As part of our wellbeing programmes we ask participants to think carefully about what successful healthy living looks and feels like for them.
In fact we encourage everyone we work with to begin regularly visualising their desired outcomes, right at the start of the step by step process we take them through. Visualisation is a vital tool in the quest to change behaviour, especially when we’re all super busy. Visualising complete success helps challenge and update some of our old brain patterns that are drawn towards anticipating negative outcomes that we may have experienced in the past.
Meaning that we’re all guilty sometimes of focusing more on the obstacles we might encounter than building a totally compelling vision of what we’d really like to achieve.
For example:
1. When you think about exercising, do you visualise yourself smoothly executing your workout / run / swim / class etc and feeling great afterwards or do you immediately start clouding the visualisation with thoughts of meetings running late, the clock ticking down and other priorities (often in the form of people) diverting your time and attention away from getting active?
2. When you plan for healthy eating, breakfast for example, do you imagine shopping, preparing, eating and enjoying the things you'd like to consume to set the day up well, or do you automatically temper your plan with doubts about your ability to get organised, get up and get ready to go with time to spare? And very quickly shift your focus to skipping breakfast or just grabbing a quick coffee on the go.
3. When you contemplate restful sleep do you create crisp, clear images of getting to bed at a specific time, falling asleep and staying asleep to wake up in the morning fully rested, or do you right away have suspicions that you'll be tempted by the thought of just a bit more Netflix, or see yourself lying in bed struggling to switch off a racing mind?
From today, take a few moments every day to create and reinforce your visualisation of the healthy living results you really want to experience in the future.
Just as in these examples, your mind may throw up some challenges but this is good - it allows you to visualise - in complete detail - how you will accommodate and work around these challenges.
The more you do this, the quicker the specific results you are aiming for will be yours.
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