Imagine: you haven’t a care in the world, you are sitting on a nice warm beach. It’s not too hot; there is a soft breeze cooling you down along with a refreshing, iced drink at your side. Sit back and feel the sun on your face. Take a deep breath and soak up that feeling of relaxation you have just created with your own mind. I love using visualization techniques; not only do they brighten up my mood, but they give me clarity, and – most importantly – I use them to help shape my future.As a child I was forever being told to stop daydreaming and to pay more attention to the real world; but what is the real world? Each and every one of us lives in our own reality. We all have different belief systems that determine what kind of life we lead – good or bad. I look at things differently to you, a poor person’s realty is totally different to a wealthy person’s, somebody living in the city has a different reality to someone who lives alone in the countryside. You know what I’m getting at when I say realty is different for everyone. What if I told you that the reality you live in is totally under your control? That you can shape and guide it in the right direction any time you want? What if I told you that through the practice of visualization we could do this? We can take control of the wheel and stop wandering aimlessly through life. There are cultures and individuals all over the world that successfully use visualization in their everyday lives, and have done for decades; it’s not a new concept at all. In fact, I’d say it’s one of our original senses that we forgot how to use. We have nothing to lose by performing visualizations, we can only gain from it – give it a try yourself. What have you got to lose?

You see, our brains cannot differentiate well between real action and mental action. Research has provided evidence showing that thinking about an action — even whilst your body is at rest — will fire the neural pathways in your brain, just as if you were actually doing it.

Below is a brief exercise that you can try out:

Take a photograph of somewhere or someone you consider special. Take your time and really analyze it. Memorize every single detail that you can. Now I want you to simply close your eyes and try to recreate the photo in your mind. Try and remember every detail: the colors, the setting, every detail — whatever is there. Open your eyes to get more detail if you have to. Do this everyday for a week and before you know it, you’ll be visualizing like an expert. We can achieve all sorts of amazing things with our imagination; all we need do is believe in our own abilities. By starting with a photograph and using that to work on, we can train our minds to do this with whatever our thoughts desire. There are no restrictions, only the ones we put on ourselves.

Let’s look at this from another angle, and with a real example from my own life:

As children we all dreamed of becoming a fireman, a nurse, a rock star, an actor, an astronaut, or something equally as magical. We all daydreamed of what we wanted to do as an adult and we played for hours, just us and our imagination. But what happened? Why did we stop? How many of us became what we dreamed of becoming? How many of us forgot?

I’d say at least 90% of us never achieve our childhood dreams. We give them away so we can fit in with so-called ‘normal life’. We start living the dreams of our parents, or worse, we simply don’t live at all – we only survive by drifting through life wondering what could have been. As a child I dreamed of becoming a rock singer or an actor – or even both! You know what? With no formal training I did it. For the last 10 years I have been living my childhood dream. Ok, I’m not rich and I’m not famous, but I am actually living my dream. I hadn’t even thought about it until now, but have I created my own future through daydreaming as a child? It could be totally coincidental that I now work in the entertainment industry and that my choices have mirrored my heroes, but I truly believe it’s more than that.

The universe we live in is not only mystical, but I believe it’s also magical. After learning about the law of attraction, my eyes have been opened to the powers we hold. Powers and skills that – if used with positivity and love – can change our reality. It’s taken me over 40 years to work out that what was natural behaviour as a child could be the answer to living a happy fulfilled life. There have been other times in my life I remember, as I sit here writing this, where I have used daydreaming to alter my path; and it’s always worked, each and every time. Good and bad. From this day forward I ask you to start considering this, having an awareness of all your dreams and ambitions. Take time to sit and think about them, dare to dream the biggest dream you can, believe it will be yours: because I truly believe it will.