Karin Wildheart

This is the one thing I want everyone to know

Imagine you had the chance to make one point to everyone in the world. One thing to impress upon all of humanity. Each human on earth would hear out your idea and consider it. What would you tell everyone? I’d love to hear — please let me know in a comment or email!

Here’s my one-size-fits-all advice: Spend ten minutes every day visualizing having what you want in vivid detail.

It’s free, fast, and so effective. You don’t need any special equipment, permission from anyone else, or even internet access. You can do it lying in a hospital bed or from prison, but it works just as well from a penthouse suite with a view, on the nicest linen sheets.

Why does this work?

Your brain doesn’t know the difference between a vivid imagining or dream and reality.

Calm and happiness pump different chemicals and hormones through your body than constant stress.

Life coach Martha Beck says she can always tell when her clients are doing it because they literally look lighter, younger, and healthier.

Worst case scenario: Even if you hate your life and feel like you’re living in hell, you get to spend ten minutes a day in a heaven of your choosing. Of course spending time in heaven will change your outlook. Of course it will change your body chemistry. Of course it will help ward off depression.

Best case scenario: You realize pretty quickly how effective it is when you prioritize feeling great, so you incorporate more and more feeling good into your life. This creates a rapid snowball effect until it feels easy and effortless to get the things you want.

How to do it

It suffices to set a phone timer and simply picture yourself living out your desires, as simple or grandiose as they may be. Gently bring your mind back if it wanders.

More detail:

Set a timer (phone timer works great) for ten minutes. Take deep calming breaths if you want, or just dive in. Close your eyes or soften your gaze.

Use as much sensory detail as possible. What do your five senses tell you?

You can picture your desires in images, or if your brain prefers: sounds, tastes, smells, feelings… whatever brings you into the energy of what you desire.

Your priority is creating the emotional state you want the desires to bring you. Let yourself feel excited, relieved, and grateful. Cultivate feelings of pride and accomplishment. Imagine what it would be like to know things have turned out so perfectly even though they were looking a little iffy at times. Imagine that feeling/awareness as often as you possibly can.

What if I don’t know what I want?

The beauty of this exercise is that you don’t need a full plan or a cohesive vision. You can just think, “What would be nice?” It might be a moment on a faraway beach, a delicious meal, a kitchen with a beautiful view from the sink, a laugh shared with a soulmate, a sale in your business or dream client in your career.

You don’t have to visualize the same desires from one day to the next. If they drastically change, great! You’ve saved yourself time. You’ve gotten updated information about yourself without having to go through the whole process of actually getting the thing.

Whatever you dislike about your life currently can be a great place to begin. When you’re clear on what you don’t want, it gives you a sense of what you might want instead. Does your boss disrespect you and set you on edge whenever they’re around? Ok, what would a dream boss be doing/saying instead? Or would you rather work for yourself?

This is so easy–why isn’t everyone doing this all the time?

Visualization isn’t new advice. It’s ancient, extremely well-proven wisdom that this practice will help you get what you want more quickly and easily. So why is it not common knowledge, commonly done by everyone?

Imagine waving a wand and getting every single thing you want immediately. On one hand, it sounds pretty nice, but on the other hand, changing your outward circumstances does not automatically change your core emotional experiences (I think you knew that). You can read more about that in this article.

As a matter of fact, when you create from an emotion, that emotion intensifies. So if you create a lot of money from a place of anxious hustle, then you won’t feel relaxed when you have a big number in your bank account. You’ll actually feel MORE anxious–anxious you might lose it.

Most of us simply would not feel comfortable receiving a million dollars a day every day starting today. The very idea can cause us to freeze up and slightly panic. What about taxes? Would our friends judge us, hate us, stop being friends? Would a bunch of insincere people show up trying to befriend us? Would we have to change our clothes, homes, habits? What if we don’t know how to act at a fancy restaurant or yacht club or wherever the rich spend their time? Wouldn’t we have a big responsibility to do something good with the money? Haters coming out of the woodwork to tell us we aren’t spending it unselfishly enough. Wouldn’t we have to change our deeply held perspective on billionaires? On ourselves?

This is an extreme example, but it clearly illustrates Not Being a Match for the Thing You Say You Want. If you say you want something, but you don’t have it and don’t consistently take steps to get it, then there is a part of you that isn’t ready yet and/or doesn’t actually want it. It’s as simple as that. It makes perfect sense and there’s no shame in it.

So how do you become a match? You mentally cozy up to the idea until it feels just exciting or neutral and not also freezy-scary. How do you get to that good, neutral feeling? By practicing this visualization exercise bit by bit and day by day.

When no part of you is holding back, the desire can flow into your life.

One of my fave Instagram follows, Dr. Janine Kreft, says, “Transformation is instantaneous — and there tends to be a long period of prep to be ready to CHOOSE.” This has certainly been my experience. Resolving your subconscious hesitations is part of that “long period of prep.” You can’t force yourself to be ready to choose something.

It’s okay to feel resistance–but you probably want to look at why

I have used this visualization practice to GREAT effect to create a lovely round of my program Rest Easy and a near-perfect trip to Disneyland AND I admit I am not doing it daily, even though it’s my #1 piece of advice. I’m focusing on other overlapping practices at the moment and… I’m human! I have fears and hesitations just like the next person. Parts of me are resisting my next level of success. Successful people tell me this never goes away, and the trick of life is simply taking your action despite these parts of you.

If you can’t find ten minutes to do something free to make a positive change in your life, it seems clear that parts of you don’t really want a change, and that is okay! It’s not always easy to do the things we know will help us, and I completely understand and even relate AND it’s a giant yellow flag. A yellow highlighter over why your life looks like it does. Some part of you is holding on tightly to things as they are now.

If you aren’t spending the ten minutes, look closely at the reasons (excuses) you give for this. These are your “growth edge.” Look at them with your coach, therapist, bartender, best friend, or partner. Or just your journal.

These reasons/excuses are simply the words you have dressed your fear up in to keep you right where you are. They’re not true or untrue–they’re a reflection of your inner state translated into English (or your language). Ask yourself who you would be, what would be available to you, if these excuses didn’t exist.

Simple example: If you tell yourself you don’t have time, press deeper and look for counter-evidence. What if you do have time? What would that look like? Did you have ten minutes to scroll social media today? Could you visualize during your commute? (Perhaps talk to yourself out loud while driving as a modification). What about setting your alarm for ten minutes earlier or going to bed ten minutes earlier so you can do it before bed?

So here’s the full advice: visualize daily, and if you are not, ask yourself why and address that resistance head-on. If you want help getting past these hesitations and perceived blocks, let me know. Helping you sync up your mind and body to create the results you want is the work I love to do.