Have you noticed that you tend to find what you focus on?
Shortly after my book, You CAN Teach a Pig to Sing – Create Great Relationships with Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere, was published, I was interviewed by Shelley Irwin of WGVU radio – a promo for a program I was going to be doing at Amway World headquarters. Shelley asked the inevitable question, “What is one thing people can do if they want to transform difficult relationships? My response is always the same: Create a vision of the relationship you want, and then act as if you already have it.”
The power to visualize and then act to bring about the outcomes you desire is not restricted to transforming relationships. It’s true for anything you want to achieve.
Human beings have a tremendous power to visualize. In fact, your eyes are taking in approximately 4 million bytes of information per second, processing, and forming pictures in your mind’s eye. For example, if I were to write the words, “charging boar,” you wouldn’t simply see the words. Your mind would instantly draw up a picture of a charging boar based on a memory bank of experiences, whether from an actual wild hog hunting trip you’d taken, a Netflix Meat Eaters program you had watched, or perhaps from having seen a charging boar in a National Geographic Special on TV. You have the ability to picture almost anything in your mind’s eye, and that same aptitude plays a key role in what you are able to achieve. First conception, then birth. The mental pictures that you carry around with you have an uncanny way of materializing.
A Vision of the Relationship Kind
This summer I witnessed a perfect example of the power of vision. A friend of mine had had a vision since she was a young woman of being married, having children, and living on a lake. Years passed, turned into decades, and no marriage or children materialized for her.
Then, about 4 years ago, she said, “I’ve always pictured myself being married with children and living on a lake. Well, there has been no marriage, no children, and no lake. I may not be able to do much about the first two, but I can live on, or at least near, a lake.” She quit her job and found another one in a city located along the shores of Lake Michigan and moved.
Within the first year in her new location by the lakeshore, she was introduced to a widower and the two of them hit it off. They had a remarkable number of common interests, and within the next three years those shared interests grew into love, and they eventually were engaged. On a beautiful day in July they exchanged marriage vows near the lakeshore, surrounded by his brood of young grandchildren who simply adore my friend, a loving woman, whom they have accepted with open arms as their grandmother. And his home? Did you guess? He has a lovely home on a beautiful lake that feeds right into Lake Michigan; his home has now become their home.
I believe that God gives us the desires of our heart. We might not receive them when with think we will or hope we will, but somehow the timing ends up being just about perfect. But first we have to create the vision and commit to keeping faithful to the vision, for almost surely the day will come when we see that vision materialize.
It’s not just true of the marrying kind of relationships, but business relationships as well. And, of course, it’s not only important to know how to create the vision, but we need to do our part by making sure we have the mindset, behavior, and skills required to see it through.
If you want to transform your business relationships and alter the perception of those who can make or break your career, I can help you. If you want to become more influential and make a larger impact, click here for some amazing free training.
© copyright 2018 Mary Jane Mapes All rights reserved.
