Imagine being the star of your own movie. You can see yourself doing something that you only dreamed of doing with ease. You imagine yourself reaching your goal feeling confident. As you play your movie over and over, you are actually increasing the likelihood that you will reach your goal. You are creating a sense of confidence and viewing yourself as a winner each time you watch yourself being the star in your movie.

Visualization is a tool that you can develop to remove barriers and to help you reach your goal successfully. With visualization you would be able to see and feel yourself performing at your peak potential. You can learn to imagine yourself achieving the best possible outcome through a “mental dress rehearsal.”

We all face uncomfortable situations at times. How these uncomfortable activities are perceived is what can illicit the fear response in us. You actually have the ability to remove these uncomfortable feelings from whatever you need to do. Combine the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and visualization to relieve the tension associated with having to do activities that are challenging or unpleasant. If you are not familiar with Emotional Freedom Technique go to this link for an explanation. This technique can be applied to workplace issues, sports performance or personal issues.

If you are a business person preparing for a presentation and you have a fear of public speaking, visualization combined with EFT would help to reinforce focus and avoid distraction. An athlete getting ready for a competition and afraid of not performing well could use this for removing the negative thoughts that would affect performance. Prior to your warm up you do a mental dress rehearsal and view yourself as a winner. Feeling uncomfortable asking for something that you need could be overcome as well. Visualization helps you to prepare for what you need to do. This is one more tool that would help to develop self control and coping strategies.

People tend to imagine unpleasant events all the time. How often do you get anxious thinking about a future potential problem. Worrying about something that might happen in the future will always cause anxiety because we cannot control the future. This uses visualization in a negative way. You have the ability to change that perception. The mental dress rehearsal will help to reframe emotional expectations to focus on the strengths and successes. Practicing visualization with EFT will help to increase your self esteem and improve your confidence.
This is the way that you would use visualization and EFT for success

Close your eyes. Breathe deeply and relax your body. Think about the event you want to focus on. Try to include as much detail as possible. Include what you might see, where you would be standing, include smells and noises. Some people are not able to visualize easily. That is okay. Just think about the event in your mind. Now do the EFT set up. Even though I don’t feel confident doing this and am afraid that I will fail, I can choose to do this with confidence and ease.

Once you have placed yourself in the picture, imagine yourself doing that activity successfully. In your mental dress rehearsal see, hear and feel it happen as you always dreamed about. See yourself engaged in that activity with confidence and ease. Imagine yourself feeling in control of the event. As you visualize this continue to tap on all the points. As you continue tapping, include all the details that could occur at this event and imagine that you are doing them successfully. Continue to tap on all the points as you are focusing on different aspects of this event.

While doing the visualization, it is possible that you had some doubts or thoughts that you could not do this activity successfully. Maybe you began to feel anxious as you were doing the mental dress rehearsal. That is okay. Just the visualization process is conditioning you and taking you one step closer toward success. The tapping helps to remove the negative feelings and energy around this activity. You mind does not have the ability to discriminate between reality and visualization. You will experience improvement through visualization as if you were doing that activity.

Were you aware of doubts and apprehension? Now focus on the negative thoughts you might have had. With EFT we will begin to neutralize those negative thoughts. Do the set up and tap on all of those doubts that you had come up while you did the visualization. My suggestion would be to use the Choices Method. That would focus on the negative thought during the first round. Positive thoughts during the second round and then alternating between negative and positive on the third round. An example might be the following:

Set up: Even though I feel anxious when I think about doing this and cannot believe that I can do this without anxiety, I choose to do this with confidence and ease.

Eyebrow: This anxiety

Side of eye: This anxious feeling

Under eye: I don’t feel I can do this

Under nose: I feel nervous just thinking about it

Under lips: I don’t want to do this

Collarbone: I am afraid I’ll mess up

Under arms: This familiar nervous feeling

Top of head: I feel anxious at the thought of doing this

Set up: Even though the thought of doing this makes my heart race and I feel apprehension, I choose to do this with confidence and ease.

Eyebrow: I can do this successfully in my imagination

Side of eye: I can see myself doing this with confidence

Under eye: I know what I need to do

Under nose: I have been practicing for this

Under lips: I can do this with confidence

Collarbone: I know what I need to do

Under arms: I am doing the best I can given the circumstances

Top of head: I feel proud that I am willing to change how I feel about this

Set up: Even though it is the thoughts I have about this that make me feel anxious and uncomfortable, I have practiced this successfully in my mental dress rehearsal and choose to do this with confidence and ease.

Eyebrow: I am afraid that I will fail

Side of eye: I know what I need to do

Under eye: I will forget what to do

Under nose: I choose to know that I have practiced and rehearsed for this

Under lips: This familiar nervous feeling

Collarbone: I can see myself doing this successfully

Under arms: I don’t want to do this

Top of head: I choose to do this with confidence and ease

Practice your mental dress rehearsal when you have time to relax. With your eyes closed visualize the outcome you want. Tap on all the points as you do this. That will help to reinforce the change that you want. Any negative thoughts can be tapped on to reduce the anxiety related to those thoughts. Choose to see yourself approaching your event with confidence. Continue tapping in order to reinforce the confidence. Over time you will notice a change in how you view challenges. You will begin to feel more empowered and your outlook will be more positive. You have just made a change to reach your true potential and rise up to any challenge that comes your way.