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Can you visualise your path to success? Only a few decades ago mindset practice in the workplace wasn’t as well accepted as it is today. But now that has all changed since merging our hard skills with our soft skills has become more of an established practice in business. We are therefore seeing more companies globally embracing mindset work. It is now a recognised fact that the use of visualisation has been a key success factor in the careers of professional athletes, musicians, and celebrities and the good news is that it is also being used effectively in the workplace.
Yet, there are those that will question whether visualisation actually works and how it can be applied in a business setting. Here we give you three visualisation techniques for success in business.
See it clearly in your mind’s eye
Take a task, such as an important presentation, mentally rehearse it and see it going well in your mind’s eye. This technique is amplified when you make the visualisation more vivid. Doing this triggers your brain’s reward circuit. Try setting a timer for two minutes at the beginning of your day and begin to visualise your success. Then, take the image or ‘movie’ of the achievement of your goal and refine the scenes as far as you can to make them crystal clear. That means painting the picture with vivid colours and bright imagery. Adjust any ‘sounds’ that you can imagine and make them pleasing to the ear. Enhance any positive feelings you experience and make them more intense.
Gain insight through hindsight
Time is indeed one of our most precious resources. When it comes to achieving your goals and objectives, taking stock of how you spend your time can reveal instances where time is being leaked or wasted. Set aside a few minutes at the end of your day. Take a few deep breaths and mentally go through the events of your day from start to finish to gain insight around your activities through hindsight. Mentally visualise what happened and what didn’t happen. Did you get through your ‘to do’ list or did you allow others to monopolise your time with their own urgent needs? Which events were planned? Which events took place unintentionally? Did you do something on the spur-of-the-moment when you should have been working on an important presentation? How did you deal with any changes that came about? By taking cognisance of where decisions are happening and are not happening you create opportunities. Undoubtedly, we all have enough time, but sometimes we waste it. Observing how you spend the time that you have will help you to make better decisions that support your goals and objectives.
Analyse challenges from all angles
How a problem is defined influences the solutions that will come to light and analysing problems from all angles will give you a better chance of effectively solving them. Brainstorming is one way that teams use to generate multiple ideas around a problem. By being curious and not critical, you can enhance your ability to see problems from many different angles as they come about during the course of your day. The more relaxed alpha brain wave function is responsible for inciting our creative problem-solving abilities and curiosity is a natural point of entry that encourages this function. To get your brain into the alpha state, try this method. Firstly, change your environment and take a break from your desk. Go for a walk, make a cup of coffee, do something to take your mind away from your current problem. Take a few deep breaths to relax your body and ground yourself. Then, ask yourself this question: “What opportunities are present in this current situation?” To make this easier ask your critical mind whether any limitations that exist are actually real or only presumed to be real. This will help you to sort the wheat from the chaff as it were. In stepping back and opening your viewpoint to alternative possibilities, you will discover the real crux of the problem.
Setting goals using the 4 P’s
An important point to remember about goal setting is that you need to be motivated. Writing down your goals will help to motivate you and you can further motivate yourself when you give yourself a reward for your ‘successes’. Even a small reward will help – such as treating yourself to a bar of chocolate or an ice-cream each time you ‘tick one of the boxes’ on your list. Goal setting helps you to get things done. Click here to book your seat on BOTI’s Goal Setting and Getting Things Done training course.