Step-By-Step Visioning

Still interested in visualization after last week’s post? Today we’re doing the nuts-and-bolts of making your visualization practice work for you. It’s an easy practice, and you don’t need much to begin – basically a dream, your imagination, and a couple of free minutes. The basic idea is envision yourself already achieving a goal or living a dream that you currently have. Some people do this very easily, but for those of you who have a hard time with this, this post can help. We’re going to make your vision rich in detail using a simple step-by-step process, which I’ve adapted from Erin Postle’s “What are you really Hungry for?” from Changes of the Heart.

Step #1: Determine Your Dream State
I wrote quite a bit about this here – please check it out if you need help with this step. I’m going to use one of the finance dreams I identified in that post to run through this example.

Dream State: “I am someone who plays with money, creating abundance, prosperity and adventure.”

I’m using this one because it sounds great to me, but I don’t really know what it means yet. I don’t know what it looks like. (But I will by the end of this post!)

Step #2: Seeing Things
This is where visualization usually starts and ends – you imagine what your life will look like once your dream is achieved. I’d like you to go as deep as you can completing this statement:

I love {having achieved my dream} and I know I {am/have}because I see…

That is very clunky when written generically; it’s easier to show you:

I love being someone who plays with money, creating abundance, prosperity, and adventure and I know I am because I see all of the gains I made on my brokerage statements, the sales reports from my Etsy shop, my organized budget and spending tracking, my increased tax payments, the letter from the entrepreneur I decided to fund.

Obviously I’m making this up, and you might have to too, and that’s okay.

Step #3: Social Feedback

We’re doing the same thing here with the clunky sentence – fill this in as well as you can:

I love {having achieved my dream} and I know I {am/have} because I hear people telling me…

My example: I love being someone who plays with money, creating abundance, prosperity, and adventure and I know I am because I hear people telling me that they wish they were as lucky as I was, that it must be nice to be able to travel so often, and that they envy me having found financial freedom.

Wow! I was not expecting – at all – to uncover some negative beliefs about people’s reaction to my financial dreams with this exercise. This is a great opportunity to uncover things that might be unconsciously holding you back from your dream. If you find something like this, be sure to write it down; we’re going to work with blocks in next week’s post.

Step #4: Future Action
We’re looking at actions you will be taking when you have achieved your dream. Fill in all that you can:

I love {having achieved my dream} and I know I {am/have} because I am taking these actions:

My example: I love being someone who plays with money, creating abundance, prosperity, and adventure and I know I am because I am taking these actions: researching investment opportunities, creating and leading retreats in exotic destinations, paying my credit card bill in full every month and using it only so I can amass travel rewards, calling my broker to discuss an exciting new opportunity, researching vacation home rental properties, tracking my spending, shopping for supplies for my jewelry line.

Step #5: Feeling
You know the drill by now:

I love {having achieved my dream} and I know I {am/have} because I am feeling:

My example: I love being someone who plays with money, creating abundance, prosperity, and adventure and I know I am because I am feeling excited, competent, capable, fascinated, energized and abundant.

Step #6: Thinking
This is my favorite, as you can adopt these thoughts immediately!

I love {having achieved my dream} and I know I {am/have} because I hear myself thinking:

My example: I love being someone who plays with money, creating abundance, prosperity, and adventure and I know I am because I hear myself thinking: “I wonder how I could make this money work harder for me.” “I wonder how I could use my abundance to help someone else live a life of prosperous adventure.” “I wonder how the markets did today.” “It might be fun to see if I could try selling something.” “Wouldn’t it be awesome to own a vacation rental? Where can I find information on this idea?”

Step #7: Put it all Together
Copy/paste the results from each step into a narrative:

I love being someone who plays with money, creating abundance, prosperity, and adventure and I know I am because I see all of the gains I made on my brokerage statements, the sales reports from my Etsy shop, my organized budget and spending tracking, my increased tax payments, the letter from the entrepreneur I decided to fund.

I love being someone who plays with money, creating abundance, prosperity, and adventure and I know I am because I hear people telling me that they wish they were as lucky as I was, that it must be nice to be able to travel so often, and that they envy me having found financial freedom.

I love being someone who plays with money, creating abundance, prosperity, and adventure and I know I am because I am taking these actions: researching investment opportunities, creating and leading retreats in exotic destinations, paying my credit card bill in full every month and using it only so I can amass travel rewards, calling my broker to discuss an exciting new opportunity, researching vacation home rental properties, tracking my spending, shopping for supplies for my jewelry line.

I love being someone who plays with money, creating abundance, prosperity, and adventure and I know I am because I am feeling excited, competent, capable, fascinated, energized and abundant.

I love being someone who plays with money, creating abundance, prosperity, and adventure and I know I am because I hear myself thinking: “I wonder how I could make this money work harder for me.” “I wonder how I could use my abundance to help someone else live a life of prosperous adventure.” “I wonder how the markets did today.” “It might be fun to see if I could try selling something.” “Wouldn’t it be awesome to own a vacation rental? Where can I find information on this idea?”

Step #8: Remove Anything with an Ick Factor
If there is something that gives you an ‘ick’ reaction, take it out of the narrative and save it for next week. You can add it back in later. I will be temporarily removing the “hear people telling me” paragraph from this vision, until I have a chance to do some work on those beliefs.

Step #9: Make It Pretty
Put it on a nice piece of cardstock, add visuals that relate to your vision, laminate it – whatever works for you. You want the end product to be something you can quickly grab and read daily.

Step #10: Make it a Habit
Read your vision while you eat breakfast. Record yourself reading the narrative and play it on your daily commute. Laminate it and throw it in your shower. Whatever works.

Step #11: Research & Refine
As you were doing this exercise, you might have found that there are certain things you just don’t know. Research them. Get your vision as detailed as you would like it to be. Rewrite your narrative whenever you have new information.

Step #12: Adopt What You Can

There are certain things from my vision that I could be doing/thinking/feeling today but I am not. These are the areas where we can have fun. There is nothing stopping me from researching vacation rental homes right now. Can I afford to buy one? Not now, but that does not matter. The point is taking actions and adopting thought patterns that belong to the person who has already achieved your dream. By getting in the habit of thinking like this, I can start becoming that person today.

Leave a comment below with one of your answers so we can experience what your life will be like once you have achieved your dream.