See yourself being successful

Visualize every day

New Year’s is typically the time when Americans voice their wishes to change their lives. Some of the most common changes include losing weight, getting healthier and stopping bad habits.

Most people start out with the best intentions to change, but stop trying to make these changes within the first two or three weeks. The reason for this is because they have not fought through the tough part to create new habits.

This week, I will talk about step six, which is “Visualization/Power of the Mind.” I define this as the practice and ability to mentally project positive outcomes with conviction and truth. In other words, being able to close your eyes and see a result come true and believe it.

This step, in my opinion, is the hardest step to grasp. Very few people in the world understand what this means. Most people are just robots who go through life aimlessly without knowing of this power source in life.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Back when I was training for the Mr. Colorado competition, I would take a few minutes every morning, close my eyes and visualize myself up on stage. I would mentally see the crowd, see the judges and smell the back stage pump-up room. I could see the head judge giving me the winning trophy. I did this every day for 16 weeks. After about four weeks of doing this, I began to truly believe I was going to win. I changed my belief system, because I reprogrammed my mind. This kept me motivated and determined to keep training harder.

This visualization technique resulted in me creating positive affirmations and a positive “law of attraction.” I believe this technique manifested the actual event to come true.

Another example is when I was recovering from my darkness, after my car accident and broken neck in 2005. After hitting rock bottom, I had to learn these tools all over again, except this time my life depended on it. Looking back on it now, I see my Mr. Colorado training experience was nothing compared to over coming the hell of the winter of 2005-06.

First, I had to create a gratitude list. This was very hard because I felt I had nothing to be thankful for, but I had to reprogram my mind to be positive or I was going to die. So, I started my list by being thankful for a roof over my head, food in my stomach and people who loved me. I thanked God everyday for those three things for a long time. It helped me to focus on positive not so much negative.

The second thing I did every day is, look for someone to help that was hurting. This helped me to get out of myself on a regular basis. The third thing I did everyday was, force myself to speak positively to other people no matter how I was feeling. I may have been dying inside in negativity, but I would smile and say, hey it’s a good day today. I heard a slogan one time that said, “Fake it until you make it,” and that is what I did. It was all about reprogramming my brain chemistry to think and function differently.

And the fourth thing I did is, spend time in the morning and at night visualizing myself being happy, successful, fit, healthy, being in good relationships and being close to God. In reality, I didn’t have any of those things at the time, but I mentally saw myself living this abundant life. I used the same technique I used training for the Mr. Colorado. I did this every day for six months and these things started to happen to me. A year and a half after the actual accident itself, I was in a great romantic relationship, had great friends, was making good money and was closer to God than ever before.

You may think you can’t change your life but you are wrong. It does not matter what your circumstances are, you can make things turn around if you take the time to speak positively at all times. Visualize your life and where you want it to be on a daily basis. Tell yourself three times a day that life is good and it’s a great day. No matter how you truly feel that day, fake it until you make it.

Tell yourself you are worthy of being happy and joyful. List five things you are grateful for every day. No matter how you truly feel. Find someone to help each and every day. If you do these six things every day, I promise your life will get better.

Kent Paul is a former Mr. Colorado (1998) and any questions can be sent to kp@kpaulfit.com.

Kent Paul’s seven steps to win in 2010

Admit desperation

Accept you need to change

Surrender to expertise

Set short and long term goals

Obtain much knowledge on the journey

Visualize everyday

Establish an accountability system