“Your Imagination is Your Preview of Life’s Coming Attractions.” -Albert Einstein

Creating our own mental images is rapidly becoming a lost skill, especially compared to past generations. In our technology saturated environment, with apps like YouTube, it is all done for us. When are we forced to imagine? Very few people do it, and we need to get better at it. This is critical, because if we can imagine it, we can create it. That’s what the research tells us.

However, we’re great at worrying. Worry is a misuse of imagination since we’re previewing exactly what we don’t want. I like to break the word imagine in half, as in “image-in.” Worry is imaging in what we don’t want, as if it’s already happened, and feeling the corresponding emotions of stress and fear.

Since our outer worlds really are a reflection of our inner worlds, it’s vital to invest time imaging in what we want. We seem to be so out of practice with imaging what would excite us, as if it’s already so, and feeling the corresponding feelings of exhilaration. More than a static visualization, doing this programs your neural circuitry step-by-step, so that when you begin the action steps, you have already created the path or highway for neurons to travel so you can rapidly achieve your goals. Even if you do this for a few minutes before you get out of the bed in the morning it would give you results.

I was talking to a friend recently who was sharing her frustrations about dating and relationships. I suggested she think about a healthy and available man, and place her energy there. She said, “I can’t even picture that.” I said, “That’s your problem right there.”