Focus On What You Want

The principle of focus on where you want to go applies to everything you do. It is also supported by scientific research. Before you do anything in your life, you must first see it in your mind. Before you can swing a golf club, you picture it in your imagination. To grab a drink from the refrigerator, you visualize the action very briefly in your mind. If you don’t picture it, it doesn’t happen.
Let’s explore visualization a little further. Let’s say we stuck a dozen electrodes to your scalp and connected you by some long wires to an electroencephalograph to measure your brain activity. We then got another very large wire and strung it above Niagara Falls so we could monitor your thoughts while you did a spot of tightrope walking.

Assuming you returned safely, let’s says you then sat down in a chair and vividly imagined yourself strolling across Niagara Falls. You would demonstrate something very interesting about brain activity. The exact same areas of your brain are activated whether you are actually tightrope walking or imagining it.

Your brain cannot tell the difference between a real and a vividly imagined experience. When you mentally rehearse, your brain cells undergo electrochemical changes, the same as if you were actually skating, dancing, putting or panicking.

What does this mean?

·          That when you visualize you program your brain

·          That when you imagine yourself performing perfectly, you train your brain for peak performance.

You might say, “But this information has been around since the 1950s!” Correct. Here’s

not an elite golfer, singer, public speaker, race car driver or cat burglar who doesn’t use

visualisation. But the rest of us often underestimate the power of mental rehearsal.

Why do children learn so fast? They naturally use visualization, they play imaginary

mental movies. Your 2 year old children don’t need to read this chapter. For her, mental

rehearsal is automatic. The problem is this: playing mental movies is not very

sophisticated or intellectual we might dismiss this kind of critical information.

If you want to change any habit, if you want to be more punctual, more organized, more

confident or even happier, you need to picture it. Vividly, repeatedly. Over weeks and

months you’ll notice the transformation. Too easy? This is not a once or twice thing.

Make it a daily routine.

In a nutshell:

You don’t achieve great things by looking at what you are. You achieve great things by

looking at what you want to be and then playing those movies in your mind.