How to Visualize the Life You Want to Have in 3 Steps

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Power" by Rhonda Byrne. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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How do you visualize the life you want to have? Does life visualization really work?

You can visualize the life you want by imagining it, feeling yourself living that life, and activating the law of attraction to attract that life to you. Life visualization works because it primes your brain to take actions that will make your dreams come true.

Read on to fully discover how you can visualize the life you want to have.

The Three-Step Process of Life Visualization

Now that you know how your feelings and thoughts create your life, you need to learn how to visualize the life you want to get what you desire. To attain specific goals in your life, you must follow these three-steps: Imagining, Feeling, and Receiving. This process can also be used to change something you don’t like.

The first step is to use your mind to imagine what your heart desires. Then, feel the love of doing what you want and having what you want. After you imagine and feel love for what you want, all you have to do is receive what you want. Feel that what you want is yours and show love for it.

To test out the Creation Process and gain confidence using it, try manifesting something small—a flower or book. Use your imagination to see it, feel the love of having it, and then receive it. When you receive it, you will truly believe in the law of attraction and can start using it to benefit your life.

In the following sections, we’ll dive deeper into the steps of Imagining and Feeling to help you use the process to its full potential to Receive.

Step 1: Visualize the Life You Want to Have

You can have anything you want if you can imagine it and love it. What you imagine must be from a place of love if you want to receive a positive result. Imagining something that brings negativity to another is not coming from a place of love. Your focus is on harm, and that harm is mirrored back to you.

Your imagination has no limits, and neither should you. The most incredible or fantastic thing you can imagine is possible when the force of love is working for you. Love knows no bounds, so reach as high as you want.

Famous scientists, athletes, and inventors all reached for the stars and succeeded simply because they didn’t let the limitations of their current world scare them. They broke through with their imagination and changed their lives and, in some cases, the world.

Think about Bill Gates in the garage building Microsoft. He didn’t let the fact that a computer operating system had never been created stop him. He imagined his dream and made it a reality.

Everything you have and are now was imagined by you. If you imagined the life you wanted, you’re probably happy right now. The problem is that many people focus on what they don’t have. They feel resentment, despair, or fear about their lives. Because the law of attraction is a mirror and not a psychoanalyst, that resentment, despair, and fear is sent back as circumstances or events that lead to an unhappy life.

Look at your current life, visualize the life you want to have, and see where you need to adjust your thoughts to create better feelings.

The Missing Dog

Byrne and her family lived in a home that backed up to the mountains. One night, their dog, Cabbie, escaped through a hole in the fence. She and her daughter assumed Cabbie had wandered into the mountains and went to search for him.

They searched for hours, even in the dark. Byrne felt her anxiety rising. She knew those feelings were not the ones that would bring Cabbie home, so she said they should go home and change their energy.

They used their imagination to see Cabbie safely at home and unharmed. They imagined him walking down the hall for dinner. They put food in his bowl. They imagined his collar bell ringing. They called out for Cabbie like he was there. When they went to bed, the daughter imagined Cabbie sleeping in her room like usual.

The next day, they found an alert about a found dog in the mountains. Sure enough, it was Cabbie. They picked Cabbie up and brought him home safely, just like they’d imagined.

Your Desires Are Not Original

It is not possible for you to go off the rails when you visualize the life you want to have, and imagine something that doesn’t exist. Everything is already created. If it weren’t, you couldn’t imagine it. You may not be able to see what you want in the current world, but that doesn’t mean it’s not out there somewhere. To bring a seemingly impossible desire to fruition, call it forth through your imagination.

Imagine the lifestyle, home, job, and relationship you want.
Imagine what it would be like if your job was everything you wanted it to be. Imagine what getting a promotion looks like.
Imagine what your relationship would be like if your partner was everything you wanted them to be. Imagine the future you want together.

Use all of your senses to visualize the life you want to have. Smell it, taste it, hear the sounds of that life, and feel the things that life brings to your world.

Imagine what taking a trip to Paris would be like. See the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. Hear the chatter at sidewalk cafes. Feel the spray from the Seine River on your face. Taste the coffee and pastries. Feel the cobblestone streets under your feet. Imagine yourself in Paris so you can be given the mirror image of you in Paris.

Use props to visualize the life you want to have. Props can bolster the image you have in your mind and give you something tangible to focus on.

Place pictures of what you want around the home.
Buy or wear the type of clothes that fit the life you want.
Make space in your garage for the new car you want.
Set out an extra place serving at dinner for the partner you want.
Open a savings account for the money you want.
Put out hangers in your closet for the new clothes you want.

As soon as you imagine what you want, you’ve created it. The world where you don’t have what you want no longer exists. You have imagined it; now feel the love of having it.

Step 2: Feel Yourself Living the Life You Want

You know that feelings are what magnetizes your thoughts into frequencies that call on the law of attraction. But how do they do that?

Each of us has a magnetic field surrounding our bodies at all times. Maybe you’ve heard this field described as an aura or halo. This constant force around you is what brings things to your life. And your feelings dictate whether that field is positively charged or negatively charged.

You add love to your magnetic field each time you give love through your words, thoughts, or actions. The more love you give, the stronger the love vibration of your field is. And when your field is activated with love, it becomes powerful enough to attract love back.

Over time, if you consistently give love, your magnetic field will become so powerful that you can shift the law of attraction into high gear. With this increased power, the Creation Process will happen so fast, you’re able to receive what you imagined and feel instantaneously.

Step 3: Receive Your New Life

After you’ve visualized the life you want to have and felt the joy of having that life, all you have to do is receive it. Trust that once you create the positive frequency for your desire and magnetize it with love, it will be yours. The law of attraction will shift the universe to bring you the people, circumstances, and events that support your desire and the life you want.

Don’t deviate from your positive frequency by doubting whether you will really get what you want. Doubt interjects negative feelings, and your frequency has suddenly changed. The bonds are created the moment you think of your desire and feel the joy of having it. Believe and move forward confidently toward the life where you have what you want.

Feel your desire deep in your heart. That is the only way to activate the law of attraction to bring it to you. Keep your desires positive and feelings good to receive positive and good things. If what you desire brings harm to another person, those negative feelings will bring back harm, rather than the thing you desire.

How to Visualize the Life You Want to Have in 3 Steps