Leaving The Law -- Part 2/6

Ready for the second of six powerful strategies you must know to find and explore alternative careers?

Strategy #2
The Power of Vision

This strategy is all about building a positive vision of your future—a rich, clear, compelling vision of the work and life that you want to have. Ideally you’ll do a visualization exercise to create and build a vision. Visualization is the art of using mental imagery and affirmation to produce positive changes in your life.

Here’s a simple visualization:

Close your eyes and in your mind take a leisurely walk through a perfect work day. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up? Meditation or are you greeted with sloppy kisses from your big dog? What’s your house like—a townhouse, a farmhouse, a condo? Where do you live? What do you have for breakfast? What kinds of clothes do you wear?

When you get to work (or perhaps you work from home), what kind of work are you doing—in general, not specifics—presenting, working alone at a computer or writing, brainstorming with a group, a combination. What does your work space look like? Who do you work with, laugh and talk with?

At the end of the day, what do you do? Who are you with? What time do you go to bed? What’s your bedtime ritual—hot cocoa and a book or saying prayers and reading your Bible or romping with your kids?

Let your imagination run wild. Let it fill in lots and lots of details. And remember, it’s not about what’s possible, it’s about what you desperately want and desire your days to be like.

Use all or as many of your senses as you can. Imagine colors and textures of your home and work environments. What do you hear, what do you smell, touch, taste? Bringing all of your senses into visualization makes it more real and more powerful.

Once you’ve completed the visualization, open your eyes and write it all down. Every single detail you can remember.

Before you can make the work and life you want a reality, you have to be able to visualize them. And once you do, that vision propels you forward. It makes what you want believable and real. And when things aren’t going exactly as planned, it’s also an anchor.

If you need more help on visualizations than this blog entry offers, I recommend you check out Shakti Gawain’s book, Creative Visualizations.

Strategy #3 coming soon!