Visualization is not enough. You need to take action and Make Use of the Tools Available to You!
Cinderella’s favorite way to unwind from the daily stress of fulfilling her step-sisters’ and step-mother’s every demand was to go to her corner and picture a different life for herself. According to the song, “In My Own Little Corner” from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, she can imagine that she can be whatever she wants to be. Of course, like what happens in real life, those visions become too scary, so she retreats to her safe corner. Just like in the last post, she has to get out of her own way. She has to step out of her safe comfort zone. Taking that first step is important. Continuing to take steps forward is vital. Cinderella, and you, can’t just sit back, hope and dream that a different life will magically appear. You have to take action. Cinderella has to get out of her safe little corner, and so do you.
Cinderella didn’t have very much in the way of resources. Luckily, her Fairy Godmother found ways to make the things around her into usable tools to accomplish her goals. No carriage to get to the ball? Here’s a pumpkin. No one to drive the carriage? How about some mice? No fancy ball gown? Let’s fix up what you’re already wearing.
Now let’s be clear, this doesn’t mean to take manipulative action like the step-sisters participate in (more on that in the next post). This is one step at a time, one foot in front of the other, forward moving action. Will every step be perfect? No way! But every step forward is vital to getting to that dream.
O.K., maybe you left your magic wand behind, but we have way more resources available to us now than in Cinderella’s day. You are using one of those tools right now. Being able to access knowledge and resources has never been easier. You can get all kinds of free resources. You just have to invest time into learning and implementing them. Then there are millions of paid tools to help you achieve just about anything online.
I don’t remember which of the many self-help gurus said this, but each tiny step is a win to be celebrated. Have an idea – half step until you sit down and rev up your computer or pull out you notepad to write down the idea. Yay! That’s now a step. Checkmark in the win column. Now, actually write out the idea! Yay! That’s a second step. Getting up to go get a drink without saving the idea, that’s a step backward. Yes, hydration is important as well as moving around, but not as a distraction from the work you plan to do. Next time, grab the drink on your way to your desk, or wherever you work. A new process to set in place. Yay! That’s another step forward (and it makes up for the step backward). Learning from our mistakes are TREMENDOUS steps. If we always did everything perfectly the first time, we’d be a mythical creature. Sounds nice. I’d love to be a unicorn, but not likely to happen.
Which brings me to the next point. Yes, negative things will pop up ALL THE TIME! Don’t give these negative thoughts or feelings power. Thank them for sharing and keep taking steps forward. Like write three things about how to accomplish the idea you just wrote down. Yay! Another 3 steps forward!
Maybe you are like me, and over the years (decades) have created multiple vision boards. It’s a fun, creative exercise, but somehow, almost none of those visions have manifest into reality. Now, even coming up with a picture in my mind of some of those visions is nearly impossible. I wonder if my imagination has gotten it’s own version of dementia.
But then, relatively recently, I heard a talk about how picturing something that is out of our personal experience is really hard. We want to connect the vision to a feeling to make it come alive. This makes sense to me. In one of the kid’s classes I teach, I show students that the more senses you use, the better memory you create. Plus, if we are always searching outside ourselves to get something, we are doing it backwards. Our greatness builds from within. Check out more about how this works in Derek Rydall’s Emergence.
The other thing that makes me feel like visualization on it’s own doesn’t work is what I call the Mis-Fortune Cookie Syndrome. I don’t know about you, but I LOVE getting fortune cookies. I read the message “Everything you ever visualized will be yours.” Yay! That feels so good. Thank you fortune cookie for really seeing me.
Then, within seconds, milliseconds, my mind turns that fortune on it’s head. “Everything you ever visualized will NEVER be yours.” Yep, that’s the truth my mind embraces, the mis-fortune. After that, it’s pretty easy to put that vision board to the side and chalk up another win for “reality” over visualization.
If only I had taken the encouragement from the fortune cookie and taken a step forward toward my vision, things would likely be so different. Visualization isn’t the enemy. It’s the lack of action toward acquiring that vision that’s the problem. Yay! I wrote those words. Checkmark in the step forward column!