Affirmations and Visualizations: Help or Hype?

Never been a huge fan of visualization and affirmations. They always seemed a little trite to me. Like the little engine that could repeating "I think I Can...I think I Can..." and then he does. Cute but not powerful. The question is can you convince yourself and leap past your doubts by thinking over and over that you can do it. It strikes me that there needs to be a little more to it than that. So I was skeptical.

It seems though that there is some science behind this in that our Reticular Activating System, the RAS, acts as a filter, reducing the impact of repeated stimuli such as loud noises, helping to prevent our senses from being constantly overloaded. It lets us focus on only those things that we need to keep on functioning. It makes it so that we do not need to respond to all the stimuli that come by our senses. That means that an incredible amount of stimuli that happen in our environment are simply ignored by our brain and processed briefly by the RAS. We simply do not notice them.

Those pieces of information going by could contain information that we need but we never process. Herein lies the connection to visualizations and affirmations. If our brain assumes we only need a fixed group of information, then that is what we see. When we introduce our future as if it is now through visualization, our brain passes different information to us based on what happens around us.

Have you ever bought a car and then afterwards notice that there are many of the same car on the road that until now you had not noticed. Your brain moving relevant information into your consciousness. Amazing.

So do I believe in visualization and affirmations? I believe in the RAS and how it functions so I believe that visualized experiences make us see different inputs from our environment. The RAS is also relatively active during REM sleep which is our dream state and quiet outside the REM sleep. Smart stuff. Worth a try.

Paradox

Sometimes when life gets really overwhelming I want to return to my safe place. The demands of a full time job and trying to get the new business off the ground along with caring for my two teenage sons. Too many lists. Too many sticky notes with reminders hanging on mirrors, on daytimers, on the car dashboard. Phone calls forgotten. Appointments missed. I want to return to the place where I used to be. I tell myself it would not be so bad to do this job until retirement. Then I realize that is my protective centre trying to lull me back to the safety of what was. That place that I know well and feel competent in what needs to be done. The paradox is that the place where I am safe fails to stimulate me.

Funny little roller coaster this is. When I go to that safe place, I seek stimulation and new frontiers. When I am on the new frontier, I seek safety and familiarity. How complicated is this push and pull between safety and adventure.

Truthfully if given the chance to go back, I would choose to go forward. I am now so far into the project that there is no going back. It is feasible that this point of no return committment will be exactly what I needed to stop me from packing it in and going home, so to speak. This is just anxiety about the new frontier that makes me look back at where I was and deem it to be a desireable place.

I feel brave and competent about the new project. Things are actually going very well. Some of the challenges ahead look scary but often challenges get smaller as you approach them. Usually because you are smarter than when you viewed them from far away. I will just look one step ahead at a time so as not to intimidate myself with the size of my goal.

Baby Tactics

Success can be defined as persisting until you reach your goals. It may come to us in a different format than we thought it would. The best quote on this is from T. Harvey Eker and he says to "just get into the corridor". Get out there and try things and your success will come in ways you could never imagine when you were hidden away in your room dreaming! I use that thought all the time. I get into the corridor...it encourages me to try a solution when I am not sure what the next step could be.

Failure is to stop working on your goals as soon as you meet up with a challenge. This statement gives us amazing control over our success and failure. If we keep moving toward our goal in new ways we will eventually arrive at the goal. That is success! If we quit moving towards our goals then that is failure! Simple and Powerful! Step by step. That did not work? Okay what else can I try. Over and over until you eventually get to the goal. And you will reach that goal if you do this. Guaranteed!

Sometimes having a powerful goal beyond the initial goal can give you the gift of persistence that lets you continue to move towards your powerful goal. So here is an example of a goal beyond a goal. I would like to work for myself and be free to spend my time according to my preferences. That is my main goal. I need to have some income to pursue that goal. So I created a product and put it out to the market. That is my active goal. To make the product successful. So this is my goal within the goal. I am motivated to achieve my product goal because it is my pass to achieve my bigger goal. My lifestyle goal.

I am no different than those who have achieved these goals for themselves. Financial goals, goals about freedom, authenticity. People are making their way to these goals every day. I am not any different than these people except that they have done the hard work of getting there.

We are all born risk takers. It is how we learn. A baby learns to walk by falling and getting up and trying again. He navigates tall stairs by turning around and going down backwards without being able to always see where he is going. Let us do what babies do and challenge our world. Let us use baby tactics to accomplish our goals. Like a baby, be fearless and focused to accomplish the task you desire.

Just Go A Little Bit Further!

This is a blog post from Millionaire Moms and it really spoke to me today. So here it is! Thanks to Joyce at Millionaire Moms!

"I had an experience the other day that felt like a metaphor for my life. I was driving down a road I often get confused on. There are twists and turns that make it a challenge to remember which way to go. I started feeling like I had made a wrong turn. I thought, “I’ll just go a little further and see.” Which I did. Ultimately though I doubted myself & turned around in favor of the “safe way” I was familiar with.

The safe way meant I added extra time, travel & aggravation to my day. The funny thing is I realized the very spot I turned around at was a mere 100 yards away from landmarks I would have recognized as having been the right way to go. If I had only gone just a little bit longer…

This felt like a metaphor for my business. I had been feeling discouraged that day. I was driving thinking about all the work that needed doing. Overwhelm set in & I started questioning if I was making the right decisions purusing this dream? I have made tremendous strides over the year but it didn’t feel like enough. I have been working really hard. I was tired and felt very alone in my journey.

These thoughts came to an abrupt halt once I figured out I had been so close to successfully nagivating the road I was traveling. I had quit moments before I experienced the breakthrough. We have all heard the saying, “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” I decided right there & then I wouldn’t quit my business no matter how tired or hopeless I felt. I would soldier on. Victory goes to the decided heart! I would work smarter not harder.

A few days later I was presented with an opportunity that could really take my business to the next level. What if I had quit that day? I would never have known. I want to encourage you in your business journey to have a decided heart. You never know when you are just around the corner of success!"

Pushing Your Limits

I rode my bicycle 75 km today. I didn't plan to ride 75 km or to take 5 hours but the destination I chose took 5 hours instead of the planned 3 hours. At the 3 hour point I spoke to another cyclist stopped at a store and he asked me if I was alright. My response...yes I am fine...I am a my limit but fine. I went back to my map to figure out how much longer my route would take. I concluded that I had another hour or so. I could push through that. I was feeling tapped out. No energy to spare. I got back on my bike, determined to make my goal. Then I hit the big hills on the route. Nice timing. It was here that my mind took over. I had nothing left physically but was determined to make the destination. I hit my limits and kept on going. It turned out the route was two more hours so I really had to push.

So here's the conumdrum. My limits existed well beyond what I had assumed they were. I made the whole distance that I had planned, going well beyond what I had originally thought. I set limits that were seemingly difficult but when pushed I was able to achieve far more than I had originally thought.

I need to take this lesson learned and apply it to how I live my life. Am I setting goals that don't stretch my limits? Without stretching we do not grow and learn. With moderate goals we achieve moderate results. Need to stretch a little more and create some '5 hour' goals for my life. Neat learning.

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway!

Susan Jeffers speaks of Feeling the Fear and Doing it Anyway! She says those who achieve great things do not live in the absence of fear but rather live alongside fear as a constant ever present companion. What a concept. Fear does not go away when you do the thing you fear. Fear arises when you are working outside your comfort zone. When you are growing. Fear and growth go hand in hand. So, when you feel fear you can translate it into "I am growing". It changes the playing field.

I made a large investment into the business. I placed the order. I broke through the fear that until now I had found many reasons not to act. And now it is done. Now I have a responsibility to continue with the details that close that deal and earn the money back. It has moved from a dream to a reality. I am in the corridor.
It is no longer scary. It no longer feels huge. A mountain into a molehill.

Interesting that all that I read says that things will flow smoothly when they are meant to happen. Things are coming together for this project and each time a challenge arises, something shows up to solve it. Is that because I am open to many solutions, seeking answers to my challenges rather that being quick to shut down in response to things not going as planned. Maybe.

Younger Next Year!

I could not resist a post about this book. I absorbed every page and will act on the knowledge. 90% of the ailments that plague older women are preventable. Knowledge is strength. He has 3 recommendations but the general content and style of the book is readable and actionable and not at all preachy. I loved it.

Here is what I took away from the book:
1. Do one hour of aerobic exercise each day. Doesn't matter what it is. It just has to raise your heart rate to 60% of your maximum. Do the thing you love to do but do it at 60% of your heart rate. Buy a heart rte monitor. Easy and fascinating.
2. Strength train 2-3 times a week. Push a little.
3. Be happy. Smile. Take life easy. Don't get grumpy.

3 easy pieces. I can do that. I go 10 km every day but now I monitor my heart rate to maximize my range for fat burning. He says that mid body fat that creeps up does not need to be there and besides that, it is dangerous. 1 in 3 women have heart disease. Totally preventable. I like that.

The book gave me control over my gradual descent into old age. He says you can be fifty until you are eighty and more. I like that too.

He changed my life. And I am not even finished the book yet!