Focusing Creativity

We’ve talked about visualization a bit lately. Have you heard people talking about “learning how” to visualize? Well, here’s something you should know. You don’t have to learn how to visualize. Visualization is something all of us do all the time, either positively or negatively. From playing pretend to daydreaming, we’ve been visualizing our entire lives.

What you can learn is that if you want to improve the quality of your life, visualization is the way to eliminate negative and increase positive thoughts. Now the term visualization may be a little misleading. Some people do see clear, colorful images when they visualize, but for others it’s really something they hear, and for others something they sense or feel. The precise way it works for you doesn’t matter as much as how vivid it is and how much emotion and clarity you associate with it.

Positive visualization helps you get comfortable with a new reality you are creating for yourself and helps you move forward quickly toward your goals. It also helps you decide between alternative courses of action – you choose those that fit in with your vision and avoid those that don’t.

So, to those of you who are heading back to school, what will you visualize? Short-term, it may be success in your classes, and long-term may be a degree. Will you visualize paying attention in class and during sessions, absorbing all there is to learn, or will you visualize lunch breaks and free time after school? Will you visualize walking across that stage to receive your diploma at graduation? And ultimately, will you visualize that job or career that is the culmination of your education?

One important piece to remember is that visualization, or imagination, tends to become reality. Since this is the case, wouldn’t it be more productive to focus your visualizations on positive ends? The human mind is incredibly creative and powerful. It is up to each of us to channel that creativity toward constructive objectives and one vital path toward those objectives is through positive visualization.