failures and rejections. How about you? Did you give up the first time? The second time? How about after 50 failures and rejections? How about 100? 200? Will you be able to go on? It takes a lot of courage and perseverance to be able to do what he did.

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.
– Confucius

3. Do What You Love

One of the reasons why Walt Disney stayed motivated and did not give up was because he followed his passion. It will be very difficult to continue doing what you are doing if you do not love what you are doing. Passion is your key to success. Why do you think the likes of Bill Gates, Kobe Bryant and BTS are so successful in their own fields? What’s the rule of success that these people followed?

4. Believe in Yourself

Although the odds were not on his favor, Walt Disney believed that he can do it. During that time, the first world war had just ended. And remember that it was also the time of the Great Depression. It is quite similar to what is happening right now. People lost their jobs and the world economy was in recession. They just emerged from the flu pandemic that affected one third of the world’s population. Yet, he believed in the power of his dreams.

5. Visualization Works

Everything that you see and experience in Disneyland today started on Walt Disney’s imagination. He was able to imagine a whole new world on his mind. In fact, every man-made thing that you see around you started on one’s person’s imagination. That’s how powerful the mind is. As what Walt Disney believed, if you can see it in your mind, you can do it. Pursue your dreams and turn them into reality.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
-Walt Disney

Updated version. First published in Pinoy Smart Living on 09.06.2018.

Feature Image by Aline Dassel from Pixabay