Watching the Olympics over the last couple of days brought to mind how athletes use imagery to aid performance. It also caused me to consider that most people, including people involved in developing a business, think they simply have to see or visualize what they want to happen and that is enough to keep them motivated. It is not.

Yes, imagery can help deepen motivation, but in order to be really effective the person using it must include how they are emotionally reacting to the images they are providing themselves. You can provide yourself images of being successful all day long, but if there is an internal conflict with what success really means for you then the images are useless.

NLP and mindfulness provide powerful additions to the mix of seeing where you want to go in life or with your business by focusing on how you make meaning of the things you say you want. This may sound inconsistent but we tell ourselves things we want all the time and then proceed to work against them with our actions. These two approaches added to imagery ask you to become aware of resistance that may be just below awareness, and then provide yourself with the proper incentives to bring desires and action into synch.

Podcast episode 018 “Why Seeing It Is Not Enough” walks you through how your mind functions in tying images to meaning and emotions. This is important because on any given day you are faced with hundreds of situations that must go through the filter of your prior experiences and colors what you consider rational decision making. The episode also provides  two exercises that can help you analyze your reactions and then provides effective steps for making imagery work for you.