Aspiring Leaders can use the Power of Visualization to achieve Goals

At a young age, Jackie Joyner-Kersee was so determined that she would often lie awake thinking and game planning her next day. Years later, when coaches told her about visualization, the Olympic winner responded to them by saying: “How do you think I got here?” By picturing success – figuring out ways to avoid repeating mistakes, perfecting each nuance of a race to the finishing line Jackie became one of the world’s greatest women athletes.

 During the course her career, her goals were to improve just 1% with each performance. When asked about this she said “If I could just show a little, even just a 1/10th of a second, a couple inches on the long jump – then I’d know I was doing by best.”

 Jackie overcame obstacles throughout her career – even asthma. She didn’t make excuses about it. “I had to start respecting asthma as one of my opponents” she recalled. “If I focused on it and took my medications and treated myself well, then it wouldn’t stop me.”

 Leaping hurdles was nothing new to Jackie who grew up facing tough times. “We didn’t have a lot. Some days we might not even have food to eat. But our parents said “We’re doing the best we can, and we love you. I learned that doing your best is worth a lot,” she said.

 Throughout her career she said how she maintained her success was “staying a student – you always have something to learn.”

 FEAR – Know that most of the things that we fear will never manifest. Remember that the only person that can control your fear is you.

 WORRY – When we worry, we reprogram our minds from success thinking to a mindset that prepares for failure or disaster, quite frankly a whole host of negative emotions and behaviors. 

DOUBT – It’s easy to doubt what we cannot see, touch, smell – don’t let your thinking get the better of you. Focus on your positive beliefs.

It’s been said by experts: “Our thoughts lead to our discussions, which lead to our beliefs, which lead to our decisions, which lead to our actions.”

Vinay Singh is a leading consultant in the field of workforce development and talent acquisition strategy and has been a trusted adviser to over one hundred companies. He is a graduate of OSU, NJIT and NYU.

He currently has two books in process and is a frequent contributor to linkedin.com and medium.com. He also promotes National equality and prosperity and is the creator of the closed Facebook community Rising Middle Class – Workforce Prosperity group.