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We’ve talked about how to improve willpower, how to create a habit and apply flexibility when troubleshooting your habit-building plan. But, we’re not done yet. I firmly believe, if you’re meditation goal matters, you should use every success-promoting tool you can find. Today, I’m sharing another of my favourites: visualization for overcoming obstacles. This technique can help you anticipate obstacles, plan strategies to deal with them, and mentally practice those strategies to boost your chances at success.

This technique is very simple. There are three steps:

1. Create a list of obstacles that could prevent you from achieving your meditation goals. Perhaps, you might become frustrated when outside noises intrude on your meditation, or maybe your kids are likely to interrupt your sitting. Write them down so you have a record you can review and update over time.

2. For each obstacle, document how you plan to deal with it successfully. If you become frustrated by noise during meditation, for example, you might plan to notice the interruption, take a calming deep breath, say to yourself “just noise,” and return your focus to the breath. If your kids interrupt your meditation, you might plan to slowly open your eyes, calmly remind them you are meditating, and ask them to respect your practice by waiting until you’re finished.

3. Visualize yourself enacting your plans successfully. Sit for just 3 - 4 minutes per day in a quiet place. Close your eyes. Imagine yourself meditating peacefully. After a minute or two, imagine the obstacle come up, then imagine yourself successfully enacting your planned response to it.

 

This Week's Peaceful Moment: A Chilly Fox

 

Visualization tips

Visualize only one obstacle per session. You could visualize a different one every day, or stick to one for several days, before moving to another.

Visualize often. Daily is ideal. It might be easiest to remember to visualize if you add your visualization session onto your daily meditation session, either at the beginning or the end.

Involve all of your senses in the visualization to make it as rich as possible. Imagine what you’re wearing, where you’re sitting, the time of day, the lighting, the temperature, how your body feels, what you hear, what you smell, etc. Don’t forget to imagine how you feel, especially after you’ve overcome the obstacle.

Let’s give it a try. Before we move on, stop this recording and think about one obstacle that might come up for you. Create a plan for overcoming it. Turn the recording on again to practice visualizing.

Practice visualizing now

For a 5-minute guided visualization to help you overcome obstacles to success, forward the podcast or the video above to 3:04.

 

Next Week:

Next week’s episode makes the case that practice schedules trump deadlines when it comes to self-improvement projects such as creating a meditation habit. If you sign up for the Mindful15 newsletter, you’ll be notified when it goes online. And when you confirm your subscription,