Where are you going?

“Begin with the end in mind.” - Unknown

Have you ever planned a trip?...that’s a rhetorical question.  Of course you have and I’d be willing to bet that the moment you started planning, two things happened.  One, you began to get excited about the weather, the surroundings, the food and drink…the memories.  There’s broad scientific evidence that picturing that positive horizon stimulates the body's production of serotonin (amongst other positive hormones) which balances mood and promotes feelings of well-being and reward.  That’s all well and good…we can always use that kind of positive boost…but something else, something more tangible begins as well.  Motivated by our renewed sense of well-being, we begin to plan what we’ll need to get there and happily prioritize and push forward with otherwise mundane things such as organizing travel documents, booking flights, budget considerations and the like.  It’s a genetically ingrained trait that ensured our ancestors prioritized the things needed “in the moment” to ensure future survival. 

Here’s the thing…the analogy above is just a trip.  Regardless of whether that trip ends up being a dream vacation or a big disappointment, it’s unlikely to have any severe impact on the course of your life or the lives of those close to you.  Surprisingly though, I regularly speak with people who are excited…genuinely excited about a new venture they’re working on.  A venture that has the potential to change the lives of them and those around them.  They’ll devote precious resources to this venture…energy, money and the most precious resource of all…time.  The opportunity costs will be significant and yet more often than not, they have only a superficial idea of the path they’ll need to take to get them there and they’ll allow essential tasks to be overwhelmed and deprioritized by “busy work”.  The information gaps and progress delays raise unforeseen risks, result in missed opportunities and ballooned timeframes.  It’s rarely the branch that we see that trips us up but all the same, it can lead to frustration, self doubt or a potential end to the journey.  The good news is that risk can be mitigated, opportunities can be taken advantage of and schedules met or adjusted but only if we plan for them in advance and prioritize them accordingly.

When I tell people I begin my day with 10-12 minutes of visualization, I can often see the person's eyes glaze over.  “Meditation’s not for me.”  “Wishing doesn’t make it so.”  “I don’t have time.”…(click here to read my thoughts on that one).  I’ve heard them all…and they're all BS.  Along with focusing on my sleep and daily priority planning (which I’ll share with you in upcoming articles), visualization has allowed me to achieve results that I couldn’t have otherwise.  Be it family, sport, business interests or any other important aspect of my life, the practice of envisioning a future state down to the smallest detail and then visualizing in equal detail the immediate steps needed to get there has been immeasurably powerful.  When I was an athlete competing at an elite level, we visualized every step of a race…from nerves at the start, through the pain, the strategy, and eventually the successful finish.  Every step, every sip of water, every competitor overtaken.  This ensured we entered competition with a sense of confidence and foregone success.  In my case it allowed me to achieve results far in excess of what my marginal talent might have otherwise allowed.

I’m older now and living life as a “normal” person but my day still starts early.  Not silly early but let’s just say that my alarm is set for dark-o-clock.  I take a few seconds to stretch out and  I head into the bathroom to get a glass of water before walking into a small study attached to my bedroom.  Prominently placed in the corner is a chair with a floor lamp behind it that arches gently over the left shoulder. The colour temperature of the bulb was settled on after much trial and error...because I’m a nerd that way.  It’s a comfortable chair with a very slight sling back, gently curved wooden arms, padded linen seat and a faux fur blanket draped over the backrest from top to bottom.  I put on my noise canceling headphones and with my phone still on airplane mode, I open the app that I use for my visualization.  Now this isn’t a promo for an app.  The specific app isn’t important and for that matter, the use of any given app isn’t integral to the practice.  If you’d like to know which app I use, I’m happy to share that but for now, just know that I use an app.  

The first 3-4 minutes is a basic breathing exercise in which I focus on slow, deep breaths that first fill my chest and then my stomach.  I try to concentrate on the rise and fall of each breath.  With each inhale, I move from one area of my body to the next beginning with my head and working my way down to my feet.  As I move from one part of my body to the next, I focus on it to the exclusion of everything else.  How is it feeling today?  Any aches or pains?  Any tension?  As I slowly exhale, I try to let go of that body part before moving on to the next.

The next 4-5 minutes are reserved for visualizing a desired future state.  That might be an upcoming event, the moment at which I achieve a significant goal, a point in my life that I’m working towards, it may simply be the completion of a current project.  I begin to visualize every aspect of that moment down to the minutia.  Where am I?  Who else is there?  I visualize the time of day, the temperature and smells in the air around me, a passing car, even the feel of the sun or a breeze on my skin.  I picture my posture, the clothes that I’m wearing, the feel of the ground underneath my feet.  Now I imagine my emotional state.  Am I happy, confident, motivated, grateful?…you get the idea.  The point of this is that when visualization is done to that degree of detail, it becomes ingrained in our minds as vividly as real memories.  Psychologists have shown that our minds are incapable of differentiating between repeated vivid visualization and real memories…and so…we create a future state that our subconscious mind believes is real regardless of how far out it may be.  We solidify our sense of purpose, gain confidence in our ability to achieve it, begin to foresee details that might have otherwise gone unnoticed and develop a sense of priority.

The final 3-4 minutes are extremely straightforward.  What single step must I prioritize today to ensure I’m moving in the direction of that future state?  I may take more than one step but I will always take at least one.  It may be something that takes 60 seconds like sending an important email or it may be something that takes several hours such as keyword development for an upcoming launch…that’s a factor of both how much time is available in my schedule but more importantly, what is the next step that needs to be taken.  I visualize what that task looks like, exactly when, where and how I’ll perform it.  I picture myself completing the task down to the feeling I’ll get having achieved it.  Do I feel satisfied, relieved, empowered?  Again, that vivid visualization creates a virtual “memory” that allows me to move forward confidently with the priority it’s due.

When I rise from my chair, it’s not an overstatement to say that I’m a man of focus…a man of commitment.  Barring a true emergency (think major house fire or needing to take one of my children to the ER as opposed to checking my email or doing some laundry), that task is my #1 priority.  With few if any exceptions, I will accomplish that task and even if my day goes sideways from there, I’ll lay my head on the pillow that night knowing that I took a meaningful step towards my desired future state that day.  Over the course of a year, I take hundreds of equally meaning steps.

In contrast, there was a time when I would have considered myself “very busy”.  I’d begin the day with a laundry list of “important” things that I needed to get done, usually the same list as I had the day prior.  I’d check my socials and email…and that was it, the day was no longer mine.  I’d spend my time reacting to other peoples priorities, the squeakiest wheels and whatever was right in front of me.  At the end of the day, I’d lay my head on the pillow, exhausted.  I’d wonder how I’d managed to be so busy but hadn’t accomplished any of the “important” things that I needed to get done and inevitably my future goals somehow always remained…well, in the future.  Sound familiar?

Now picture your own desired future state for a moment.  How many steps do you think it might take to get there…dozens, hundreds maybe?  Imagine what you could accomplish in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years if you took a single meaningful step each and every day.  What does that cost?  It costs 10-12 minutes of your time and the patience to form a habit…if you're anything like me, I’ll hazard a guess that the potential return on that time may turn out to be one of the best investments you've ever made.  It’s what we choose to do each and every day that determines our future life. So what are you going to do today?