How Positive Visualization Can Become Positive Attitudes…
“You can’t think your way to a new way of living, you have to live your way to a new way of thinking.”
Like a lot of people who hunger for a winning attitude, I read about the power of a winning attitude and I read and I read.
Did that help me understand why I wanted a winning attitude? Yes!
Did all that reading give me a winning attitude? No! Why not?
Because a winning attitude is not acquired through reading about it or hearing of other people who have one.
Take this example; a child who grows up in an abusive and non-loving home can’t become a happy, well adjusted adult merely by reading about happy, well adjusted people. Certain things must be experienced before they can become reality.
It begins with a strengthened self image.
Ok, let me describe an actual, though not specific, event where people have strengthened their self image.
The method of therapy used by the psychoanalytical school of study has a therapist who listens to the patient talk about things he’s afraid of, guilty of, bad thoughts or desires, whether real or imagined. The therapist never shows shock or disbelief or an attitude of non acceptance.
How this helps the patient is by letting them experience acceptance. Maybe for the first time in his or her life, patients experience sharing themselves and being accepted just the way they are.
The beautiful thing about this is that when I read about therapists using these manufactured situations to change people’s ideas about who they were, I also read that we can use our own imaginations to create situations in which we visualize ourselves as successful winners.
Sounds hokey, I know. The only reason I bring it up is because I’ve used it for years. Why? Because it works!
Fear of other people’s thoughts…
I used to be so afraid of what people thought of my severe speech impairment, that before I discovered the “mentally experiencing success technique”, I asked the teacher of a local community college if I could explain to the class why I spoke the way I did. Although she said it wasn’t necessary, she ended up letting me on the first day of class. I later learned how completely unnecessary this was. Little kids care about and tease each other’s personal defects. But for the most part, adults don’t care about things that don’t affect them.
In the past thirty years, I’ve redeveloped a positive Attitude, I’ve relearned to walk reasonably well, talk reasonably well, drive reasonably well, perform standup comedy and deliver keynote speeches to thousands of people, and my experiential belief in the power of mentally experiencing success is stronger than any suggestion to the contrary.
My belief in the power of visualization is backed up by professionals in every arena… professional golfers and basketball players are just the tip of the iceberg. Think it, believe it, do it. There are many other believers, including medical doctors and such that I won’t go into because this blog is not about them.
Positive visualization is one way to strengthen your self esteem and gain a positive Attitude.
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