When you visualize, you are making mental images with a purpose. Visualizing is mentally rehearsing an activity to improve your performance.

Some of you will not want to visualize because you do not see how visualizing can help you. Once again, it is what we tell ourselves that is often the greatest block to learning something new.

Now before you start to say to yourself that you do not see how visualization can work, think about this.

Even as you are reading these words you are visualizing. Since you can read you must have a visual image of the letters and words you are looking at or you would not be able to remember the words and letters or attach any meaning to them. You are comparing those symbols to a mental image in your memory.

When you were learning those letters and words you had to practice reading and writing them over and over until you easily remembered them. Learning takes some time and practice.

In our brains, we have stored many images and sounds and words. These are stored in our unconscious memory and recalled when ever we associate some conscious thought with that memory.

Thinking about Thinking

Stop for a moment and think about how you think. 

Ask your self if you hear words in your mind.

Ask yourself if you can see a favorite color or the face of someone you love in your mind.

Ask yourself if you can hear a favorite piece of music in your head.

Ask yourself if you can feel yourself touching a piece of velvet in your mind.

These are all ways we remember. When you visualize you use all of these types of memories.

If you have ever been happy, anxious or sad, in order to know how these feel, you must also remember what it is like to be happy, anxious or sad.  You must visualize happiness, sadness or anxiety. You must have something in your mind to compare it to.

If you run through a long list of items that are negative, that you think are to blame for your unhappiness,  then that is exactly how you will feel. You will reinforce that feeling every time you run through that list of sorrows.

If, on the other hand you list all the reasons for being grateful and happy, then you will feel happiness. You can also reinforce at any time by running through that list of happy experiences.

You rehearse being happy or sad. And it is through that visual rehearsal that you are making yourself happy or sad. You are telling yourself how to respond to events that you believe cause you to be happy are sad.

Just listing those things is not enough to make us happy or unhappy. A list is just a bunch of symbols on paper or in our minds. It is the meaning we attach to those symbols.

You are mentally attaching a meaning to an event or experience.

That meaning is contained in the memories stored as words, images, sounds,  and our interpretations of those experiences. And it is from our interpretations that we once again make ourselves feel happy or unhappy.

So why not learn to direct those memories and experiences to your benefit? That is, visualize with a purpose.

Writing your feelings and thoughts

To become aware of your internal dialog and images, start writing down what you are telling yourself. Write as fast as you can. Then go over what you have written and ask yourself if what you have written is provable in reality. Where is the proof of each statement?  Ask yourself if you are making connections that do not really exist. Ask yourself if you are setting one standard for yourself and another for everyone else.

One method is to set up three columns. In the first column you write what happened. In the second column you write what you thought, what your mental reaction was to what happened. And finally how you felt in reaction to what you thought.

This is a small example of what you can write.

Start by writing down a description of the event that you feel is a problem. This is a memory of an experience or a thought that is bugging you.

Next with the last column, how you felt and list all your emotions and feelings. These are what you may want to change to make you feel more comfortable and have the most impact on you.

Then write down all the thoughts that are going through your mind in response to the event.

Then go through each thought and look for proof that it is real or not and test to see if you are judging yourself differently from others.

Then write down how you might have thought and responded more positively about the event.

Finally list all the emotions and feelings you have, given these new positive thoughts. 

Rehearsing the Positive

Once you have decided on more positive ways of interpreting an event then see and hear yourself handling that event the way you want successfully.

Rehearse your response and feelings in vivid color.

Whenever you experience something, for example someone yelling at you, always come up with at least three explanations for the other persons behavior.

And, apply that same standard to yourself. When you think of something that bothers you, explain the memory in at least three different ways.

You already visualize whether you are aware of it or not. Make it another tool to get more happiness, confidence and success.