Do you ever wish that your dreams would just come true? That the things that you imagined would just come to you? Or is that just a really colossal waste of time that’s gonna be cynicism producing where you just feel like: “Oh why do I bother even having these dreams.” Well there’s an interesting thing in science that basically shows that the things that we imagine trigger the same parts of our brain, as if we are doing these things in real life. Now this may sound a little bit unusual but I think we kind of get the picture.
As a powerful example, just conjure up the image of a certain someone that you would like to be with. If you know what I mean. And if you stay with that imagination for a little while and allow it to get a little involved you may actually find that there’s a physiological response in your body! As though the thing is really happening! Now our mothers would be ashamed of us if we go too far with this example but the point is clear— the things that we imagine actually begin to manifest a little bit in the real world or at least some of the science would suggest it. And at least from a neural networking perspective we know it’s definitely true. The things we imagine happen in our brains and our neural physiology actually conforms to that imagination as though it’s real! So does that mean that we can just imagine the things that we want and will more likely draw them into our lives or is that just like silly woowoo wishful thinking kind of stuff?
So can we imagine our dreams into existence: can we imagine Mr. or Mrs. Wright and have them come into our lives? Can we imagine our perfect job and make that job come to us? Can we imagine shooting free-throws successfully and make that come into our lives? Well the answer is yes, yes and yes. There’s a fascinating study that’s much talked about where a researcher broke a randomized group of people into three groups— tested them all for their free-throw shooting ability and then the three groups were given different instructions. The first group was to do nothing at all and 30 days later they were tested for their free-throw shooting ability again.
And no surprise here they were just as bad or just as good as free-throw shooters as they were previously. The second group was told to practice shooting free throws for up to an hour every day for 30 days. At the end of 30 days they’d improved their free-throw shooting ability by 24%! Fantastic! Practice worked. And the third group (and this is when it gets interesting). They were told to go imagine shooting free-throws every day consistently for 30 days. And at the end of the 30 days they were tested for their free-throw shooting ability and they had improved 23 percent! Virtually identical percentage of improvement as the people who shot real free-throws in the gym. So what the heck is going on here? It’s really clear and the science of sports psychology has shown this over and over again. That as we program our minds to do certain things with our bodies we are actually training our bodies even though it begins singularly in the mind. That what the mind is programming— the neuronal learning; our brain chemistry is actually learning. The neuronal learning actually then manifests itself in our sports performance. And this is just simply well proven in the sports psychology field. And you know many great thinkers— philosophers from the past had this same kind of notion. But we weren’t proving it until modern science came along.
The old traditional notion of this was simply this idea that we first create things in our imagination and then they manifested in the world. It makes perfect sense doesn’t it? The architect first draws out the building plan on paper and then we go and build the thing in real life. Well everything that we want in our lives first happens here in our minds and then comes into reality. What’s maybe something that I think is unique and I want to share with you today is the degree to which we can program it in our minds makes the clarity of what happens in our real lives occur with greater certainty and accuracy. And in sports psychology we’ve learned through decades of this research that the degree to which the person is relaxed preceding the visualization makes the visualization more impactful. So a relaxed mind can program what it wants that then manifests in reality better than a hurried busy mind. You can imagine me saying: “I’ve got a million things to do and I also want to imagine shooting good free-throws.”
And then here it is and my free throw learning ability in my mind will not be so great because my minds distracted. So get calm and relaxed then get our visualization and then in the real world what we visualize should come into play. Make sense? So how exactly does all this work? Well first let’s get into a relaxed state. Go see some of my previous videos on meditation if you want to learn a little bit about that. But imagine we’re in a very relaxed state. I want to visualize let’s say shooting free throws and the more concretely, the more accurately and discrete steps of my imagination that I use the better the visualization will be so I might want to see myself in my mind, shooting free throws.
I can imagine myself looking at the back rim of the basket. I can imagine what it looks like for me to hold the ball to my forehead and then let the ball release at the end my fingertips. I can feel the way my arm would move and the way that my wrist would cock at the end of the throw I might be able to smell the gym, smell the ball. I might feel a touch of my teammates who come and give me a little high-five after I shoot the basket. I want to feel the emotion of success- the happiness, the satisfaction, the sense of confidence that I have as I take that free throw. And if I very clearly imagine that over and over with many senses and a real clarity to what I’m imagining, we’re actually programming the brain to create that in real life. So that’s how it works in sports psychology and high level athletes are doing this kind of thing all the time. Very clear visualizations. They’re spending a lot of time doing it, morning, noon and night. Concrete visualizations of what they just want to achieve and they’re emotionally engaged in these visualizations. The experience of the emotion makes it tangible, very real and palpable for us and so that’s important for your learning – what can we learn from this sports psychology and where can we use visualizations in our own lives? Well really any place. We can learn that the emotional impact is important. It intensifies the learning in the brain and we can also use this in all kinds of very basic situations.
I coach clients one-on-one and often they’re business-people preparing for important meetings. Even job interviews. And so when I work with clients like that I often tell them: imagine the feeling that you want to have at the conclusion of your meeting. How do you want to feel at the end of the interview and people would usually be pretty clear. “I want to feel confident, I want to feel glad and well engaged with the people who interviewed me. I want to have this sense of success that I did well. I want to have this sense of rapport that’s been developed if these people like me and I like them. So I’ll imagine all of that. What does that feel like? What does it look like? Can you imagine the room that you’re sitting in? The firmness of the table in front of you? The tone of your voice as you speak confidently to them? Maybe even the feel of the fabric that you’ll be wearing that day? Make it real, make it multi-sensory and imagine that story playing out. Especially the conclusion of the story. Just like the free throw. The conclusion is the basket is filled with that ball. A ball goes through the basket. The hoop.
And we want the your imagination to take you to that place of success at the conclusion of whatever it is that you’re looking at in your life. Because if we program our subconscious to get us to that conclusion then without having to think about it the body and the mind know how to get us there. Does that make sense? See the end. See clearly and the body and the mind will know how to get us there. So you can use that kind of technique as you prepare for a meeting. It doesn’t require a morning noon and night kind of visualization but I would suggest you do it more than once. And then when it comes to the really big things in your life, really important goals just like an Olympian is gonna spend years preparing for a major life event, they’ll be using these visualizations day in out. Day and day out for years as they get ready for that massive event.
Well when it comes to your most important goals I would suggest that it’s the same kind of thing. Lean into your visualization. See clearly what you want in your life. Regularly, routinely, every day the same things repeated. Maybe it’s: I wake up with a certain visualization in my mind of what I want four major goals in my life. And before I go to sleep at night I repeat those visualizations, major goals. What do I want with my relationships? What do I want with my career? What do I want with my finances? What do I want to do with my my spiritual life? (My relationship to myself that is.) What I mean by that is, see that stuff clearly. See it every day and it’ll manifest in your life too. So if this feels kind of woowoo to you and a little too out there I suggest you start with a vision board. It’s a very practical way to use pictures. You can get them off the internet and post them on a piece of paper.
That just says “Oh yeah these are the things I want in my life.” And by putting the visions in a very practical way on a piece of paper and hanging it somewhere where you can see it. (I have one on the back of my bedroom door) They actually become something that I see all the time and I repeat those visualizations. And the only time I need to change my vision board is if I change my mind about something I want. But I’m happy to say in my life more often than not it’s because something that I had on the vision board has manifested itself.
And then I can take that piece away and put something else in its place and try to manifest something else in my life. So one of my visions— big goals in life is to have a significant outreach through YouTube because it’s the perfect channel to teach the world about happiness. And that’s my big objective. It’s to make the world happier. You can help me do that, if you enjoyed this video, like it share it, subscribe to my channel and we can all make the world a better, happier place together.
I’m Paul Krismer I’m your happiness expert, thanks for reading. Have a great day.