In our last newsletter we talked about making commitments in order to raise the level of intention and reach our goals. Another way of increasing intention is visualization. If you doubt the power of visualization to do this, then go to a car lot and stare at your dream car. It will not take long before a sales person comes out and asks, “Can you see yourself driving this car?”
Now tell him “No,” even though you want the car! Most likely the salesperson will simply go back inside without further conversation. Why? Because he knows that if you can’t SEE yourself driving the automobile, then you don’t have a very high intention toward purchasing it. If only one bank tells you that your finances don’t qualify you, then you will most likely give up and go home.
Now, respond to another salesperson with a positive “Yes, but I can’t afford it.” He will become animated and say, “Let’s get in the car for a test drive.”
Why? Because he knows that affording the automobile is a mechanism. How many mechanisms are there for any intention? There are an infinite number. The car salesman is not concerned about the mechanism; neither should you be. Yes, some mechanisms are easier to use than others, some are illegal, and there are others that, for a variety of reasons, you don’t want to use. But if there are infinite mechanisms, then there are plenty of good ones for you to use. (Read the exercise on mechanisms in chapter two of If How-To’s Were Enough We Would All Be Skinny, Rich and Happy.)
If you go for the test drive, then your subconscious will say to you, “You have to have this car! Try this, try that.” Mechanisms will come to your conscious mind from the subconscious regarding how to finance this car. If you don’t purchase the car, then your subconscious changes your work ethic when you go back to your job. Your tone of voice and the words you communicate will reflect your intent and help create the additional money needed to finance the car. This is using visualization to raise your intent.
This year, take a goal you have and find a way to touch it consistently. While raising funds for a building project, I took weekly walks on the land we wanted to build on. Drawings of the project were created before any money was raised, and we constantly looked at them. In addition, I actually took time to mentally picture the grand opening of the building and of people using the completed structure. All these raised my intent.
Remember that your subconscious is already seeing a picture of the current reality, so to achieve your goal you must combat that image. Set up something, such as the weekly walk on the land or touching that car of your dreams, to serve this purpose. Or, create a psychological trigger device. This can be something such as a red dot on the face of your watch that reminds you to visualize your achieved goal every time you look at your watch. Take time now to think of ways to use visualization as a means to increase your intention and realize your dreams.
by Brian Klemmer