How visualisation can change your life | Ana Isabel Bacallado | TEDxUniversityofGlasgow

visualize it you can make it happen remember that if you can visualize something you can make it happen when i was only 5 years old my family and i moved from venezuela to spain because of the situation of our country my dad had to leave his company my mom her job and we had to say bye to family and friends in spain my parents decided to invest everything that they had into a project that was going really well and allowed us to live a very comfortable life i said everything was going really well until may 2010 wow i remember that day as if it was just yesterday i was sitting in my room finishing some school work when i hear that my parents called my name and my sister's name we ran downstairs expecting to find dinner ready but what we actually found is my dad covered in tears and my mom struggling to put into words what she was about to tell us because of company debts the bank was taking our house at the time my only concern was staying the four of us together i asked if i had to go back to venezuela with my father maybe my mom and my sister had to stay in spain or vice versa but as always in the case i didn't really understand the problem too well we were lucky enough and we could move in with my grandparents but that doesn't mean it was much easier because we lost most of our personal space many of our friends my mom didn't have a job neither did my dad and i knew even though it was only 11 that there was something that i could do to help us all get out of the situation that we were stuck in so i started thinking about something that i was good at something that i enjoyed and something that i could make money with the answer was always jewelry so what i did is i started selling bracelets necklaces earrings to my friends and family eventually i got a spot in the local market where i would go and sell every single sunday then some shops started buying from me on a monthly basis and i remember how one day i was at the local market and a businessman came to me and he said i would like to get a thousand units of this one in my head i was thinking he must be crazy but i obviously took the deal i lowered the production cost by ordering abroad i employed my sister and in around three months we finished a production process however our project continued for around two years at this time i was between 11 and 13 but my profits were actually over 5000 euros because that is a reality life is not about what happens to you it's rather about how you react to the different circumstances that emerge because when a problem comes up you have three different options you either let that problem destroy you you let it define you or you let it make you stronger by reinventing yourself and starting this business when i was only 11 is exactly how i reinvented myself however my story doesn't end up here a few christmases ago i go back home from university and we're living in a beautiful house my mom has a great job so does my dad and i was in my room again reading a book when i hear that my mom calls my name so i go to her room and she asks me if i could read a paragraph from her notebook out loud the paragraph literally said my name is maria isabel i'm living in a beautiful house with a very good dog i'm working in my dream job and i'm earning x amount of money my husband is also working in his dream job and he's earning x amount of money my daughter anna is studying abroad as she has always wanted to do and my daughter daniela is still in high school figuring out her future we're very happy and united family so my mom goes through the pages of this very thick notebook and i figured out she'd written the same paragraph once and once again until she filled up this very thick notebook i promise it was at least written a thousand times i look at her and i ask mama you bored are you obsessed with us what's wrong with you so she tells me go to the first page and look at when i wrote this down 2010 may 2010 when we lost everything my mother was able to visualize exactly what she wanted and just asked her she wanted it and she made it happen because when you visualize something you can make it happen it was through visualization that we were able to direct the course of our lives and focus on our goals and the same way that visualization changed my life and all of my family members lives it will change your lives here as well thought precedes creation it guides the energy in the physical world in order to attain certain specific behaviors and for creative visualization to be fully effective there are three requirements that need to be met the first one is that you need to have the desire you need to have that desire to achieve what you've decided to visualize after having the desire you need to have the certainty you need to have the certainty that you will actually achieve this and that you will do it through visualization as well and finally you need to have the acceptance the acceptance of whatever you're visualizing is a goal in your life because we all definitely here have those dreams that we would love to achieve but they seem really far from achieving however visualization is the perfect tool that enables you to use your imagination in order to figure out what you really want work towards that specific goal and not get lost around the way and it doesn't take that much effort a scientist from india found that when you visualize yourself lifting your right hand the same brain region is being activated that when you actually lift your right hand however research on visualization goes actually much further than that so there's a strong scientific basis for how and why visualization actually works there's a system in your brain which is called the reticular activating system which is basically a network of neurons that are responsible for filtering information in and out of your brain in other words what this filter is doing is letting information come into your brain and blocking other information from entering the way i like to think about this filter is as if it was google you get the opportunity to search trillions of web pages out there right however you have specific keywords that allow you to filter some so you can select them or ignore others the point of this reticular activating system is really important imagine all of the information that we're exposed to every day entering our brain it will probably explode so the reticular activating system let's put us ourselves in an example let's say that you think that you hate public speaking and you're terrible at it this system is going to spend all day trying to actually find evidence that confirms that specific belief however you can't actually program this filter and there's a secret that i want to share with you and that is that the reticular activating system cannot differentiate between real and imagined memories so you kind of differentiate between what happened to you and what you imagined and that translates to your visualization athletes of course have known about this incredibly powerful skill for a very long time a famous study found that nationally ranked gymnast gymnasts executed for the first time several complex tricks after they actually visualized i was an athlete myself for over 14 years when i was around 16 i really wanted to make it to the national championships i was training six times a week three hours every day i was going to a physiotherapist a nutritionist following a specific diet i was getting my eight hours of sleep i wasn't partying but what i didn't realize at the time was that i was training my body but not my mind so from the moment that i started visualizing myself crossing the finish line my parents and my sister on the stands shouting my name my coach and my teammates supporting me the wind blowing on my face my legs on pain and the excitement of finally achieving something that i had worked so hard for from that moment i actually made it to the national championships what i did is that i prepared myself and my mind for success another key thing at the time was being able to control my own self-talk i believe what i visualize and then i convinced my mind using the appropriate language to put an example let's think that i consider myself a very lazy and not hard-working person do you think those thoughts are going to change my reality of course they won because if you fight for your limitations you're only going to keep them so in my case what i kept thinking was i am a champion i'm going to make it there was no possibility of failure there was no such a thing in my mind oprah winfrey summarizes the power of visualization just perfectly create the highest and the grandest possible vision for your life because you become what you believe in and what what i find so interesting is that you don't become what you want you become what you believe in so if you're able to visualize and to make of your mind your best friend you can get ready for your next athletics competition but also for the interview that you have next week maybe you can get ready for the surgery that you have next week you can even prepare to live your best life can i get a quick show of hands in this room how many people here have a dream a short-term long-term dream it doesn't really matter okay that seems to be most of you however if you didn't put your hand up do not feel bad visualization still applies to you what it can do it can help you understand where you see yourself in maybe two years time five years time understand that picture better and then towards that to work towards that goal i will ask you i'd like to ask you all now to please close your eyes and picture yourself achieving that goal and if you didn't have a goal seem an image of yourself in two years time maybe you're finally visiting that exotic country that you always wanted to go to or you're in that job interview that you've always dreamed for maybe you're starting that final you're starting that business hunting it that dissertation finally visualize exactly what you want just as you want it to be and now listen to your inner guidance in order to affirm that what you're visualizing is what you really want is something positive and is also meant for your highest good involve all of your senses now what are you seeing around can you see the sea or the mountains maybe you can see high-rise buildings because you're in the middle of a city maybe you're in university or in your hometown what about the sounds is it noisy around you can you hear the birds singing maybe your friends are shouting your name and the smell or the taste can you smell any food can you smell the seaside now it's time to actually involve our emotions so imagine you open a door you don't really know where this door is coming from you open the door you go in and you find a table of 30 people to realize that they are your friends and family you just realize that they're toasting for you they're shouting your name wow you can also smell your mom's favorite recipe she's cooked your favorite recipe for everybody and again they're toasting for you they're celebrating the person that you have become they're celebrating all that you have achieved they're celebrating the person that you have become today feel the energy in that room breathe that energy i want you to breathe in as much as you can how happy are you now how do you feel when you're ready you can open your eyes visualize this dream as often and in as much detail as possible do not forget the two main pillars have a vivid and clear picture utilizing all of your senses and then your emotions if you experience the emotions you're going to be ready for when the actual situation comes up and another key thing is to do it in the first person and in the present tense just as my mother did because what you are visualizing is happening to you right now so be extremely clear in the way that you're visualizing and create exactly what you want to happen if you visualize and you believe your visualization you're creating your beliefs and you're creating those skills because you're reprogramming your brain and then that is you achieving your dream that is you making that dream reality so i want to challenge you all to visualize i want to challenge you all to leave this room and start visualizing one minute every single morning because again that's going to help you build skills build confidence and then again that's you make it that dream reality visualize and become the director of your own life because dear world if you visualize something you can make it happen thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 613,175

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Business, Motivation, Visualization

Id: E8k6LcYO_Vg

Length: 15min 0sec (900 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 14 2020