Many say What but few say How

Whatever I am writing here is part of my own experience and that from many people I have read from or interacted directly with.

 

  • Do you sometimes feel like somebody who tries and retries but things don’t seem to change?
  • Do you often consider yourself as an unlucky person?
  • Are there moments in which you don’t know why your plans render totally unexpected results?
  • Do you recurrently think that other people are happier than you?

 

 

Well, if you answered yes to any of the above questions, it means you are a human being and are still alive on this planet; on the contrary, if you answered No to all the previous questions, it means you are a human being, are still alive on this planet but are freaking lying!

The reason is simple: Facing problems, feeling discouraged, confused, hopeless, pessimistic or depressed are just inherent to all of us, as human beings, at certain points of our lives; the difference is that some find the way to manage those feelings and turn them upside-down to take advantage for achieving more.

So, a question may be: “Is it easy to take advantage of those feelings?”

The answer is easy: “No”.

I have read quite a lot about the problems that people have or might have, as well as what to do or what not to do in different facets of our lives; I consider this information very fruitful in terms of helping us to identify our perils or weaknesses.

However, it’s less common to find practical techniques that focus exclusively in explaining how we can solve our problems or achieve our goals regardless of the circumstances we may have.

Now, I’m going to describe a technique that I first read on the book The Magic of Believing by Claude M. Bristol and it’s been shared in other publications as well. This is called “The Mirror technique”.

 

 

Before moving forward, I would like to highlight that we must believe in something and then take actions to experience it ourselves. This is exactly what I did with the “The Mirror technique”. Based on the directions of the author, I tried it myself and proved it very effective.

Here is one of many achievements I have got by using this approach:

Several years ago, I read on a website for local information about scholarships abroad and caught my attention one related to studies in Japan. Immediately, I started to take notes on the requirements and researched everything I could about Japan.

That scholarship was directed to teachers to study in Japan for 1 year about technology and education. It covered everything!

With everything I mean: Flight tickets (first class), accommodation, food, tuition, local transportation, local study trips, special cultural events and a monthly stipend for other expenses. For me, getting that scholarship was better than winning the lottery as I was financially restricted.

So, the mirror technique came to my mind. “I can use this technique to get the scholarship”, was my reflection. So, I started to take actions.

One of the hardest requirements was to know English at an intermediate level (speaking, listening, reading and writing). Before, I had been taking some English courses, so I devoted 3 hours a day to intensify the learning process and to take later an official English Language Test like IELTS or TOEFL.

It took me around 3 months intensively studying until I finally took the IELTS. What a great joy because I got a good score!

I collected all the documents required and submit the application to get the scholarship. In the meantime, I started to use the mirror technique:

Every morning, noon and night, I was doing this:

  • Standing in front of a mirror
  • Looking at myself directly to my eyes and thinking, “I am going to get the scholarship to Japan. This is wonderful, terrific and I deserve it. Thanks God for everything!”
  • For around 5 minutes, I was repeating this with a strong belief that I would get it. I was visualizing the entire process of going to Japan, mentally “seeing” with complete happiness everything that I have read about Japan.
  • One factor I consider fundamental was  that the mental visualization I was having was tremendously intense. The more I thought and repeated this declaration, the more confident I felt
  • I followed this process religiously un-interrupted for 2 months.

After 2 months, I received the letter with the result of my application: “Thank you very much but we have chosen another candidate. We encourage you to continue applying in the future.”

For around 1 minute I felt my world had collapsed as my commitment to get it was serious. But yes! It lasted only 1 minute because I recovered, refueled myself with more energy and restarted the process.

Six months later, I applied again and was rejected for the second time; however, I wasn’t a novice anymore on receiving bad news, and therefore this “failure” didn’t affect me much as the first time.

I continued using the mirror technique with more optimism and applied for the third time to get the scholarship.

Can you guess what the letter with the results of my third application said?

Yes, I was accepted, and I traveled to Japan!

The joy experienced at that moment was inexpressible!

Since then, I have been applying the mirror technique to obtain a lot of accomplishments. The technique has worked for me and for many; therefore, it can also work for you!

 

Bottom line

 

If you have some experiences or opinions in this regard, please share them on the comments below, so we can all learn from each other.

  • Have you ever used the mirror technique?
  • Do you think the mirror technique is effective or luck plays a role?
  • Why do you think not many people achieve their goals?
  • What other ways to get things done do you know?

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