Step 3 – Visualize Your Skill Development
The brain does not distinguish between what it plans mentally and what it experiences. When you visualize an action, the activated neural areas are the ones that would be activated if you actually performed the action. Therefore, visualizing an action prepares the brain to achieve it, and increases the chances of completing it.
For example, if you love to cook, what do you do before diving into a recipe? You visualize:
The ingredients and utensils that you'll use.
The time needed to make your meal.
How your dish will look.
If you don't perform this visualization, your recipe is not a guaranteed success.
Well, the same goes for your goal of developing soft skills.
It's Your Turn
Visualize your skill-building by answering the following question: What thoughts come to mind when you think about your goal?
For this step, I suggest using the mind mapping technique. Put your goal at your map's center, then make branches that attach to the thoughts you have when you think about this goal.
Here's an example of a mind map of the goal "In two months, I want to manage my time better and be more efficient during the weekdays, so I don't have to work on the weekends."
Step 4 – Identify Your Levers and Brakes
You have the power to change your thoughts. Your emotional weather forecast is going to be instrumental in how you take action and reach your goals.
It is no accident that top athletes have learned to control their emotions. They understand that it improves their performance, especially in channeling their energy and concentration.
Each of the thoughts you've registered on your mind map can give you pleasant or unpleasant emotions. In the language of top athletes, there are parasitic thoughts and counter thoughts.
But here's the good news: you can erase those parasitic thoughts by forming counter thoughts.
It's Your Turn
Look at your mind map and try to capture the emotions your thoughts bring up.
What thoughts evoke unpleasant emotions? Write them down, preceded by a minus sign "-."
What thoughts give you pleasant emotions? Write them down, preceded by a plus sign "+."
Put extra plus signs in front of the more pleasant thoughts. The same goes for unpleasant emotions (minus signs).
I'll give you an example with my mind mapping on time management:
Have you finished? Let's go on.
Step 5 – Cultivate Counter Thoughts
You are now going to erase the parasitic thoughts using your mind map as a roadmap. How?
For each of the parasitic thoughts, you'll form a counter thought. It means looking at your parasitic thinking from another angle to find a more optimistic one.
It's helpful to take enough time to think about each of your thoughts so you can identify other ones that could be attached to them.
Have you finished? 🥳
Complete this exercise: imagine as many counter thoughts that you can cultivate daily. By repeating them, these thoughts will sow positive emotions. And that's what you need to take action! 💪
Let's Recap!
In this chapter, you've explored visualization techniques:
Visualization allows you to get closer to your goal by preparing your brain to achieve it.
You can use mind mapping to represent any thoughts about your goal.
Identifying which thoughts bring up pleasant and unpleasant emotions helps you take stock of your emotional weather forecast. The negative ones are called parasitic thoughts.
You have the power to erase your parasitic thoughts by formulating counter thoughts, which put you in a more optimistic place. You can practice cultivating them daily.
This visualization stage puts you in the best position to take action. Let's explore action in the next chapter.
