It is used by sportsmen and politicians to help them reach their goals.

And now maybe by you…

In a previous Life Coaching article: ‘How To Create (& Use) A Life Coaching Wheel’, we worked on pinning down your goal. A realistic, positive and inspiring, timed, precise goal, formulated in the present tense. With your goal came outcomes or consequences (what will change for me, what will change for others once I have reached my goal).

Go back to your Life Coaching journal. Return to the page where you wrote down your goal and its outcomes. If you feel your goal has slightly changed, update it. Make it as accurate as possible.

How To Make Your Goal Compelling

Today, we’re going to work on making your mind familiar with your goal, so familiar that your mind accepts it as something real, something that exists, something compelling.

Why?

Because we want your subconscious mind to help you reach your goal. By making your goal so real in your mind, your subconscious will focus and will, almost unknowingly to you, shape your behaviour so you reach that goal.

Here’s how to do it:

• Take 3 or 4 diaphragmatic breaths.
• Relax your body (concentrate on each part of your body one after the other from your toes to your head – you can either tense the area then relax it and progress throughout your body or imagine each area becoming heavy and warm – see our article on Relaxation).
• Once you are relaxed, project yourself in the future (in 6 months, 1 year,… whichever time you have set for your goal to be achieved) and see yourself doing what it is you will be doing once you have achieved your goal.
• Create a clear picture. Imagine the way you want it to be. See yourself doing it the way you want it to happen. Make the thought as vivid as possible (use all your senses to make the thought as strong as possible, the more senses the stronger the visualization. See the place, the people involved, hear the sounds, the words. Involve your senses of smell and taste if possible).
• Once you have a solid scene, walk around it and experience what it is really like to be there.
• Feel how great you’ll feel then and experience the physical sensation involved.
• Finally, take a photograph of it to take with you and to remind yourself after the visualisation exactly what it looked and felt like.
• Come back to the present.

Now Practice To Make It Familiar

Keep practicing everyday. Pick a convenient time for you, the same everyday if possible so as to create a routine. Do it until your mind is familiar with the scene and recognizes it as something real to you. See it clearly every time you do it as if you are remembering something that already exists.

Give it positive energy and make strong positive statements (affirmations) to yourself about it. Really see yourself achieving it. Your affirmations should be strong, positive statements and should be in the present tense. Look at your photograph and repeat your affirmations several times a day.

Consciously and now also subconsciously, your whole being will be working towards achieving your goal.

This exercise will also help you keep your motivation up.