(Source: www.goodvibesrfree.com)

A lot of times, we experience situations we have been imagining about even before it happened to us; for instance, running across a friend we were thinking we would meet.  We often call it ‘coincidence’. However, there is a science behind why it happens and the same reason also validates how we can use our imagination to manifest our deepest desires into reality. This is a brain power every entrepreneur can tap into and use as a powerful tool to build a thriving business. It is called ‘Creative Visualisation’.

Creative Visualisation is an art of creating what you want in life through conscious imagination or visualisation. This technique in fact has been extensively practiced by professional sportsman, world leaders, business leaders, celebrities and many successful figures around the world over a long period of time. Oprah Winfrey, Ellen Degeneres, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan are some of them. 

Prior to 1980 Olympics, a study was conducted by Russian scientists on four groups of athletes which helps us understand the effectiveness of Creative Visualisation. The group’s performance was found to vary with their training schedule.

Group 1: 100% physical training
Group 2: 75% physical training and 25% mental training
Group 3: 50% physical training and 50% mental training
Group 4: 25% physical training and 75% mental training

Group 4 performed best as it was found that increase in performance was proportional to the increase in mental training.

(Source: www.inspiremore.com)

American businessmen Thomas John Watson Sr. (founder of IBM) and Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft) also foresaw success long before they achieved it. Watson knew how IBM would look like even before the company was operating. He was precise and clear in what he was about to create. He visualised the office, the machines, employees working, achieving goals and setting new standard, while Bill Gates envisioned a computer on every desk in the world running Microsoft software. Eventually, both of them realised what they visualised early in their business careers.

Creative visualisation is extremely effective for business success if harnessed correctly. This technique allows entrepreneurs to focus on the idea and not be carried away by multitude of things that obstructs their entrepreneurial journey. What makes this practice powerful and establishes it as an absolute truth is  that it is fundamentally about energy and how we can direct our energy to create the business we desire.

(Source: www.sourceofinsight.com)

How Creative Visualisation works

In her book ‘Creative Visualisation’, Shakti Gawain  talks about four principles to explains how creative visualisation work. Firstly, “The physical universe is energy”. The entire universe is an energy field. Our body and our thoughts are minuscule form of energy in this field. Secondly, “Energy is magnetic”. According to this principle, energy of similar quality and vibration attract each other. Our thoughts have a “magnetic energy” which attracts energy of similar attributes. Thirdly,  “Form follows ideas”. As our thought have magnetic energy it attracts its tangible ‘form’ which has similar energy to our thoughts. Lastly, “Laws of radiation and attraction” explains that we  draw things in our life that we think and imagine most strongly and vividly. This way, Creative Visualisation helps us in directing the energy of our thought towards the vision of our business.

How to exercise creative visualisation

Creative visualisation isn’t just about positive thinking. But as Gawain says, “Its effect is to dissolve our internal barriers to natural harmony and self realisation, allowing everyone to manifest in his or her most positive aspect.” So it is about yielding the most of one’s human potential to create a thriving business. For this to happen first, it is very important to relax and practice creative visualisation. In the book, Gawain mentions that when our body and mind are relaxed our brain wave pattern reaches the alpha level, conscious and effective meditative state to practice creative visualisation. Secondly, it's not mandatory that you have to see a mental image of your business to visualise, you can simply do what you find yourself doing while you imagine. If you try hard to see a mental image because conventionally that is what “visualising” or “imagining” is, then you will rather block yourself to create more out of this practice. There is no right way to visualise; some people are visually oriented while others use auditory or kinesthetics according to their natural comfort to imagine.

(Source: www.azquotes.com)

Now that you are prepared to practice creative visualisation, Gawain suggests four basic steps for effective creative visualisation. First, you need to have a clear goal of your business. Setting a goal gives you clarity of the business you want to build and what you should visualise. Second, create a mental image or a feeling of your business and think about it as if you have already achieved it. While you do this, include small to big details of how your business will look like, how it will feel and what experience you will have when you are living that moment for real. Third, visualise it more often in a day. Do it so much so that it becomes an integral part of your life. And finally, it's indispensable to feed positive energy to what you visualise until you achieve it. If you deflect from your original goals or it isn’t anymore the desired state you wanted to be in, you can certainly not visualise it anymore. Change is a common phenomena and your desires can change too. You need to visualise something as long as you have energy to do so.

Strong intention to visualise successfully

(Source: www.theguardian.com)

A strong intention will help you achieve your desired state of your business more quickly. As mentioned in the book by Gawain, your intention is made up of three elements: desire, belief and acceptance. It is important that you must truly desire the business you want to create and the more you believe in it, you will also believe in the possibility to achieve it. This will drive you towards attaining that goal. Moreover, you need to be ready to ‘accept’ the business you always desired when it is built. Keeping check of these three aspects of your intention will help you evaluate your progress or reflect on yourself if what you are seeking to achieve is truly what you desire and intend or not.

Author of ‘Think and Grow Rich’, Napoleon Hill says, “You will get no appreciable results until you learn to reach your subconscious mind with thoughts or spoken words which have been well emotionalised with belief”. So, if you are an entrepreneur who aspires to build a ground-breaking business, creative visualisation is a tool that can help you tap into your creative energy and eventually translate it into a wondrous creation.