Miracle of visualization to achieve vision!

Some of us make new year resolutions and set visions. However, we miss accomplishing these resolutions and sometimes even forget these resolutions!  Same is the case with me as well !!. I have also made resolutions and have forgotten or after some time dropped in the middle. However, When I look back, certain dreams, visions come to reality in life gracefully.! If we look at our life,  some of the dreams in childhood days or some other dreams that we had of going to a place, or the house we wanted to live or the kind of career  we want is surprisingly is true now. This is something curious, how these things become true. Is it by our conscious effort or unconscious effort? This made me curious to look at the miracle of visualization to achieve the vision .  How this can help to achieve our visions and goals in our life ?

My own experience

My own experience of the miracle of visualization. In my very young age, my grand father used to call me “Globe Trotting youth” (In tamil – Ulagam suttrum valiban) . There used to be my father`s young age photo with his parents, wearing blazer and nice neck wear. My grand father, somehow seeded the vision in my mind of working abroad. Working abroad with wearing blazers and neckwear etc.,  That visual image which he created from the child hood days is so vivid to me even now. Over a period of time, people around him, also nurtured the idea of Globe Trotting youth, and that idea got further reinforced.

After my engineering graduation, I got a job at my home town and in fact I wanted to continue live in my home town as I liked it very much. However, due to economic slow down, the company in which I was working was facing challenges. I had to look for a new job. I started looking for a job around and there was a small advertisement in a news paper. One of the Japanese companies from Japan came to India , Chennai and looking for programmers. I had the exact programming skills they were looking for. I attended that interview and I was looking for a job desperately, prepared very well for the interview.

Till this time, i never made any explicit efforts to go abroad !!.  When I looked at the advertisement something clicked and intuitively I got connected to this job.  I landed into this opportunity somehow, it is just a miracle. I moved to Japan. When I was commuting to office at Japan, wearing blazer and in an overseas environment, it was just like a miracle for me. !

I got connected to the visualization my grand father created in me.  Oncourse many things happened in due course of life, Now I am a person who had travelled to multiple countries !But, sometimes we need someone to create these visualizations, in my case there is an inspiration from my grandfather. Sometime we need to create on our own !

Zen and Neuroscience aspects of Visualization

Zen practice and Neuroscience has these kind of practices and techniques!  Many of you might be aware about Zen, it is one of the oldest practices in the world, Zen has some visualization sutras or practices.  Neuroscience also deals with these kind of visualization techniques of the brain. Many articles of Neuroscience have mentions about the positive effects of these kind of visualization techniques on the activities of the brain. So fundamentally visualization is a process which is dealt scientifically and as well by old practices like Zen as well. May be some other traditional practices exist, which I am not aware of.

If you are one among a curious person, you can just google it and find articles on Zen visualization practice and as well articles on neuroscience aspects of visualization. When I went through these articles, both Zen and Neuroscience aspects of visualization are mostly similar in nature. The following are some of the methods which I found. In fact, some of you might have watched the movie “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne. Visualization technique is one of the key techniques of the movie, portrayed as used many successful people. Another Book – “Think and grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill , which talks about the importance of dreaming.  In childhood we have dreams, and as we grow due to various reasons, we lose the emotional bonding of the dreams we have.

Importance of context in Visualization 

As I understand, our mind gets largely influenced by the context we hold. Context drives the decisions we take in our life. Context is largely influenced by many factors through our life experience, environment and the ideals we hold in our life.

How do we manage the context that we hold in life? Some of the ways that we want to influence the context – (1) Surround by the kind of books / articles / and other info that we want to achieve (2) Surround by great people who creates a positive influence (3) Train the brain through Visualization. Creating an environment which upholds our vision like above helps to influence the context that we hold. Other supporting functions can be to have mentors,  guided practices like meditation which helps to keep a focus on our vision and the context of holding the vision and keep a check on our visualization practices.

There are many studies about creating and managing the context of life from different disciplines. Some of you may want to deep dive into this subject, However for keeping it simple, I am just highlighting the importance alone.

Technique of Visualization

1. Creating a mental image of the resolutions – one of the key aspects is being specific about the resolution. Maybe one wants to buy a house by next Dec 2023 with a certain design and colors or getting into a new role or making a success in the role, or it may be the kind of lifestyle that we want to live! Create a picture with the details – May be you want to paint, draw , create a digital picture.  This can be about about having wonderful relationship with our loved ones !
2. Paying close attention to the details of the image, which creates a close intimacy of the visualization itself.
3. Emotionally connect with the visual image and experience the visual image4. One of the ways is to embed this into a early morning rituals. If someone has the experience of doing a early morning prayers, bring out the vivid visualization of the goals / vision that we want to achieve.

• Some may have the practice of journaling before going to the bed or early in the morning. Journaling about the visions help us to hold our visions stronger !
• Meditation is one of the ways to keep alive the visualization of the visions that we have.

By repeating the above visualization practice, it gets embedded in the brain and in our subconscious mind.  This also helps to set the context of the day and keeps our context alive.

Impact of the Visualization

When we start visualization, some of the benefits that I visualize and realize is that we move away from managing small things or content-based approach to vision driven . Instead we move towards creating a context driven approach.  Context driven approach helps to take decisions on what is really important to achieve the vision. so, the focus shifts to the bigger goals and actions that helps to move beyond tactical actions to goal driven larger actions.

The visualization aspect is not limited only to certain physical aspects, but also contributes abstract aspects of life, like relationship, happiness, being curious and so on… Being curious is one of the ways that we keep nurturing ourselves. Hope this blog also makes you curious in achieving our dreams.

Also read… Purpose of going to office – Isac Newton Thought Leader

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