“ Visualize a world where your cherished dreams come true.”
The American Speech Company’s philosophy says that a person who pursues excellence improves their chances for long-term success. Focusing on refining skills versus short-term wins sets one up for the long haul.
My book, Seeking Balance: The ultimate guide to English-speaking excellence for the shy, foreign, or frustrated, targets the importance of choosing excellence over success.
The reason for its importance is that too often people grab for immediate success by seizing the first opportunity that comes along. Many young graduates take jobs hoping to gain experience only to find that they get pigeonholed into dead-end jobs. These jobs don’t increase skill levels so their pursuit of excellence gets squeezed out, leaving one always chasing dreams with limited talent.
The pursuit of excellence never fails an individual. Talent acquired through effort such as improved speech, technological, or educational skills travel with you wherever you go. Job may come and go but skills stay with you.
What prevents people from pursuing excellence? I think it comes down to a person’s inability to visualize personal excellence. Too many people think, “I cannot be excellent at anything.” They couldn’t be more wrong.
Excellence simply means being the best you can be. To go beyond the ordinary and seek the wonderful person who hides behind the excuses.
The first step involves seeing the winner within. Visualizing excellence requires an individual to focus on “seeing” the finished product in their mind. Being able to visualize starts the process of actualizing.
Many successful people in athletics and business use this technique including many Olympic champions. Seeing an outcome removes doubt, creating a positive mental approach.
People who focus on shortcomings create a self-fulfilling prophecy where their mind tells them they can’t do it so they don’t get it done. They are beat before the game starts.
Visualization instills belief and is easy to do. Let’s try a short session on improving your ability to communicate with others.
Three easy steps to visualizing success
Step 1: Sit in a comfortable chair, close your eyes and imagine yourself watching Netflix. As you scroll down the movie choices you see one with your name in the title such as “The Life of Jim Smith.” Click it on and the first scene involves you having a series of conversations with the people in your life. The conversation with each individual is smashing as you change from thoughtful, riveting and intelligent to persuasive and funny. Imagine as much detail as possible such as clothing, facial expressions, body movements and environment. Imagine your feelings in the scenes and recreate that sensation in your body.
Step 2: You see yourself getting up from your chair, opening the television screen and walking into the movie to play yourself. You are the star of the film, talking with the people in your life in perfect ways. Feel the experience.
Step 3: Open up the screen and come out of the movie. Sit back in the chair while the movie still plays. See the television screen miraculously shrink into a golden chalice filled with a magical drink called Visualization. Gently take the chalice and swallow the drink. Imagine each enchanted drop as a hologram containing a full image of a successful you. Each drop speeds through your entire body spreading thriving images of you. The images flow through your bloodstream, traveling to every inch of your being. Take a deep breath, open your eyes and get on with the day.
The process takes five minutes. Practice this technique daily to see a new you, a confident and well-composed person in any situation. Change the movie script to fit any business, social, physical, or emotional achievement you desire.
Excellence won’t come if the mind sees doubt, fear, and failure. Drinking a daily visualization cocktail starts the process of achieving excellence in life.
Seeking excellence instead of success builds a solid life foundation. Use visualization for one week to see the seeds of excellence emerge and crowd out doubt. Here’s to you!