After the last year of pandemic, lockdowns and firefighting, now is the perfect time for you to revisit your vision.

On this podcast episode, I explain why you need to revisit your vision and where it can be helpful for you, your team, your business and your future.

When I was delivering a resilience workshop last week there were lots of people saying they’ve lost their mojo.  This is why revisiting our vision is key to giving ourselves meaning and direction; it’s what pushes us forward.  This gives us the reason to get up in a morning. 

Research says that when you’re engaged and have purpose, life becomes easier, less complicated and less stressful.

By focusing our attention externally, and giving ourselves a constant source of activity to channel our mental energies into, purpose means that we spend less time immersed in the associational chatter of our minds — the chatter which often triggers negative thoughts and feelings.

Listen in for more detail on the reasons it’s a good thing to revisit your vision and a brief summary of how you can do this.

I share the detail behind my vision, what drives my purpose and motivates me each day — so listen in if you’re as nosey as me and want a little snippet of the story behind my business.

Finally, recognise that many leaders often struggle with being able to visualise that vision, which is why in my workshops I walk them through a visualisation so they can get really clear on their vision and the reasons why it’s so powerful.

I’d love to know what your vision is, so drop an email to me at emma@emmalangton.com and let me know.

If you want to ask any questions or get some help and advice, let me know that too.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.  

If you haven’t yet  left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com.  Or head over to my contact page at https://emmalangton.com/contact and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all the to-ing and fro-ing you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

If you are a regular reader of my blogs you will probably have noticed that I often talk about visualising or visualization.  A lot of other people also talk about it too, but do you what exactly it is – or do you know how to do it or even – what’s the point of visualizing?

Well, many people are visualising each and every day to help them with general day to day life, or for health issues.  Some people just use visualising here and there in their lives, or for specific times or situations.  So to help you decide what’s the point of visualising, here are some tips and reasons.

Brain Power

Research has shown that the brain cannot distinguish between real and imaginary.  Really!  So whether we actually do something, or visualise doing something, or brains believe we’ve actually done it.  So, let’s say you visualise calmly and confidently taking your driving test, functioning in the exact way you really want to be able to do it.  Then when it comes to actually taking your test, your brain believes you’ve already done it the way you visualised. To your brain it’s already an established memory, so it’s so much easier to do the test with calm confidence.  You can see how this can apply to all sorts of things!

Feel Empowered

When you visualise being the way you wish to be – calm, confident, healthy, strong, energized (and lots more) it can really help you to feel empowered. You really begin to get a sense of control over your life or certain situations.

With health situations it shifts the power away from doctors, hospitals, medicine and drugs (they have their place, of course).  It helps to feel a sense of control and that a person can cope / feel calm / be positive with situation or circumstances around the illness or health issues.

Self-Belief

When you start to see the positive effects of visualising, as I’ve mentioned above, and you begin to feel capable and empowered.  Then the sense of self control begins to grow within you.   So then it helps you to develop a greater belief in yourself and your own abilities.  You can really begin to feel able to do the things you want to do, in the way you want to do them.   Belief has enormous power for change!  Think about a time when you believed in yourself and how easy it was to be successful or achieve that goal.

We can always harness a little (or even a lot) more self-belief, so harnessing the belief in the point of visualising and how it can help is going to be a good thing!

“The future depends on what we do in the present”

Mahatma Ghandi

How to Visualise

You don’t have to be great at seeing pictures in your mind.  Some people just have a sense of how they want to be, others have a vague picture.  Some imagine a scene on a kind of screen in front, others imagine being in the actual scene.  Any way is fine, whatever is best for you.

1.  Set your sights.

Write down or think of a few bullet points about what your goal is.  Get really clear on this, no vague or wishy-washy desires here.  Be specific.

2.  Think about Thoughts.

Identify how you want to think.  A couple of positive phrase such as I am confident, I can do this, I am OK

3.  Filter your Feelings.

Identify how you want to feel.  Where in your body do you want to feel this?  Feelings could be about being happy, comfortable, steady, strong.

4.  Be Aware of Your Body.

Remember body language is hugely beneficial to how we respond.  So how would your body want to look, be, respond.  Is it shoulder back, a steady hand, head held high, smile on face?

5.  Set Aside Time

• Make sure you have a few minutes, or longer to be free of distraction so you can focus on this and nothing else.
• Bring up your picture
• Add in the positive thoughts, the feelings, the body language and posture
• Really enhance all these. Imagine turning up the intensity or the brightness or volume.
• Bring in all the sensory details, sights, sounds, smells, taste or touch if applicable.
• Pay attention to the detail of your thoughts, feelings and actions.
• Play through the scene in your mind a few times until it looks or feels how you want it to be.

I’d love to know if this helps your self belief, empowerment in any way.  Do please let me know in the comments space below or drop me an email or pop over to share on my Facebook Page.

Hi, I’m Emma, Hypnotherapist in York with a particular interest in helping you with anxiety, stress, fears and phobias so that you can take back control of your thoughts and feelings.  That way you can quickly and easily feel more able to cope with your busy life! There are no magic wands or quick fixes instead I give you personalised tools that work for you and fit with your lifestyle.

Happy New Year ! Welcome to 2016. Where do you want to go this year? What do you want to do? What are your resolutions, intentions, aims or goals.   Whooooaaaa

STOP! Really. Just STOP. Take a big deep breath.

Are you wishing this year away?

In this fast changing world we all need to take a little time to just stop, reflect, take stock. It’s all very well making plans but before you go haring ahead through 2016 take a moment to stop and look back.

Look Back

Yay! You did it. You got through the year! Whatever your issues, challenges, achievements you did it. You got through them all. It might have been difficult or messy or a rollercoaster or great but YOU DID IT!

What went well? Stop and recognize it – just for a moment or two. When you recognize and remember what went well or what was enjoyable, take a moment to remember it – visualize it and notice the good feelings you get. Give yourself a pat on the back if you like.

Let it Go

What didn’t go well? You won’t need to dig deep for these, they’ll be there anyway, hanging around in your mind, maybe even still bothering you. What can you learn from this?  Is there a project, idea, tool, piece of equipment or even a person that just didn’t work for you? Well, learn from it, then let it go!

Do you need to recognize what it was? You don’t even have to know WHY it didn’t work, just accept it didn’t work or didn’t go well. (For me, my internet is not going well, as it’s a big part of my business with so much communication and marketing being online! I didn’t want the hassle to looking at changing it, but now I’m going to let it go and definitely accept I need to change provider). So, it doesn’t need to be a tangible thing – it can be anything. You might need to actually DO something to let it go / clear it out. If its thoughts or feelings then you could write them down and shred them or even imagine letting them go by blowing them up, chucking them in the bin, washing down the drain or anything else that works for you.

All done? Good. Now you are ready.

Move On

So, where do you want to go this year? What do you want to do or achieve? Pick your top 3 or top 5, not too many. Then break them down into smaller achieveable chunks. In coaching (and in business) we talk about SMART goals. Specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, timely.

Write them down, find some words or a picture that represents them, or make a vision board, even better – tell someone! When we tell someone it makes us accountable! Whoever we tell will be able to ask us how we are getting on so we can’t just let those goals and dreams float by without ever actually getting anywhere near them.

This year my top goal is to create some online packages in my work so that I can help more people feel so much better about their everyday life. This way, with online packages they are more affordable and people can use them at home in their own time without needing to wait for me to have space and time where our diaries can match up.  There, I’ve told you mine and just made myself accountable – eek!

Finally

Pick one word or phrase that you think you will need or that you want to be. Last year my word was STRONG. There was some seriously difficult stuff going on in my family this time last year and I knew I was going to need to have a lot of strength to see me through. I really didn’t feel strong at the time! So I looked for a couple of phrases, quotes and comments that included something about being STRONG. I stuck them up in my office and even changed them now and then throughout the year.

I even managed to get a phone cover with this nifty phrase on it, so it was in my sight at lot. Getting into the subconscious all the time is good too.

You know what – they helped! Seriously, even I had some doubts when I started it. Yet just last week there were several times when people said to me they thought I had been very strong in dealing with what I have. So try it!

A Quick Summary

• Look Back

• Recognise what was good

• Let go of what was not good

• Pick 3 – 5 goals for this year.

• Break goals down into achievable chunks.

• Pick a word or phrase to support you throughout the year.

Let me know how you get on.

Emma x