How to visualise your dreams so they come true

What we focus on becomes our reality. This basic and simple truth holds so much power, yet is it so often overlooked, dismissed, or not even known about. We’re taught so many things at school, but this absolute key piece of success isn’t one of them.

Think about it. What are the things you think about most in your life, and what is actually present in it? This notion goes further than mere physical things. The thoughts you repeatedly have, I’d argue, account for as much as the external things you focus on. What you tell yourself over and over will manifest one way or another, just like what you think about all day long.

It’s not a magic trick, it’s not even spiritual. Our actions and thoughts are so intertwined that one simply follows from the other. And guess what? The same is true for our dreams – duh!

Dreams get born as ideas. Or wishes turned into words. Or heartbeats turned into thoughts. However they start, they eventually find their way from our subconscious to our conscious mind. All of a sudden they’re there. We “think” about them. We have a dream, and it’s taking shape in our head.

The more we think about them, the more our dreams have a chance at being realised.

The problem is, life gets busy. Staying focused is hard. A lot can get in the way of our dreams. Literally. People, circumstances, twists of fate. If we’re not careful we might forget about our dreams altogether. Sometimes for a few months, often for years, in some cases for life. Until we wake up, and finally remember.

That’s why it’s so important to stay focused on our dreams.

A surefire way to do this is to visualise them. This makes them palpable. As if you’ve already achieved them even before taking the first action-step toward them.

How to visualise your dreams?

• Imagine you’re already there

From sports science we know that the brain doesn’t distinguish between imagined action and physical action. That’s why athletes now spent parts of their training imagining running around a track or jumping as far as they can. It fires off the same neural networks as physical training, and thus helps make the athletes better at their sport.

I believe the same is true for our dreams. Imagining and visualising our dreams helps strengthen our creative and action-taking muscles. It creates new neural pathways in our brains that will make the impossible seem possible, and will pave the way for us (to become the person we need to be to) achieve our dreams.

So take time regularly to imagine your dreams. I do it a few times a week, sometimes more when I’m trying to put together a clear plan to achieve a goal. I take out my list of goals and read through it. I close my eyes and imagine what it’ll feel like and be like to have achieved them. Sometimes I focus on one goal, sometimes I think about all of them. It depends on my mood, and the time I have available.

• Create a vision board

I’m sure you’ve heard of vision boards before. They’re so simple to put together and often referred to as this magic thing that will miraculously make your dreams come true. Cut out images you like from magazines and glue them together on a large sheet of paper and you’re done. Tada! You’re dreams will follow. Really?!

That’s how I felt when I put my first vision board together. I didn’t believe it would make a difference but since I was desperate for change I was ready to try anything. The whole experience felt silly. As I was cutting out images and gluing them I kept on wondering what I was doing. But when I was done there it was: an inspiring and soulful collage of all the things I wanted in my life. Looking at it made me feel so happy. I hung the vision board next to my desk. Every day I looked at it, for about six months. That’s the time it took to achieve the things I’d glued down on it!

The vision board reminded me of my dreams in such a vivid and persistent way that I achieved my goals faster, and in a more systematic way.

Since that first vision board, I’ve created many more. In fact, I use this technique not only to help visualise a goal, but to organise my thoughts about it too. Seeing the end picture helps me to put the plan together, and to define the steps I need to take to get there.

• Keep a dream jar

This is a cool technique that mixes together visualisation and imagination. You take a jar of any kind, and you write down your goals on pieces of paper. You put the pieces of paper folded in the jar and every day you randomly select one piece from the jar. You look at the goal on it and visualise already having it in as much detail as you can.

Grappling in your dream jar is something you can do once a day, or a couple of times a day. My jar sits on my desk so I often do it when I’m taking a short break from work. It relaxes me and inspires me at the same time. I love the feeling it gives me. Plus it helps me to stay focused on my goals!

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

How to get enough sleep during the night to achieve more during the day

When you’re working on your dreams, it’s easy to get stuck in action mode. This might come as a surprise, especially since procrastination is one of the main reasons clients seek out my help to achieve their goals, but too much doing can keep you from getting what you want.

Too much of anything is never a great formula. With the exception of love. I don’t think you can ever get enough of that. But when it comes to working toward your goals, being in action too much, wanting it too much, thinking about it too much can produce the adverse effect. The way this “too muchness” will show up is different for everyone.

What I’ve found – in my own life as well as that of many of my clients – is that it often translates into not enough sleep. We get so excited about our new idea that we slay at it for hours on end, or it keeps us up at night. We fall in the trap of thinking we have to be first, so we keep on going. Relentlessly. As we do, we stop listening to our body, we neglect it. The result? We become less productive, our creativity takes a hit, eventually we end up exhausted.

None of this is good for your dreams. It makes it harder to stay on track, to enjoy the process, and even to believe in them.

So make sure you get enough sleep. A rested body, and a replenished mind are your best tools to achieve your goals. It’s an illusion to think you’ll get there faster if you only push yourself hard enough. Achieving big dreams is a marathon, not a sprint. Small steps over time will yield more results than unsustainable burst of too much action.

How to get enough sleep?

• Listen to your body

Our bodies are incredibly complex systems with even more intricate operating systems. Not a computer in the world can do what our bodies can. Our bodies will tell us when something’s wrong. Because our minds have such powerful processing power too it’s easy to discard the signs. Mind of matter is a thing, and a good one for many reasons. But not when sleep is concerned. In order to function optimally, to be happy and feel good in our bodies, we need to sleep.

You might feel tired, experience some aches and pains, become more irritable, have trouble organizing your thoughts. These could all be signs that it’s time to stop and get some rest.

• Remember you’ve got plenty of time

Most of us overestimate what we can do in a day, and underestimate what we can do in a month. The same goes for longer period of times. It’s easy to overestimate where we’ll be in a year, and underestimate what we can actually accomplish in five. When you’re working toward big dreams it’s important to remember you’ve got plenty of time. It might feel like you have to do it now because you want it so badly, but you do have time.

I see it so often: it’s the small steps over time that produce the most results. Creating something new is a process that can’t be rushed. The journey is part of it. When we start it’s easy to think there’s no journey, just a destination. That’s when we rush into things, demand too much of ourselves, neglect to sleep. It’s unsustainable and simply doesn’t work.

When it’s 11pm at night and you find yourself yawning more than you’re thinking… remember you’ve got plenty of time. And go to sleep.

• Visualize your dreams as you fall asleep

One of the things I love to do when I fall asleep is to visualize my dreams. As I close my eyes, and rest my head on my pillow I imagine I already have everything I’m working toward. I do this for two reasons.

First, I believe in the power of visualization. Whatever we focus our energy on will eventually manifest itself. Not because elves and fairies will magically make it true but if it stays on our mind we’ll think about it more, come up with creative solutions for the challenges we encounter, and eventually believe it can happen.

Second, because there’s no better way to fall asleep. Focusing on your dreams in a positive way pushes away worries, and negative thoughts that can keep you up at night. When I do it I’m gone to lalaland in a few minutes, with a big smile on my face!

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.