Do you remember the scene in American Beauty where Annette Benning, playing a realtor, is getting a house ready to view, vacuuming and opening drapes while chanting, "I WILL sell this house"? Every time I see this movie, everyone around me laughs.
But I don't, because this scene illustrates an important feature of achieving success. You have to not only want success, but create it. And one of the ways of creating success is to act with the self-confidence of a successful person. What Annette Benning's character was doing was raising her self-confidence so she could act successfully, and it's a technique for achieving success that will work for you, too.
Visualize success to achieve success. Whatever your specific goal is, picture the scenario and see yourself acting successfully.
For instance, if your goal is to get venture capital for your company, imagine yourself presenting your business plan to a group of potential venture capitalists. See yourself making your presentation to the group. Picture yourself as confident, relaxed, knowledgeable. Go through the pitch in your head. See and hear your audience asking questions and answer them. Picture a successful outcome, such as, in this case, the audience wanting to invest in your company.
When you've finished running through this visualizing success exercise, you'll feel your confidence rising and feel more relaxed. Do this exercise every day, as many times as possible before the actual event.
In the example above, for instance, you might visualize this successful presentation for several weeks before the actual meeting. What will happen is that the image will become the reality. By imagining success, you will achieve success. When it comes time to make the presentation, you will be confident, relaxed, and knowledgeable - because you've already done it so many times - and have a much better chance at a favourable outcome.
Hokey? Sure. But it works. Achieving business success isn't just a matter of preparing plans and financial reports; you also need to prepare yourself to act and be successful, and visualizing success will help you do that.
