“Live out of your imagination, not your history.” – Stephen R. Covey
Reality is Subjective
How do some individuals achieve a level of success that seems impossible for most other people?
Short answer: They believed it was possible.
They believed when they first dared to dream big. And they found ways to constantly keep the belief alive until their goal was achieved.
Before we go any further, here’s a little teaser:
Believe it or not, this article contains a video clip of a man walking on water.
It sounds impossible, but he dreamed big and found a way to achieve it in remarkable fashion.
Fertilize Your Dreams
After the initial excitement of a new goal fades and the reality of effort sets in, it is critical that we find ways to keep the belief alive.
Visualization is a powerful tool for transforming dreams into reality. When we repetitively see the final result of a goal in our mind, in a photograph, or in a movie clip, our subconscious starts to believe that it has already happened.
Clay Collins of The Growing Life blog wrote a wonderful article on Visual Goal Setting. He suggests manipulating an image to visually represent your goal as if it already existed.
Clay explains:
“The idea is that photoshopped goals help your subconscious believe that you can attain things previously thought impossible. Getting your sub-conscious to buy into a goal radically empowers you to materialize the goal in real life…”
I’ve used visual goal reminders while fight training. I have images of my dream beach-house in Hawaii and an all-electric Tesla Roadster on my vision board.
But my favorite image for the last 6 months is a little more abstract. It’s that funny image at the top of this blog with a business man running on water.
The image helps me be mindful of the following:
- To run with passion in the direction I’ve chosen.
- The business suit symbolizes my focus on career at this point in my life.
- When performing miracles like walking on water, ignore the doubters and follow the arrow on my one-way sign.
I love that image. It brings a smile to my face. It’s the wallpaper on my Macbook Pro so I see it all the time.
As promised, here is a clip of Criss Angel walking on water (while walking over and around moving people, and losing a shoe).
Some may choose to call it an illusion. I see it as defining your own rules to achieve something incredible.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBQLq2VmZcA]
Inspiration credit: I’d like to thank Barbara Swafford of Blogging Without A Blog for the post idea. She challenged her readers to study a picture that they liked and write a post about it.
What is your favorite motivational image? Please share in the comments below.
Loved the clip, Sterling! I won’t be able to listen to the audio until tonight, but I’m very curious to hear what they’re saying. If you can walk on water, it probably makes your other goals seem a lot easier.
@Hunter Nuttall – Hi Hunter, thanks for stopping by. The audio is just drama and audience feedback to hype up the performance. But what a crazy clip. Glad you enjoyed it.
I love this article and the Criss Angel clip. Reality is not whether Criss Angel walked on water or not. The reality is that he created something amazing that makes your mind struggle to know what is real. CHALLENGING US. I need to learn how to use photoshop to put myself in the reality of my goals and challenge my mind to see the potential!
I’ll start visualizing myself in my new job right now.
Hi Sterling,
First of all, thank you for the link and for “completing your assignment”. I say you aced it. 🙂
The Criss Angel video was priceless…so perfect for this post.
Visualization is so important, as is the belief in yourself and your chosen goals that you can do it. I find it’s best to avoid nay sayers. Often they will throw so many negatives at you, you begin to doubt yourself.
Don’t stop believing…..
@Jay – Thanks for stopping by Jay. You have a good job, but if you want an even better one I’ll help you photoshop a visual goal of it 🙂
@Barbara – Thanks for the fun assignment and you’re welcome for the link. It’s the least I can do after all the help you’ve given me.
Hi Sterling great article and video. I wonder if he really actually walked on water? It was pretty amazing.
I love your idea of photoshopping images to help you achieve your goals. I’m not brilliant at Photoshop yet, but I’ll give it a shot.
I do use various images to motivate myself. At the moment I have a photo of Necker Island on my desk top. And I also have a dream board too, the trouble is it is in the kitchen at the moment. We really need to get a bigger one and put it in the living room where we’re able to see if all the time. We mostly add pictures of the places we want to travel, live etc. And the kids add similar stuff too.
@Cath – He sure made it look like he could walk on water…very talented guy.
Clay from The Growing Life posted about photoshopping visual goals first. He has another article on how to create visual goal movies that’s worth checking out.
That’s wonderful that you encourage the kids to add to your vision board. What a great habit to develop so young.
That clip sure made me stare hard and think
and you know what
I love that. Sterling, I aim really high – I have found that enjoying the journey up is also quite fulfilling and amazing if I manage to stay in the moment and appreciate the ascent in every small task I do. A change in mindset really does amazing things!
What Cris did was surely amazing
Also, I can see why that picture inspired you Sterling. Think they have a version with a woman in heels for me? 🙂 I kid, I kid (no really, if you see one, send it over)
@JEMi – Thanks for the comment. I can tell by the content on your blog that you are ambitious, and admire that you try to stay present in even the smallest tasks.
I’ll see if I can find a photo for you. Or if you have something more customized in mind, I can photoshop something for you.
Hi Sterling, kick-ass post. Indeed, if you believe it, it exists, otherwise it doesn’t and never will.
As for a motivational image, I don’t have a specific picture but ones of smiling people are uplifting.
Hi Sterling – cool blog! Just discovered you after you posted to mine. Thanks for the comment.
Great post.
Wayne Dyer has a cool book from back in the day called, “You’ll See It When You Believe It.” Good stuff.
@Mark – Thanks for stopping by and for the recommendation on Dr Dyer’s book.
Thanks for this post. I was having a really frustrating day and realized that my bad pessimistic attitude was just making it worse. I will go back to believing now…
Yikes– I’ so happy I found you guys– I’m including a section in my new book “THE VISION BOARD” Unlock th Secret to An Extraordinary Life about photoshopping your visions. I figured SOMEONE HAD to be doing this and now I found you guys/gals. I love the man walking on water pix– want to share it in my book. The book will be out in fall, 2008 from Harper Collins Publishing, Collins Design. It’s already up for presale on Amazon.com. You can check out a short motion graphics video I put up on the site http://www.ihaveavision.org. I’ll be adding info to the tabs later. Right now — jsut looking for a few more kewl pix LIKE YOURS!
@Dr. Nicole Sundene – Thanks for stopping by. Your comment was flagged as spam and I just discovered it. Sorry for the delay in posting it.
@Joyce Schwartz – I love photoshopping, but the particular image of the man walking on water was one I purchased from istockphoto. It might even be an actual photo, not digitally manipulated. I’ll email you the link to the photographer.
Your book sounds wonderful. Love the intro video clip on your website.
It is not real he is walking on plexiglass