Hello! Building on the last article, where we discussed a new way of practicing mindfulness by not allowing words into our minds, I want to share a tip on how you can use this for focusing on any goal you have too!

Traditional goal setting has you writing your goals, the end result you want to achieve, in present tense and in positive terms. Perfect! It’s after this that our little technique starts. 🙂

Once you have your written goal, then ask yourself: if I couldn’t use any words, what would having this goal look like? And keep in mind that you can NOT use words now, everything that comes to your mind must be in pictures or / and sensations (feelings). You can’t even narrate it or describe it to yourself here, remember, absolutely no words! So, with that settled, imagine yourself enjoying the end result, having your goal, like driving the new car, crossing the finish line at the marathon, kissing your partner… all without language involved. 🙂

If your mind is showing you pictures of you getting the goal (saving for the new car, training for the marathon, dating) you are focusing on the process that you believe will get you to the end result. It’s very common but it’s not something you want to do. 🙂 And you don’t want to do that because of a simple reason: your brain is an image fulfilling “machine”. If you focus on the means or processes instead of the final result, you’re focusing on the “how”’s, not the “what”’s. What your brain will do with this kind of focus is keep you in the “doing” mode (acting over and over, and over again) instead of “having” your end result, actually having achieved it.

Just to prove to you that your brain fulfills images, a little example from my experience. I love chocolate and, sometimes, I have an image of chocolate cookies pop up in my mind. Sometimes I do not want to eat any cookie because I just ate, or it’s late or for any other reason. BUT my mind locked into the image of a cookie, and I can tell you, I can resist it for only so long before I finally find myself in front of the freakin’ cookie, sometimes not even consciously knowing how I got there, and then I just eat it. Mental image fulfilled, back to the normal schedule after that. 🙂

I’m sure you can relate to something similar in your life, and this image fulfilling drive that our brain has can be used for our benefit, and that’s where you do this neat little exercise! Focus on your goal without using any words, see the images, hear the sounds (not words, though!), taste it, smell it, feel it! And see the images only of your end result, so your brain will harmoniously lead you to having your goal, instead of keeping you in doing mode.

Another little cool thing to remember is that your resistance is, more often than not, triggered by your rational mind, the one that uses language! Soooooooooooo, if you bypass language and go straight for the images (right side of the brain), you’ll also be bypassing the resistance triggers! BONUS! 🙂

Have fun with this and see it working for yourself!