Let Your Mind Wander, and Find Yourself on a True Journey

Positive thinking is a powerful thing.

It’s the best way to get where you’d like to be, in school, work, relationships, and life.

Most people aren’t as familiar as they should be with the the power of positive thinking; they’re more familiar with the nagging voice in their head (that sounds a lot like them). It tells them they’re making bad decisions, they should be ashamed of themselves, and that they’ll never amount to anything.

That voice can be pretty brutal.

But what if we changed this? Somehow, right around the time I left for college as an 18 year old, I turned off that voice (for the most part). I decided to start cheering for myself instead, applauding my efforts, even when they failed. If the ‘mean’ voice managed to make an appearance, the ‘nice’ voice would shoo her away.

One of the best tips I can give my college students to help them present a successful speech, is to imagine (repeatedly) that they’ve already given a successful speech. They shouldn’t just think to themselves, “You’ll do great, you’ll do great, etc..” That’s a good start, but you should try to actually feel it, live it, try your best to mentally practice the situation before it happens, and be specific.

If you were giving a speech, this might be part of the positive visualization you’d use (you can fill in the blanks as you let your mind get creative):

Imagine yourself standing at the front of the room (How do you feel? Happy? Confident? Remember, nothing negative!). You feel that you’re dressed perfectly for the occasion (What exactly are you wearing? Jewelry? A tie? What color is your shirt? It looks great!) as you look out at the audience (31 people to be exact, they all look supportive, and they’re smiling, eager to hear your message). You start your speech and it’s already a success (you sound enthusiastic as a speaker, you feel confident, and the audience leans in showing their interest).

Doesn’t that feel great?

It’s no wonder professional athletes who practice positive imagery in place of physical practice do just as well when the big game comes around. It’s no wonder that so many successful people spend a significant amount of time imagining positive outcomes and even visually represent those outcomes on vision boards.

I recently listened to a book on tape, and couldn’t believe that- yet again- I was hearing about visualization. It was a book about public speaking, not about new age thinking, so I was surprised; it seems that positive thinking is taking over.

As the story goes, the author’s wife had her own writing aspirations, and he recalls her spending as much time writing her first book as she did imagining what outfit she would wear to a jam-packed book signing for her hit novel (these were all hopes and dreams; she’d had no previous success as an author).

Sure enough, both the writing and the fantasizing paid off, and played out exactly as this new author had hoped.

You don’t have to be a professional athlete, successful author, public speaker, or wealthy entrepreneur to practice visualization and picture life unfolding the way you’d like it to.

Start small.

I pictured myself teaching enthusiastic college students (‘enthusiastic’ being the key word here), feeling successful regardless of what my income might be, and being happy with the simple things life has to offer. I didn’t always do it intentionally, but you know those moments that you find yourself tuned out during conversation, or lost in thought while you’re laying in bed at night? That’s when the magic (science, actually) happened for me.

The trick is to train your kind, positive voice to make an appearance more often. That voice has big plans for you, and will support all the ideas you have in the making.

Be kind to yourself, then let your mind wander, and find yourself on a true journey.