The Power of Visualisation: Why Your Mind Is Shaping Your Reality

You’re already visualising your life… just not always in your favour.

In this episode, we dive into the real power of visualisation and why it’s more than just “thinking positively.” I break down how your brain responds to mental rehearsal, why your identity matters more than the outcome, and how your subconscious and nervous system play a huge role in what you create.

Inside this episode:

• Why visualisation works (and the science behind it)
• How your brain filters reality based on what you focus on
• The difference between visualising results vs becoming the person
• Why most people don’t see results (and what to do instead)
• How to use visualisation in a way that actually creates change

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing the work but not seeing the shift, this episode will show you what’s really going on beneath the surface.

🎧 Listen in and start intentionally creating your next level.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Success Dark Within, the podcast for ambitious women who are ready to elevate their success, wealth and confidence, and who are done with getting in their own way. I'm Kirsty, a subconscious and identity coach for women, and in this podcast, we're going to dive into the beliefs, thoughts, and patterns that hold you back from being the woman you want to become, so that you can step into a life that feels abundant and alive. And my promise is that you're going to leave every episode feeling seen, inspired, and equipped with the tools to take your next steps towards the woman you're meant to be. So grab yourself a coffee or a glass of wine and let's get started. Hello and welcome to another episode of Success Starts Within. Today we're going to be talking about something that I am very passionate about and I do every single day, and that is visualization. So I'm going to be talking to you about the power of visualization, and actually, if you are to do it every single day, you can trick your mind and your body to believe that you are in that situation. And what will happen is that it will your brain will find opportunities for you to be in that situation that you're visualizing in. Anyway, I'm jumping ahead. So I want you to know that you spend most of your time visualizing. You spend most of your time practicing what your life is going to look like. But most of us they do that in a negative way. So have a think. If you are thinking about scenarios in your life, are you thinking about the different positive, amazing things that could happen? Or are you thinking about the worst case scenarios? What if someone said that? What if this happened to my car? What if this happened with my business? What happens if the clients don't come in? Because I can imagine that that is the more likely situation for you. And that by thinking in that way, you are actually bringing that into your life. I'm sorry to say, you are actually bringing that those negative situations into your life. Because the way that the brain works is when you are when you are seeking something, when you are looking for something, when you are thinking about something, the brain is going to look even further for evidence of that. Okay, so to give an example, if you are thinking about your income and you're thinking, I'm not making that much money in the business, I'm, you know, I don't know if I'm gonna pay my bills this month, and you kind of go down this like rabbit hole of panic, your brain is going to shut down the possibilities of finding other streams of income. It's not going to be as creative and think of ways where you could be making money. And that is because of the way that you've been thinking. So it is so important for you to. Sometimes it just is a bit annoying. But I want you to think about how you can start, how you can start thinking in a different way. How you can start to think about the positive possibilities that could happen in your life. Because there may not be clients right now, but there is also the possibility that you could be making so many sales. And if you have that positive outlook and those thoughts of it's possible for me, I could be doing X, Y, and Z, then your brain is going to open up that bit more. The creative part of your brain is going to open up, and you're going to come up with ideas of how you can start making money. So visualization is something that is really, really imperative to not only your business but your life in general. And it's not daydreaming, it's not wishful thinking, it's actually mental rehearsal because your brain doesn't know the difference between real or perceived situations. So when you are when you are visualizing something and you are doing it in a particular way, which I'll talk about in a minute, you are activating new neuropathways. And what I mean by neuropathways is I'm not going to explain the sciencey bit of it, but there are loads of loads of pathways in your mind, in your brain, which are connected. And these are your habits, your behaviors, your beliefs, etc. But when you are trying to think, when you are trying to do something new, change a habit, for example, like um, I don't know, you're trying to give up chocolate or you're wanting to start to exercise every day. This neuropathway has been there your you know for a very long time. And what you need to do is you need to disconnect that pathway and create a new one, and that is where it will start to become natural. So for you to be able to think about a new habit or something that you want to achieve, then you can do this through through visualization, and it will create that new neural pathway. Now, athletes do this all the time, they do this to improve their performance. And I don't remember, it might have been Tiger Woods. He did this, he was in a competition many, many years ago, and he would visualize. I mean, in a specific way, he would visualize him shooting um this ball along the golf course. So you could tell, you could tell I'm not very good at golf, um, in a particular way and getting a hole in one. And this guy committed to visualising every single day in the most powerful way possible, to the point that when he took that shot, his mind and his body thought he had already done it, it's done, and he got the hole in one. And that is the power of visualization. And I'm gonna give you uh my own personal experience as well. So the first time that I ever stood on a stage was uh nearly a year ago now, actually. And I spent about two months beforehand visualizing what it would feel like for people to be looking at me, what it would feel like to be standing on the stage, how I'd how I would present myself, how I would talk, and I did this for like five or so minutes a day when I was putting my makeup on. And what happened was when I was stood on that stage talking, bearing in mind I'd never done it or never had eyes on my on me in my life, it felt like I had already been there. And that is the most powerful, most powerful result that you could get from visualizing, is that when you were finally doing the action, your mind and your body feel that it's already done it, it's already been there, and so when you are visualizing your dream life, when you're visualizing your dream business, the income, the holidays, the house, all of these kind of things, you've got to visualize it in a way that feels that you've already achieved it. So, what do I mean by that? I mean, okay, again, I'm gonna give another personal example. I think it's always good when you give personal examples because it's easier to understand. So it was two and a half years ago, I decided, I lived in a different house, and I decided I don't want to live in this house anymore. It was quite small, and every winter I felt really claustrophobic with the girls' toys in the lounge, and it was just I felt really stressed. And I remember it was the July, and I said to my husband, because the mortgages were shooting up, and I think our mortgage was going up by about£700. I was like, fuck that, I'm not paying another£700 to live in this house, especially not in the winter when it's so flipping stressful. Um so I said, I'm gonna put the house up for s uh, I'm gonna pay the house up for sale. And he was like, Well, nothing's selling now. I was like, Do you know what? I'm gonna put the house up for sale because why not? Let's see. And so I put the house up for sale. We started to go through the process of trying to get a mortgage and principal, just is that what it is? Finding out how much we could borrow anyway. And every single day I would visualize on a walk with the estate agent ringing me and saying to me, Kirsty, we've sold your house. When I was driving to work or when I was in the car, I would have these fake conversations with him, and I'd be like, Oh, hi, so nice to hear from you. How are you? I'm fine, Kirsty. How are you? Oh, I'm great, thank you. How can I help? I'm just only to let you know that I that you sold your house. So he didn't sound like that. But this is what I used to do. It sounds silly, but when he called me to tell me that we'd sold the house within a month of a recession of when the rates were like ridiculously high, right? So this was just crazy that it sold. And we sold it in August when no one buys it in August anyway. Um, I was queuing up for the toilet with my daughters in McDonald's in Baker Street, and he rung me, and I just knew what he was ringing me about. And I got excited, but I wasn't, it was like I've been, it's like I already knew, it's like I'd been there. So when he told me, it was like, oh yeah, I know. And that is exactly the feeling that you need to get, you need to get in that it's done kind of uh thinning in your body. Now, when you are visualizing, you need to not visualize having the thing. So for me, I didn't visualise having the house. Oh, actually, I haven't finished the story, so I've got to finish because this is the best part of the story. So my husband works in property, and he showed me a pamphlet for the most gorgeous flintstone house, and I just was fell in love with it. And I put this pamphlet in my cupboard where my plates were every single day. Obviously, the amount of time as I opened the cupboard to get a plate out because the kids are always flipping snack in. I would look at this house and I would visualize me and my two girls and my daughters standing outside this house. Anyway, we found this house and we drove down the road, and there in front of us was my dream house from the pamphlet that I had in my cupboard. Literally, the house that I have bought is a carbon copy of that house. So I'm not only manifested selling my house within a few weeks, in a month, in a recession, when the rates just went crazy, but I also managed to manifest the house of my dreams, the one that was on the pamphlet in my cupboard. So this is how amazing visualization is. Yes, you can visualize, you know, what's she wearing, what does she do with her day, that kind of thing. But ultimately, who is this main character? And and how does she go about her day mentally? How does she go about her day? What does she think? What does she think about herself? How does she talk to herself? That's one thing I always say to people when they're when they're talking about, when they're considering doing a visualization practice. How would you talk to yourself? How would your main character talk to herself if she got something wrong? How would she talk to herself if she had a setback? How would she talk to herself if something wasn't going well? She probably wouldn't be saying to herself, you're a fucking Muppet, you don't know what you're doing. She would be saying to herself, this is a learning curve, let's move on. And that is all part of the visualization as well. Now, I know people have said to me, I've tried this Kirsty, it just doesn't work. But these are some of the things that happen, some of the reasons why visualization doesn't work. Sometimes people just try it for a few days and they go back to their old thinking. And their subconscious also doesn't feel safe with this new reality that's in their head, and there's this kind of mix mismatch between the current identity and the future identity. And that's okay, it takes practice because the brain seeks familiarity over success. So it's always gonna um bring you back to your old habits, it's gonna um link the old habit loops and predictive coding that we have in our brain to what it likes, you know, it's bringing it back into the into the now. So just keep going, just keep visualizing. As I say, just keep anchoring into those feelings. Because remember, and this is something I'm gonna say to you, I've said it to you before, I'm gonna say it again. Your brain is not built to make you successful, it is built to keep you familiar. So you really do have to work quite hard with your brain when you are visualizing because it's gonna want to keep you back, bring you back to where you were before. So don't visualize without emotion because that's not gonna work, okay? Emotion is what signals to the brain that what you are visualizing is is important, and so it will start to strengthen the the kind of that part of the thinking, and it will start to create new neuropathways. So it's the emotion you have to bring in the emotion the whole time. Now, if your body doesn't feel safe with success or visibility or money, it is gonna unconsciously reject it. So when you visualize, okay, these are three things that you have to include. The first one is safety, so you have to create safety in your visualizations, you have to be able to teach your body that it's okay, that there's no threat. You have to visualize expansion, so just feeling that kind of stretchiness, as I said, standing on the stage, that is the expansion. Really feel into what it would be like with those eyes looking at you, and then lastly, you've got to include regulation. So, this is something that I teach my clients in the main character shift is breathing and visualizing at the same time. Because when you are visualizing standing on a stage with a hundred people looking at you, your nervous system is going to think you're in a threat. So it's gonna start breathing differently, it's gonna go into fight or flight, you might get sweaty hands, you might get heart palpitations, heart beat faster, anything else like that. You have to start regulating at the same time and breathing into this new visualization, and that is where you're gonna teach the body that it is absolutely safe to be this new version of you. So, an exercise for you to try. I want you to pick one identity, so not goals, one identity, something about the main cat your main character that you would like to be, and I want you to visualize a specific moment. Okay, so as it again going back to the example of me standing on the stage, and I want you to add sensory details. So, where are you? What are you wearing? Who's there? Literally get creative, like you know, let your imagination run wild with this, and then I want you to feel it in your body. What does it feel like to have all those eyes on you? What does it feel like to be giving this information that you know is going to change your audience's life? What does it feel like to be that version? And I want you to do this every single day. Five minutes a day on the drive home from the school run, when you're on your walk, when you're waiting for the kettle to boil, anything like that. And just five minutes can create such a massive shift for you. And what will happen is your brain is going to start finding opportunities for this to happen. Trust me, visualization is one of the easiest but best things that you could ever use. So I hope this episode has been useful and please keep me posted because I am the visualization queen. It's got me to where I am, and I would love to hear more from you. Have a great day. Bye. Thank you for listening to Success Starts Within. I hope you're leaving today feeling inspired, grounded, and one step closer to the woman you're becoming. And always remember success starts within. I'll see you in the next episode.