Seeing is Believing

Seeing is Believing

Following on from the last couple of blogs and the theme of the power of our words and thoughts, how do we get beyond positive thinking to even more powerful and better results?  We all know how easy it is to get drawn back into unresourceful thinking, even if we have told ourselves to think more positively. What makes a difference is the way in which we use our visual representations in our mind to see our outcome with more clarity.

Let me share an example with you to explain what I mean. Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to get whisked away on the back of a motorbike by a former trainee on one of my NLP programmes and who has now become my good Hungarian friend.

My friend lives in Ubud, a major arts and cultural town in the central hills of Bali and nestled in the middle of the lush, tropical countryside. We were two women on a shopping mission heading towards the Tegallalang Road. This road is adorned with one shop after the other, offering a magical, artistic array of colours and textures, from wood, glass, mirror, tiles, beads, house decorations to beautiful pieces of furniture and ironwork. It's a complete cornucopia of hand made artefacts and an Aladdin's cave of treasures. When you think the road must surely come to an end, it carries on gently twisting and turning for at least two miles. As my friend sped past these endless shops, my head swivelled round and round like an owl on the alert for prey. I was tempted to shout 'stop' at every place. There was so much to see on either side of the road, I couldn't take it all in. When we did stop we walked into what seemed like a small wood carving shop on the outside. On the inside it was a completely different story where it became an overwhelming vision of every conceivable wooden animal, god, box, tray, trinket, picture frame and object. I put on a positive face for my friend, but underneath I was totally overwhelmed.

Just as we can look positive on the outside, we can become overwhelmed by our thoughts on the inside. In order to respond to my friend's question 'what would you like to buy?', I had to focus beyond the sheer volume and dust and dirt on all these objects. I had to focus clearly on what I wanted. To do this properly, I had to visualise what these objects would look like when they were clean, shiny and polished. We have to do this with our thoughts too. Beyond the dust and dirt lies a gem and this gem can be illuminated through our mind's eye. The reason why seeing what we want is more important than just positive thinking, is that our mind naturally works in pictures. The more we see exactly what we want and make it more vivid in our mind, the more real it will appear to us and the more likely we will get to our desired outcome.

We can use the power of visualisation i.e. seeing what we want with anything that we are thinking about and is on our mind. Whether it's health, wealth, happiness, relationships, careers, business, self esteem, you name it.

What's on your mind right now? What specific outcome do you want to see beyond positive thinking? Picture in your mind your vision. Imagine what it could look like. You can use your mind to see beyond what you can see already.

As the conductor says in the Polar Express film:

"Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can't see." 


I will be looking at the power of how our visual senses in our mind can be leveraged for powerful and resourceful thinking in our next NLP programme. Please click on the NoLimits NLP link on this blog page. Alternatively, NoLimits can provide bespoke leadership development programmes for corporate organisations. Please click on the NoLimits Asia link on this blog page.

Keep on visualising successful outcomes!

Janet