فصل 3

Chapter THREE

Imagination: The First Key to Your Success Mechanism

Imagination plays a far more important role in our lives than most of us realize.

I have seen this demonstrated many times in my practice. A particularly memorable instance of this fact concerned a patient who was literally forced to visit my office by his family. He was a man of about 40, unmarried, who held down a routine job during the day and kept to himself in his room when the workday was over, never going anywhere, never doing anything. He had had many such jobs and never seemed able to stay with any of them for any great length of time. His problem was that he had a rather large nose and ears that protruded a little more than is normal. He considered himself “ugly” and “funny looking.” He imagined that the people he came into contact with during the day were laughing at him and talking about him behind his back because he was so “odd.” His imaginings grew so strong that he actually feared going out into the business world and moving among people. He hardly felt “safe” even in his own home. The poor man even imagined that his family was “ashamed” of him because he was “peculiar looking,” not like “other people.” Actually, his facial deficiencies were not serious. His nose was of the “classical Roman” type, and his ears, though somewhat large, attracted no more attention than those of thousands of people with similar ears. In desperation, his family brought him to me to see if I could help him. I saw that he did not need surgery . . . only an understanding of the fact that his imagination had wrought such havoc with his self-image that he had lost sight of the truth. He was not really ugly. People did not consider him odd and laugh at him because of his appearance. His imagination alone was responsible for his misery. His imagination had set up an automatic, negative failure mechanism within him, and it was operating full blast, to his extreme misfortune. Fortunately, after several sessions with me, and with the help of his family, he was able gradually to realize that the power of his own imagination was responsible for his plight, and he succeeded in building up a true self-image and achieving the confidence he needed by applying Creative Imagination rather than destructive imagination.

Dr. Maltz shows how we have goals and are using our imagination whether we think we are or not. We either use our imaginations constructively or destructively. The key is becoming aware of which way you’re using yours—and improving on it daily.

Creative Imagination is not something reserved for the poets, the philosophers, the inventors. It enters into our every act. For imagination sets the goal “picture” that our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of “will,” as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination.

A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment.

This is a basic and fundamental law of mind. It is the way we are built.

When we see this law of mind graphically and dramatically demonstrated in a hypnotized subject, we are prone to think that there is something occult or supra-normal at work. Actually, what we are witnessing is the normal operating processes of the human brain and nervous system.

For example, if a good hypnotic subject is told that he is at the North Pole, he will not only shiver and appear to be cold, his body will react just as if he were cold and goose pimples will develop. The same phenomenon has been demonstrated on wide-awake college students by asking them to imagine that one of their hands is immersed in ice water. Thermometer readings show that the temperature does drop in the “treated” hand. Tell a hypnotized subject that your finger is a red hot poker, and he will not only grimace with pain at your touch, but his cardiovascular and lymphatic systems will react just as if your finger were a red hot poker and produce inflammation and perhaps a blister on the skin. When college students, wide awake, have been told to imagine that a spot on their foreheads is hot, temperature readings have shown an actual increase in skin temperature.

Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between an imagined experience and a real experience. In either case, it reacts automatically to information that you give to it from your forebrain.

Your nervous system reacts appropriately to what you think or imagine to be true.

The Secret of Hypnotic Power

Dr. Theodore Xenophon Barber conducted extensive research into the phenomena of hypnosis, both when he was associated with the psychology department of American University in Washington, DC, and also after becoming associated with the Laboratory of Social Relations at Harvard. Writing in Science Digest, he said: We found that hypnotic subjects are able to do surprising things only when convinced that the hypnotist’s words are true statements. . . . When the hypnotist has guided the subject to the point where he is convinced that the hypnotist’s words are true statements, the subject then behaves differently because he thinks and believes differently.

The phenomena of hypnosis have always seemed mysterious because it has always been difficult to understand how belief can bring about such unusual behavior. It always seemed as if there must be something more, some unfathomable force or power, at work.

However, the plain truth is that when a subject is convinced that he is deaf, he behaves as if he is deaf; when he is convinced that he is insensitive to pain, he can undergo surgery without anesthesia. The mysterious force or power does not exist. (“Could You Be Hypnotized?” Science Digest, January 1958.) A little reflection will show why it is a very good thing for us that we do feel and act according to what we believe or imagine to be true.

Truth Determines Action and Behavior

The human brain and nervous system are engineered to react automatically and appropriately to the problems and challenges in the environment. For example, a man does not need to stop and think that self-survival requires that he run if he meets a grizzly bear on a trail. He does not need to decide to become afraid. The fear response is both automatic and appropriate. First, it makes him want to flee. The fear then triggers bodily mechanisms that “soup up” his muscles so that he can run faster than he has ever run before. His heart beat is quickened. Adrenaline, a powerful muscle stimulant, is poured into the bloodstream. All bodily functions not necessary to running are shut down. The stomach stops working and all available blood is sent to the muscles. Breathing is much faster and the oxygen supply to the muscles is increased manifold.

All this, of course, is nothing new. Most of us learned it in high school. What we have not been so quick to realize, however, is that the brain and nervous system that react automatically to the environment are the same brain and nervous system that tell us what the environment is. The reactions of the man meeting the bear are commonly thought of as due to “emotion” rather than to ideas. Yet it was an idea—information received from the outside world, and evaluated by the forebrain—that sparked the so-called emotional reactions. Thus, it was basically idea or belief that was the true causative agent, rather than emotion—which came as a result. In short, the man on the trail reacted to what he thought or believed or imagined the environment to be. The “messages” brought to us from the environment consist of nerve impulses from the various sense organs. These nerve impulses are decoded, interpreted, and evaluated in the brain and made known to us in the form of ideas or mental images. In the final analysis it is these mental images that we react to.

You act, and feel, not according to what things are really like, but according to the image your mind holds of what they are like. You have certain mental images of yourself, your world, and the people around you, and you behave as though these images were the truth, the reality, rather than the things they represent.

Let us suppose, for example, that the man on the trail had not met a real bear, but a movie actor dressed in a bear costume. If he thought and imagined the actor to be a bear, his emotional and nervous reactions would have been exactly the same. Or let us suppose he met a large shaggy dog, which his fear-ridden imagination mistook for a bear. Again, he would react automatically to what he believed to be true concerning himself and his environment.

It follows that if our ideas and mental images concerning ourselves are distorted or unrealistic, then our reaction to our environment will likewise be inappropriate.

Why Not Imagine Yourself Successful?

Realizing that our actions, feelings, and behavior are the result of our own images and beliefs gives us the lever that psychology has always needed for changing personality.

It opens a new psychological door to gaining skill, success, and happiness.

Mental pictures offer us an opportunity to “practice” new traits and attitudes, which otherwise we could not do. This is possible because, again, your nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and one that is vividly imagined.

If we picture ourselves performing in a certain manner, it is nearly the same as the actual performance. Mental practice helps to make perfect.

In a controlled experiment, psychologist R. A. Vandell proved that mental practice in throwing darts at a target, wherein the person sits for a period each day in front of the target and imagines throwing darts at it, improves aim as much as actually throwing darts.

Research Quarterly reported an experiment on the effects of mental practice on improving skill in sinking basketball free throws. One group of students that practiced throwing the ball every day for 20 days was scored on the first and last days.

A second group was scored on the first and last days but engaged in no sort of practice in between.

A third group was scored on the first day then spent 20 minutes a day imagining that they were throwing the ball into the hoop. When they missed, they would imagine that they corrected their aim accordingly.

The first group, which practiced 20 minutes every day, improved in scoring 24 percent.

The second group, which had no sort of practice, showed no improvement.

The third group, which practiced in their imagination, improved in scoring 23 percent!

I was asked by Randy Sullivan, a coach at a pitching academy, to help him with the “mental game” for his high school and college baseball players, many of whom had a goal to throw the ball 90 miles per hour. Randy said, “When an athlete is within a few miles per hour of the Promised Land, crossing the line is more mental than physical.” I witnessed many athletes struggle with all their might to throw 90 miles per hour—and fall short. Yet, after I taught these athletes a number of mental imagery and relaxation exercises, they were able to relax their bodies and hit 90 for the first time. Afterward, their self-images usually adjusted to the rate of velocity and hitting 90 was no longer difficult. Eighteen months after implementing the Psycho-Cybernetics techniques, the number of players who broke 90 miles per hour at Randy’s facility skyrocketed from 18 to 98.

How Imagination Practice Won a Chess Championship

Reader’s Digest reprinted an article from The Rotarian by Joseph Phillips called “Chess: They Call It a Game,” in which Phillips tells how the great chess champion Capablanca was so superior to all competition that it was believed by experts that he would never be beaten in match play. Yet he lost the championship to a rather obscure player, Alekhine, who had given no hint that he even posed a serious threat to the great Capablanca.

The chess world was stunned by the upset, which today would be comparable to a Golden Gloves finalist defeating the heavyweight champion of the world.

Phillips tells us that Alekhine had trained for the match very much like a boxer conditioning himself for a fight. He retired to the country, cut out smoking and drinking, and did calisthenics. “For three months, he played chess only in his mind, building up steam for the moment when he would meet the champion.” Mental Pictures Can Help You Sell More Goods

Charles B. Roth, author of Secrets of Closing Sales, recounted in one of his books how a group of salesmen in Detroit who tried a new idea increased their sales 100 percent. Another group in New York increased their sales by 150 percent. And individual salesmen, using the same idea, have increased their sales up to 400 percent.

And what is this magic that accomplishes so much for salesmen?

It is something called role-playing, and you should know about it, because if you will let it, it may help you to double your sales.

What is role-playing?

Well it is simply imagining yourself in various sales situations, then solving them in your mind, until you know what to say and what to do whenever the situations come up in real life.

It is what is called on the football field “skull practice.”

The reason why it accomplishes so much is that selling is simply a matter of situations.

One is created every time you talk to a customer. He says something or asks a question or raises an objection. If you always know how to counter what he says or answer his question or handle the objection, you make sales.

A role-playing salesman, at night when he is alone, will create these situations. He will imagine the prospect throwing the widest kind of curves at him. Then he will work out the best answer to them . . .

No matter what the situation is, you can prepare for it beforehand by means of imagining yourself and your prospect face-to-face while he is raising objections and creating problems and you are handling them properly.

Use Mental Pictures to Get a Better Job

William Moulton Marston, psychologist, lawyer, and inventor (who may be best remembered as the creator of Wonder Woman, under the pen name Charles Moulton), recommended what he called “rehearsal practice” to men and women who came to him for help in job advancement. If you have an important interview coming up, such as making an application for a job, his advice was: Plan for the interview in advance. Go over in your mind all the various questions that are likely to be asked. Think about the answers you are going to give. Then “rehearse” the interview in your mind. Even if none of the questions you have rehearsed come up, the rehearsal practice will still work wonders. It gives you confidence. And even though real life has no set lines to be recited like a stage play, rehearsal practice will help you to ad-lib and react spontaneously to whatever situation you find yourself in, because you have practiced reacting spontaneously.

“Don’t be a ham actor,” Dr. Marston would say, explaining that we are always acting out some role in life. Why not select the right role, the role of a successful person—and rehearse it?

Writing in Your Life magazine, Dr. Marston said, “Frequently the next step in your career cannot be taken without first gaining some experience in the work you will be called upon to perform. Bluff may open the door to a job you know nothing about but in nine cases out of ten it won’t keep you from being fired when your inexperience becomes evident. There’s only one way I know to project your practical knowledge beyond your present occupation and that is rehearsal planning.” A Concert Pianist Practices “In His Head”

Artur Schnabel, the world famous concert pianist, took lessons for only seven years. He hated practice and seldom did practice for any length of time at the actual piano keyboard. When questioned about his small amount of practice, as compared with other concert pianists, he said, “I practice in my head.” C. G. Kop, of Holland, a recognized authority on teaching piano, recommends that all pianists “practice in their heads.” A new composition, he says, should be first gone over in the mind. It should be memorized and played in the mind before the pianist ever touches fingers to the keyboard.

Clayton, a virtuoso violinist, was convinced he needed to retire. He came to this conclusion, in part, due to a wrist injury. It was more difficult for him to practice, and this weighed heavily on his mind. How could he be good without practice? In a coaching session I asked him to play the violin without his violin. He did as I advised and a week later gave the best concert of his life. He was so pleased with his performance that he decided it was no longer a good idea to retire.

Imagination Practice Can Lower Your Golf Score

Time magazine reported that when golf champion Ben Hogan played in a tournament, he mentally rehearsed each shot, just before making it. He made the shot perfectly in his imagination—“felt” the club head strike the ball just as it should, “felt” himself performing the perfect follow-through—and then stepped up to the ball, and depended on what he called “muscle memory” to carry out the shot just as he had imagined it.

Alex Morrison, perhaps the most well-known golf teacher in the world, actually worked out a system of mental practice. It enables you to improve your golf score by sitting in an easy chair, and practicing mentally what he called the “Seven Morrison Keys.” The mental side of golf represents 90 percent of the game, he said, the physical side 8 percent, and the mechanical side 2 percent. In his book Better Golf Without Practice (now out of print), Morrison recounted how he taught comedian and writer Lew Lehr to break 90 for the first time, with no actual practice whatsoever.

Morrison had Lehr sit in an easy chair in his living room and relax while he demonstrated for him the correct swing and gave a brief lecture on the Morrison Keys. Lehr was instructed to engage in no actual practice on the links, but instead spend five minutes each day relaxing in his easy chair, visualizing himself attending to the Keys correctly.

Several days later, with no physical preparation whatever, Lehr joined his regular foursome, and amazed them by shooting nine holes in an even par, 36.

The core of the Morrison system is: You must have a clear mental picture of the correct thing before you can do it successfully. Morrison, by this method, enabled Paul Whiteman, and many other celebrities, to chop as much as 10 to 12 strokes off their scores.

Johnny Bulla, the well-known professional golfer, wrote an article in which he said that having a clear mental image of just where you wanted the ball to go and what you wanted it to do was more important than form in golf. Most of the pros, said Bulla, have one or more serious flaws in their form. Yet they manage to shoot good golf. It was Bulla’s theory that if you would picture the end result—see the ball going where you wanted it to go—and have the confidence to know that it was going to do what you wanted, your subconscious would take over and direct your muscles correctly. If your grip was wrong, and your stance not in the best form, your subconscious would still take care of that by directing your muscles to do whatever was necessary to compensate for the error in form.

The Real Secret of Mental Picturing

Successful men and women have, since the beginning of time, used “mental pictures,” and “rehearsal practice,” to achieve success. Napoléon, for example, “practiced” soldiering in his imagination for many years before he ever went on an actual battlefield. Webb and Morgan in their book Making the Most of Your Life tell us that “the notes Napoléon made from his readings during these years of study filled, when printed, four hundred pages. He imagined himself as a commander, and drew maps of the island of Corsica showing where he would place various defenses, making all his calculations with mathematical precision.” Conrad Hilton imagined himself operating a hotel long before he ever bought one. When a boy, he used to play that he was a hotel operator.

Henry Kaiser has said that each of his business accomplishments was realized in his imagination before it appeared in actuality.

It is no wonder that the art of mental picturing has in the past sometimes been associated with “magic.” However, the new science of cybernetics gives us an insight into why mental picturing produces such amazing results, and shows that these results are due not to “magic,” but to the natural, normal functioning of our minds and brains.

Cybernetics regards the human brain, nervous system, and muscular system as a highly complex servo-mechanism: an automatic goal-seeking machine that “steers” its way to a target or goal by use of feedback data and stored information, automatically correcting course when necessary.

As stated earlier, this concept does not mean that you are a machine, but that your physical brain and body functions as a machine that you operate.

This automatic Creative Mechanism within you can operate in only one way. It must have a target to shoot at. As Alex Morrison said, you must first clearly see a thing in your mind before you can do it. When you do see a thing clearly in your mind, the creative Success Mechanism within you takes over and does the job much better than you could do it by conscious effort, or “willpower.” Instead of trying hard by conscious effort to do the thing with ironed-jawed willpower, and all the while worrying and picturing to yourself all the things that are likely to go wrong, you simply relax the strain, stop trying to do it by strain and effort, picture to yourself the target you really want to hit, and let your creative Success Mechanism take over. Thus, mentally picturing the desired end result literally forces you to use “positive thinking.” You are not relieved thereafter from effort and work, but your efforts are used to carry you forward toward your goal, rather than in the futile mental conflict that results when you want and try to do one thing, but picture to yourself something else.

Finding Your Best Self

This same Creative Mechanism within you can help you achieve your best possible “self” if you will form a picture in your imagination of the self you want to be and see yourself in the new role. This is a necessary condition to personality transformation, regardless of the method of therapy used. Somehow, before a person can change, he must see himself in a new role.

Edward McGoldrick, founder of New York’s Alcoholic Therapy Bureau in the 1940s, used this technique in helping alcoholics cross the bridge from the old self to the new self. Each day, he had his students close their eyes, relax their bodies as much as possible, and create a “mental motion picture” of themselves as they would like to be. In this mental motion picture they would see themselves as sober, responsible persons. They would see themselves actually enjoying life without liquor.

I myself have witnessed veritable miracles in personality transformation when an individual changes his self-image. However, today we are only beginning to glimpse the potential creative power that stems from the human imagination, and particularly our images concerning themselves. Consider the implications, for example, in the following news release, which appeared under an Associated Press dateline: Just Imagine You’re Sane

SAN FRANCISCO—Some mental patients can improve their lot and perhaps shorten their stay in hospitals just by imagining they are normal, two psychologists with the Veterans Administration at Los Angeles reported.

Dr. Harry M. Grayson and Dr. Leonard B. Olinger told the American Psychological Assn. they tried the idea on 45 men hospitalized as neuro-psychiatrics.

The patients first were given the usual personality test. Then they were asked flatly to take the test a second time and answer the questions as they would if they were “a typical, well-adjusted person on the outside.” Three-fourths of them turned in improved test performances and some of the changes for the better were dramatic, the psychologists reported.

In order for these patients to answer the questions “as a typical, well-adjusted person” would answer, they had to imagine how a typical well-adjusted person would act. They had to imagine themselves in the role of a well-adjusted person. And this in itself was enough to cause them to begin acting like and feeling like a well-adjusted person.

We can begin to see why Dr. Albert Edward Wiggam, author of Marks of a Clear Mind and other books on the mind, called your mental picture of yourself “the strongest force within you.” Know the Truth About Yourself

The aim of self-image psychology is not to create a fictitious self that is all-powerful, arrogant, egoistic, and all-important. Such an image is as inappropriate and unrealistic as the inferior image of self. Our aim is to find the real self, and to bring our mental images of ourselves more in line with the objects represented by our goals. However, it is common knowledge among psychologists that most of us underrate ourselves; short change ourselves and sell ourselves short. Actually, there is no such thing as a “superiority complex.” People who seem to have one are actually suffering from feelings of inferiority—their “superior self” is a fiction, a cover-up, to hide from themselves and others their deep-down feelings of inferiority and insecurity.

How can you know the truth about yourself? How can you make a true evaluation? It seems to me that here psychology must turn to religion. The Scriptures tell us that God created man “a little lower than the angels” and “gave him dominion”; that God created man in his own image. If we really believe in an all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving Creator, then we are in a position to draw some logical conclusions about that which he has created—man. In the first place such an all-wise and all powerful Creator would not turn out inferior products, any more than a master painter would paint inferior canvases. Such a Creator would not deliberately engineer his product to fail, any more than a manufacturer would deliberately build failure into an automobile. The fundamentalists tell us that man’s chief purpose and reason for living is to “glorify God,” and the humanists tell us that man’s primary purpose is to “express himself fully.” However, if we take the premise that God is a loving Creator and has the same interest in his Creation that an earthly father has in his children, then it seems to me that the fundamentalists and the humanists are saying the same thing. What brings more glory, pride, and satisfaction to a father than seeing his offspring do well, succeed, and express to the full their abilities and talents? Have you ever sat by the father of a football star during a game? Jesus expressed the same thought when he told us not to hide our light under a bushel, but to let our light shine “so that your Father may be glorified.” I cannot believe that it brings any glory to God when his children go around with hangdog expressions, being miserable, afraid to lift up their heads and “be somebody.” As Dr. Leslie D. Weatherhead, Christian theologian and author of The Will of God, wrote in Prescription for Anxiety: If . . . we have in our minds a picture of ourselves as fear-haunted and defeated nobodies, we must get rid of that picture at once and hold up our heads. That is a false picture and the false must go. God sees us as men and women in whom and through whom He can do a great work. He sees us as already serene, confident, and cheerful. He sees us not as pathetic victims of life, but masters of the art of living; not wanting sympathy, but imparting help to others, and therefore thinking less and less of ourselves, and full, not of self-concern, but of love and laughter and a desire to serve. . . . Let us look at the real selves which are in the making the moment we believe in their existence. We must recognize the possibility of change and believe in the self we are now in the process of becoming. That old sense of unworthiness and failure must go. It is false and we are not to believe in what is false.

PRACTICE EXERCISE

“Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind’s eye and you will be drawn toward it,” said Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, the prominent liberal minister. “Picture yourself vividly as defeated and that alone will make victory impossible. Picture yourself vividly as winning and that alone will contribute immeasurably to success. Great living starts with a picture, held in your imagination, of what you would like to do or be.” Your present self-image was built on your own imagination pictures of yourself in the past, which grew out of interpretations and evaluations that you placed on experience. Now you are to use the same method to build an adequate self-image that you previously used to build an inadequate one.

Set aside a period of 30 minutes each day when you can be alone and undisturbed. Relax and make yourself as comfortable as possible. Now close your eyes and exercise your imagination.

Many people find they get better results if they imagine themselves sitting before a large motion picture screen—and imagine that they are seeing a motion picture of themselves. The important thing is to make these pictures as vivid and as detailed as possible. You want your mental pictures to approximate actual experience as much as possible. The way to do this is to pay attention to small details, sights, sounds, objects, in your imagined environment. One of my patients was using this exercise to overcome her fear of the dentist. She was unsuccessful, until she began to notice small details in her imagined picture—the smell of the antiseptic in the office, the feel of the leather on the chair arms, the sight of the dentist’s well-manicured nails as his hands approached her mouth, etc. Details of the imagined environment are all-important in this exercise, because for all practical purposes, you are creating a practice experience. And if the imagination is vivid enough and detailed enough, your imagination practice is equivalent to an actual experience insofar as your nervous system is concerned.

The next important thing to remember is that during this 30 minutes you see yourself acting and reacting appropriately, successfully, ideally. It doesn’t matter how you acted yesterday. You do not need to try to have faith you will act in the ideal way tomorrow. Your nervous system will take care of that in time—if you continue to practice. See yourself acting, feeling, “being,” as you want to be. Do not say to yourself, “I am going to act this way tomorrow.” Just say to yourself: “I am going to imagine myself acting this way now—for thirty minutes today.” Imagine how you would feel if you were already the sort of personality you want to be. If you have been shy and timid, see yourself moving among people with ease and poise and feeling good because of it. If you have been fearful and anxious in certain situations, see yourself acting calmly and deliberately, acting with confidence and courage—and feeling expansive and confident because you are.

This exercise builds new “memories” or stored data into your mid-brain and central nervous system. It builds a new image of self. After practicing it for a time, you will be surprised to find yourself “acting differently,” more or less automatically and spontaneously—without trying. This is as it should be. You do not need to try or make an effort now in order to feel ineffective and act inadequately. Your present inadequate feeling and doing is automatic and spontaneous because of the memories, real and imagined, you have built into your automatic mechanism. You will find it will work just as automatically on positive thoughts and experiences as on negative ones.

Some people who follow the Psycho-Cybernetics principles began with doubts that they could spend 30 minutes a day picturing who they want to be. They also had difficulty visualizing a goal clearly. Finally, when they did form mental pictures, they found that their minds would wander and they judged themselves harshly for this.

Essentially, like anything else, getting good at picturing who you want to be requires practice. As Olympic champion and coach Dan Gable said, “The only place you start at the top is digging a hole.” Just because the mental imagery isn’t clear when you begin does not mean it won’t get clearer, more vivid, more detailed, and more powerful each time you practice.

When you begin, it’s good to scan your body for tension and begin to consciously relax your head, torso, waist, legs, and so on. And, as strange as it may sound, allow yourself to “smile” into your brain and body, which greatly helps you relax. As you begin to relax, concentrate on breathing deeply. Follow your inhale and your exhale. Allow positive energy to enter as you exhale the negative.

After you’ve done this, you can go back into your past and find a “successful” memory, an occasion when you did something well. Again, this could be as simple as tying your shoes for the first time or writing your name in school. When it happened is irrelevant. How “big” the success was doesn’t matter either. All that matters is that the memory triggers a positive, happy, feel-good experience in you right now. Replay and relive the positive memory, then go into the future and picture how you want to be with the same feeling you felt in the past. Add emotion to what you’re seeing in your mind’s eye. If you find your mind wandering, don’t get upset or be hard on yourself. Relax and picture again. Each time your mind wanders, bring yourself back. No worries.

As for the 30-minute time? You can begin experiencing positive results in five or ten minutes per day. Visualizations that last no longer than 10 to 15 minutes can result in extraordinary changes.

The biggest key is to practice every day. Once you’ve established this habit and you’re seeing and feeling the results, it’s easy to find more time.