01 Mar
LIVE YOUR DREAM: HOPE, FAITH, VISUALISATION
Despite the disappointments of life, you can still live your dream by having hope for a bright future.I have been disappointed by life so many times that I lost count, but through it all, I'm still standing, strong and flourishing. When life disappoints, it is hope that keeps me going.
Hope has enabled me to develop spiritual muscles and deal with battles that come my way. Life disappointments have enabled me to redefine who I am. A journey that leads to personal and spiritual growth. Thanks to ‘hope’. There were times when life was so hard such that without hope I would have given up and stayed on the floor.
Loss of hope is like disease, it kills one’s spirit. In the absence of hope some people get stuck in their past disappointments, they dwell on negativity which in return creates the life that they don't want. I believe that even the worst disappointment can be turned into something useful if one has hope and faith that things can change for the best. Unfortunately, without hope, you can’t see things this way. Without hope, the past disappointment image tends to overshadow one’s visions and dreams. As a result, one can be bottled in fear, and anticipation that the past will repeat itself. Such people fail to step into greatness because in attempting to live their dreams they foresee and meditate on obstacles to a point that they stay on one level in life. They get limited by fear of the unknown. Some may have hope but act in contradiction of what they hope for.
Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes concerning events and circumstances in one's life. Hope includes expecting with confidence and cherishing a desire with anticipation. Hope often comes to my rescue in times of disappointment. It opens new creative possibilities for the future. A hopeful person is like a river that doesn’t dry up even when there is no rain. When you are a prisoner of hope, no life disappointments can break you, instead, they build resilience in you. When you have hope you don’t only dream but you break your dream into goals and set your mind to achieve it. When you have hope you have victory.
Hope doesn’t fail to produce fruitful outcomes when it is combined with action, ambition, determination, clear goals, and a vision of the future. This is in addition to visualisation of what you want to achieve. Positive visualisation of the future can be a very powerful tool for moving away from disappointment into victory. Hope is the path to victory.
Visualisation can attract the future that you want. Many successful people tend to be productive because they have mastered the skill of visualisation. For example, athletes use visualisation to enhance excellence in their sports. The neuropsychological evidence shows that practising visualization stimulates brain regions involved in movement rehearsal, priming the brain and body for action and, like physical practice, functions as training to improve real-life performance. In a nutshell, visualisation enables us to have a clear picture of how the destination will look like once the vision is achieved. Those who can visualise a bright future are more likely to achieve it.
Imagine a scenario that we are all familiar with, going back home after a long day out there at work. You would not have trouble visualising arriving home. Before you even get home you already imagine yourself relaxed at home, having a drink or something. You visualise your home, the colours, and everything else that you are looking forward to seeing when you get there. This motivates you to go home as you don’t anticipate obstacles on journeying back home.
So, let me ask you a question about this scenario, why is it easy to visualise arriving home successfully? I guess the answer is that arriving home successfully is a familiar activity that requires less effort. You’ve done it before successfully. Therefore, it seems natural and normal to do it again, such that you cannot doubt your potential to get home. You hope wholeheartedly that you'll arrive home successfully.
What if you can apply a hope and victory mindset in everything that you want in life? Put aside the doubt and focus on the bright destination that you envision, your dream. I believe that if we can all adopt this mindset, many would go and start their businesses, write their books, accomplish degrees, and live their dreams.
People with high levels of hope are much more likely to overcome obstacles and succeed in achieving goals. For example, hope can be a useful tool in academic performance. People who achieved PhDs will tell you that they did not achieve it because they are more intelligent that the rest of the population. Instead, they keep hoping for the best. They hoped that writing every day will help them compile the piece of research that is required to be awarded a PhD. Of course, hope works better with determination and commitment to the goal. You can't just hope and do nothing. If you have hope for a better future you must work towards getting it, in action. Whatever you do, you must do it properly and do your best. Such that when you look back you can say I have done my best.
Also, hope is very much connected to faith, therefore, it would be hypocrisy to talk about hope and live out faith. Spiritually speaking, hope is to trust in God's promises of provision and promotion, while faith is the promise that if one acts now, the blessings that will come from hope will be fulfilled in the future. The Psalmist points to the power of hope. “No one who hopes in you God will ever be put to shame” (Psalm 25:3). We need to have “hope is in his unfailing love” (Psalm 33:18).
In my own life, I have seen hope and faith working together to captivate my greatness. Because of hope and faith in God’s provision, I have seen things come to pass. I climbed mountains and achieved goals that I thought were too big for me. I achieved goals that were so big that they would give me nightmares when I’m in sleeping. It’s true that when a goal is big enough it will make you feel nervous.
With hope, faith, determination, and constant visualisation you can attain any goal and be as prosperous as God intended you to be. Life disappointments shouldn’t define your future, rather you must use them to your advantage to redefine your future.