Visualize your way to Success!

I was barely 15 years old when me and my Dad were casually discussing career options. He mentioned Hotel Management to me. I was hooked, and found out information about it, and was convinced it was the career for me.

As I told him about my decision, he took me to the IHMCTAN, (Catering College) at Dadar, Mumbai. It was the best college in India. We stood across the road, and he told me something I will never forget.

“That is your college, and you are going to study there. Every day, visualize yourself on the other side of this road, and in that college, and you will get there.”

I didn’t know then. But he was teaching me the power of Visualization. After that day, whenever possible, I made it my route to pass this college. I would stand on the other side of the road, and see myself studying there.

More than a 100,000 students applied for that institute. I was one of the 180 who made it.

After that day, I have applied that technique to many more areas in my life, and taken it further with my Life coaching practice.

This is a three part post on demystifying visualization, and learning how to harness its true power.

What is Visualization?

Focused Day dreaming is the word that comes to mind. Day dreaming can take you anywhere you want, but may not get you somewhere. Focused Day-dreaming can take you exactly where you want to go.

Our mind thinks in images and pictures. Hence when we visualize something, we allow it to flow into our lives.

Visualization lets you savor what you want in your life, by receiving it even before you actually do!

Visualization is like watching a movie. You are the star of that movie, and you get to decide what you do or don’t do. 

This tool cuts loose all the fear and worry, and instead puts you in a positive head-space.

The first step to Visualization is

Decide what you want in any area of your life:  

In my case, I decided I wanted to study Hotel Management, and also in that particular college/institute.

It is important to decide what you want. If you go into a restaurant and tell the waiter to bring you anything, what would happen? You could end up getting something which you hate, or have an allergy to, or maybe get something you love. You are taking a chance. Hence it’s important to spell it out.

This is the first and most important step in visualization. You could choose any area in your life like health, relationships, love, career, children, and so on.

Some examples could be

Being Healthy by eating healthy, and exercising

The perfect job for me.

A loving relationship with my spouse/children/parents.

This sets in motion a path for you whereby, now you have a goal to work towards and visualize. Write this down somewhere, and see how you feel as you read it.

You can even work with 2 or 3 areas in your life.

Take your time to write these down, and reflect over them over a few days.

This was the first post of a three part post on demystifying Visualization. 

In our next post, we will talk about how to visualize what you want in your life.

The link between Performance and Potential..

How often have we heard it being said or ourselves said about someone, “He/She has immense potential, but somehow it doesn’t come across in his/her performance”.

Growing up, I often heard my teachers talk about my potential. But somehow, as I inched to the finishing line, I lost interest, or gave up, or stopped short.
And even today, I work on myself every day. I need to remind myself that I have to cross that finishing line, and live upto my potential. I don’t want to spend my dying day wondering, “Did I live up to my true potential?

I have always wondered:





I learnt the answer in my Executive Coach Training program held by Results Coaching Systems. Our Master Coach told us of a simple quote given by Tim Gallwey in his book “Inner Game of Tennis”





I let that statement sink in. I tried to absorb the true meaning of it.
And my mind flashed back to all those times that I hadn’t lived up to my potential.

What was the interference I had felt? Was it external? Was it some distraction? Was it someone else telling me I couldn’t do it? Yes, sometimes.

However, as I dug deeper, I realized, it was mostly internal. There were certain thoughts that I was thinking that were leading to the interference.




It was my self-talk which was leading to the interference. If I could minimize this interference, could I bridge the gap between my potential and performance?




Of course, external interference can also come in, in the form of detractors, disturbances etc, but most of us can handle those, and control them.

How can we control the interferences caused by our thoughts and beliefs?
And that’s when I realized that Affirmations and Powerful Visualizations can help us tune out the interference.

An Affirmation is a positive statement that is powerful and puts our focus back on the outcome.



I have worked with Affirmations for many years now, and found it an excellent tool to change my thinking and focus on the result.

Visualizations are all about picturing the outcome that you want, and painting a wonderful image of it in your head. The mind thinks in pictures, and there are many experiments conducted which show that visualizing the outcome in great detail, and living it as though it has already happened has a great impact on the actual outcome itself.

I first learnt about this tool from my father at age 16. When I was working hard to get into a prestigious college, he told me to spend 5 minutes every day, visualizing that I was already in the college. How would I feel then? How would I behave?

I took it a step further, and changed my daily route to pass that college. I would spend time watching from the other side; observe the uniform of the students. I would imagine myself waving to myself from inside the college.

I lived my dream, and walked into that college as a student three months later.



The simplicity and power of this equation, and the tools that I can use, has given me clarity on how I can maximize use of my potential.

Some questions below to make you think, and reflect…








And needless to say, we must always have faith in the immense potential within us..that is just waiting to be unleased…