The habit of completing your tasks, finishing what you start, is an essential part of character building. You cannot imagine a fully mature, fully functioning person who is unable to finish what she begins. The development of this habit is the key to long-term success.
You can accelerate the process of becoming a highly produc-tive person by regularly visualizing yourself as focused and chan-neled toward high achievement. See yourself as a highly productive, efficient person. Feed your subconscious mind with this picture until it is accepted as a command. Remember, the person you ‘‘see’’ is the person you will ‘‘be.’’
Your subconscious cannot tell the difference between a real experience and one that you vividly imagine. If you create an imaginary picture of yourself performing in an efficient and effec-tive way, your subconscious mind reacts exactly as if that is what you were actually doing at the moment. Each time you replay
this image of yourself performing at your best, your subcon-scious mind records it exactly as if it were happening again. It then adjusts your words, actions, and behavior so that your ac-tions on the outside are consistent with the picture you have created on the inside.
Each time you remember an occasion when you were per-forming at your best with confidence, your mind imprints it into your self-concept. The more often you see yourself as the very best that you can possibly be, the more rapidly this becomes your automatic behavior. You program yourself for success by feeding your mind with positive pictures, either images that you create, or repeat pictures of previous peak-performance experiences.
Combine Thoughts with Feelings
The principle of emotionalization is powerful when you use it in conjunction with visualization. There is a formula that says
‘‘thought times emotion equals result’’ (T E R). What this means is that if you create a clear mental picture of yourself working efficiently and well, and you combine that with the emo-tions of enthusiasm and enjoyment, your subconscious mind ac-cepts this picture more rapidly as a command. Therefore, it more rapidly becomes your current behavior.
A powerful method for reprogramming your subconscious mind with the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of highly pro-ductive people is for you to ‘‘act as if’’ you were already the efficient, effective person that you desire to be.
Assume the Position
It turns out that there is a physical position for almost every men-tal or emotional state. There is body language for good work habits as well. For example, if you work at a desk and you sit up straight, erect, and lean forward, you actually trigger a feeling of being more productive. If you walk briskly, with your head up, your shoulders back, and your chin held high, you tend to feel like a more confident and productive person.
The Law of Reversibility says that if you feel a particular way on the inside, you will act that way on the outside. It also says that if you act as if you already felt the way you desire, your actions, which are under your direct control, will create the feel-ings, which are not.
If you want to be confident, act confidently. If you want to be courageous, act courageously. If you want to be efficient, behave as if you already are an efficient person. Your actions generate your feelings and beliefs, just as your feelings and beliefs deter-mine your actions.
Sit Up Straight
On the other hand, if you slouch in a chair or walk slowly with your head down, you will feel lethargic and unproductive. If you put your feet up, or lean back and relax, your energy levels will drop and you will lose your enthusiasm for any kind of produc-tive work.
Throughout the workday, you should stop regularly and ob-serve how you are sitting and doing your work. Ask yourself,
‘‘Would a highly effective person sit and look like this?’’ If the answer is no, then change your posture and your position so that it is more consistent with the way you think a highly productive person would sit and work.
Perform Like a Genius
Some years ago, Reader’s Digest reported on a study of geniuses.
The story examined the life and habits of many geniuses over the ages in an attempt to determine what characteristics they had in common. The magazine finally concluded that all geniuses seemed to behave the same in three ways. Fortunately, ordinary people with average intelligence can develop these three quali-ties or behaviors and dramatically increase their mental produc-tivity as a result.
The first quality was that all geniuses seemed to take a sys-tematic and orderly approach to problem solving. Whenever
something went wrong, they would stop and analyze it carefully, step by step, before jumping to a conclusion or taking action to resolve it. As a result, when they finally did make a decision, it was better than those of people who simply reacted to a problem rather than thinking it through.
The second quality that the geniuses in the study seemed to have in common was a sense of wonder—the ability to look at situations in a fresh, almost childlike way.
Geniuses keep an open mind and a flexible attitude toward all subjects. They allow their minds to ‘‘float freely,’’ and they examine all the possible ways of approaching a situation or solv-ing a problem before they come to a conclusion. They are contin-ually asking themselves the question: ‘‘What else might be the solution?’’
The third quality of geniuses is that they seem to have the ability to concentrate with greater depth and intensity than the average person. Thomas Carlyle once said, ‘‘Genius is simply an infinite capacity for taking pains.’’ Almost anyone who can disci-pline himself to concentrate single-mindedly on a single subject until he completes that task or masters that subject will begin to perform vastly better in that area.
This ability to concentrate single-mindedly applies to sales, management, parenting, negotiating, or anything else. All great achievements are the results of long periods of single-minded concentration, focused on a single task or objective, until the job is complete.