I once heard a great career success story about Roger Ferger, Publisher of the Cincinnati Inquirer. As a young boy, Mr. Ferger was fascinated with newspapers. He decided that he wanted to become an editor of a newspaper. He visualized himself as a newspaper editor.
As the story goes, every day he pictured himself as an editor; he dreamed about it at night. He created a detailed vision in his mind of himself in an editor’s chair. It was as if he had created a vivid color movie that he played back in his mind every night.
I tell this little story here because I think that visualization is very important to your life and career success. Tweet 11 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Create a vivid mental image of yourself as a career success. This vivid image will keep you motivated and moving forward.” Tweet 12 says, “Visualization is powerful. The more vivid the image you have of your career success, the more likely you are to succeed.”
Once you define what career success means to you personally, you need to develop a clear mental picture of your career success. This image should be as vivid as you can you make it. Try to create your career success vivid image in 3-D.
When I was 25, I created a vivid image of myself as a success coach, motivational speaker, management consultant and author. I worked in my home office – where I wrote and developed the programs I delivered at client locations. This office had a floor-to-ceiling wall of books that I could use for easy reference. It also had a state of the art IBM Selectric typewriter and a big, clunky telephone. PCs and the Internet were science fiction in 1975.
I also saw myself having one to one discussions with senior leaders in a variety of organizations, conducting training and team-building sessions in conference rooms at their locations. Amazingly, many of the people in the sessions were smoking. I had very vivid images of standing in front of large audiences at sales meetings doing talks. I saw myself signing a book I had written at a bookstore. I also saw myself on airplanes, traveling to my speaking, coaching and consulting gigs.
All of these vivid images came true. My office is much as I had imagined it – except it has two PCs and a cell phone, not a Selectric typewriter and clunky phone. The wall of books is there – overflowing. I’ve written 11 of the books on the shelf. People don’t smoke in my training and team-building sessions anymore and I use PowerPoint instead of handwritten flip charts, but the big stuff is the same as I’ve imagined it. I’ve spoken to audiences all over North America, in Latin America, Europe and Asia. I am a million-mile flyer with Continental Air Lines.
I’m living my career success dream – in large part because I dared to dream it all those years ago.
What’s your career success dream? Have you created a vivid mental image of it?
I suggest that you take some time for yourself. Ask and answer these three questions:
- Where do I want to be 5, 10, 20 and 30 years from now?
- What will it look like and feel like when I’m there?
- What will my life be like?
Ask and answer these and any other questions that will help you develop a clear, vivid mental image of your career success. This is not day-dreaming. It is real work. You are designing your future in your mind.
Keep this mental picture of your career success with you as you go about your day-to-day business. Every once in a while, ask yourself if what you did that day brought you any closer to your mental image of career success. If the answer is no, make sure that you take at least one act the very next day to move closer to your vivid mental image of your career success. In this way, you’ll be keeping your dream alive – and moving toward your goal.
The career success point here is simple common sense. Successful people define what success means to them. Then they develop a compelling and clear mental image of their success. Heed the advice in Tweets 11 and 12 in Success Tweets. “Create a vivid mental image of yourself as a career success. This vivid image will keep you motivated and moving forward.” (Tweet 11) “Visualization is powerful. The more vivid the image you have of your career success, the more likely you are to succeed.” (Tweet 12) Use your vivid mental image of their career success to help keep their dreams alive and to keep moving forward to their life and career success. Creating a vivid mental image of your career success is not day-dreaming. It’s real work – it’s the work of envisioning your future, so you can take the steps necessary to create it.
That’s my career advice when it comes to developing a vivid mental image of your life and career success. What do you think? Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment. As always thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you.
Your career mentor,
Bud
PS: You can download a free copy of my bestseller Straight Talk for Success at www.budbilanich.com/straight-talk. When you do, I’ll give you a free basic membership in my career mentoring site and begin sending you daily motivational quotes.
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