"Creative visualization is a good technique to walk you towards your goals and aspirations but pretending is like having a Ferrari"
Last year a wedding photographer cornered me for a conversation right after my MC duties were over. He said, I just wanted to say that God blessed you with a natural talent for speaking and entertaining a crowd. I kept noticing how much the people in this room loved you. I hope that you are appreciative of the gifts that God gave you?
As much as I was willing to let him inflate my little pointed head I thought to myself this isn't really true. Because if God gave me that gift he sure hid it from me for a long time. And he hid it so well it took many years to find it.
I'm the guy who failed Grade 12 English because I was so painfully shy that I couldn't deliver a 3 minute speech to my classmates. My marks up to the end of class were plenty good enough to pass but that old battle axe of a teacher was determined to use me as an example to the rest of the class. She actually flunked me because of my shyness disability. That was many years ago and certainly that wouldn't happen today but that was then.
So how did I go from the shy introverted kid to someone that people believe has a natural talent in front a crowd? After I got out of school and into the big bad world I quickly recognized that my shyness liability was hurting me so I convinced myself to start pretending that I wasn't shy. I couldn't go from shy to public speaker in one step just by pretending that would be just too big a leap.
So I started out on the edges of my comfort zone. I started pretending by occasionally speaking out in a small group and worked my way up to larger groups. Amazingly, people stopped seeing me as shy and just assumed I was normal. It has progressed over the years. Then one day I realized that I actually had become an extrovered guy. Wow...I pretended my way to being perceived as a 'natural born speaker'. Amazing!
As I said, start pretending on the edges of your comfort zone. There is no point pretending to be a medical doctor when you haven't graduated from high school. Small progressive pretending steps will take you a long way towards your objective. No need to be delusional about it.
"You become who you pretend to be"
You start acting as if....and one day....you are! How beautifully simple is that? And the reason this works is because you are actually taking positive action towards becoming something. That is the big flaw in using visualization to achieve something. Without action it just doesn't work very well. You can sit there all day visualizing and try to create some perfect vibration but at the end of day nothing much changes. And that is why I say....
"Positive thoughts without positive action is a postive waste of time"
It's more fun and productive to pretend to be what you want to become. So what can you pretend to be?
Psst....now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go back to pretending I'm working!
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