The success minded entrepreneur knows that it is their ‘feeling’ of success which creates their successes. Just as it is the ‘feeling’ of failure which leads to failures. We can all experience either one of these. Our small victories give us a sense of achievement and with it the feeling of being successful. Success isn’t entirely defined by money alone, although it plays a part, but feeling good is often attributed to the definition of what success means to most people. In his book Psycho-cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, Maltz describes this as one of the most important attributes towards building success. In fact Tony Robbins, the successful personal development coach, mentor and speaker is paid huge sums to help sports professionals find this ‘state’ time and time again so it becomes an automatic response whenever needed. The state is so important, in fact, that many attribute superhuman achievements, luck and amazing abilities to it.
In his book Maxwell Maltz describes professional golfers using this technique to ‘prime’ their minds before taking a shot. They visualize where the ball should go and get into the perfect ‘state’ of mind, whereby they ‘allow’ their body to do the right thing and trust that it will happen. Of course this is in addition to having practiced swinging a club at a golf ball many, many times. However at the higher level of many sports (and professions), the skill becomes more a mental ‘inner’ game than simply the physical ability alone that it is often attributed to. Many times ‘bad shots’ are made simply due to an over emphasized importance on the outcome. Mental tension takes over our natural abilities and ‘gets in the way’ of our best outcome. We forget to trust the process of achievement which may lie elusively down a tangent from the path we stick rigidly to – believing it will work. Only by relaxing completely and ‘letting go’ do we perform to the best of our ability, or find the quickest path to whatever it is we are striving for.
So how can we use this knowledge to improve our own performance in whatever we are attempting to be successful at?
The answer lies in your own mind! Many times we might strive for something only to be knocked back before achieving it. Often the reasons for this lie in our own sense of self. Our lack of self belief holds us back. Our mental tension or ‘clinging’ to the safety of our habits. Our patterns of previous behavior inhibit our present behavior and limit us and our goals. We are sometimes so mentally ‘tense’ because the outcome is so important to us that we create roadblocks because of it, and fail!
Do you ever visualize failure, or worry about what may happen if you fail? Worrying is planning to fail. We all spend energy on this form of thinking at one time or another. What if you could take all that mental energy and put it into thinking about your best possible outcome? What if your self doubt was non-existent? The mental ruts which we create for ourselves eventually controls us and limit our possibilities. Worrying is visualizing failure. The successful golf pros have realized this and are using their inner minds to visualize how they want things to go – instead of allowing their minds to be filled with problems, uncertainty and failure. In effect, they are communicating their desires to their unconscious mind.
There are a few steps we can make towards becoming more conscious about our own mental creation habits.
1. Notice when you are thinking or talking about something in a negative or counterproductive way. When we do this we are focusing our intent on what we do not want! We can have a strong tendency to do this depending on our social circles. Instead, you can focus on outcomes which you truly desire. The first step, though is to become more conscious of your speaking and thinking patterns.
2. Replace the thoughts/words with something you want instead. It can be difficult to get these negative ideas out of our heads – especially if we have been focusing on them for a long time. Replacing them instead with more pleasing thoughts which bring about a better emotional feeling or state is the next step towards becoming more conscious about what you are creating with your thoughts and words.
3. Spend time deliberately focusing on the things, circumstances and events you want to bring about. Have fun visualizing what you enjoy thinking about. This can be called ‘daydreaming’, but you are also communicating your desires to your unconscious mind which will help you to manifest them and can be much more powerful than only ‘trying’ to get what you want by thinking, planning and doing things to achieve a certain outcome.
4. Clear the mental clutter in your mind with regular meditation. If you have never meditated start by sitting still for 5 minutes at a time and simply watching your mind. Notice your thoughts but don’t engage with them. After a while of doing this as a regular practice you can extend the time and introduce visualization into your practice. Avoid subjects which distress you or habitual thinking patterns around topics which you no longer want. If this happens simply concentrate on your breathing and bring your mind to a more restful state.
5. Let go of attachment to outcome. Desiring something too much is what often gets in the way of them naturally and effortlessly happening. Enjoy your visualization such that you can barely tell the difference between the actual situation and your ‘daydream’. Get used to ‘daydreaming’ again and trust your subconscious mind to deliver the desired outcome. Allow things to change and don’t ‘cling’ to tightly to your current situation.
6. Focus on small achievements which are easily reached. Small successes lead to big victories. By aiming for small easily attainable goals you are empowering yourself to take consistent action towards improving an aspect of your life, whatever it may be. This gives you a sense of achievement and a successful feeling of empowerment and self reliance. Keep doing this and slowly increase the difficulty of your goals. Not so much that it will dis-empower you and demoralize you, but enough to motivate you forwards towards bigger and better goals when you have a greater sense of your own resourcefulness and ability.
If you haven’t watched ‘The Secret’ you can watch it here:
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