Visualize Your Way to Happiness

To demonstrate how powerful this technique is, let me give you an example. I had been living in the Haute-Savoie in the east of France for a few months. I was renting an apartment, but soon decided it would be more sensible to buy a place rather than keep throwing money down the drain by paying rent. So, one evening in March, I made myself comfortable at home, I carried out my little ritual and I began my visualisation session. I imagine that I am parking the car in the garage after coming home from work. I open the door to my apartment. I visualise the colors of the walls, the floor. I see where I keep my shoes and my jacket. I see myself make something to eat, watching TV. I imagine my bathroom, my bedroom. Mentally, I live in this apartment. I affirm that I live happily in my apartment that is worth such and such an amount. I finished my visualisation session and I went about my life as normal. Then, sometime in early June, I had an urge to buy the local newspaper. I almost never buy newspapers! But that day, I surprised myself by wanting to buy that particular paper. So I bought it, and flipped straight to the small ads section. I only noticed one ad on the page, as if it was separate from all the rest. I called the estate agent’s and "as if by chance" they were able to show me round immediately. Perfect! As soon as the door to the apartment opened, I knew it was mine. Even before stepping over the threshold, I knew where the kitchen, the bathroom and the bedroom were already, since I had visualized them three months earlier. When they told me the asking price, I thought I was going to keel over laughing because it was the same price I had set myself. "Okay, I'll take it." "Er, don’t you want to think about it?" Well, what was there to think about? The perfect apartment I had mentally visualized all those months ago? Great, don't you think? Of course it is, but there’s more. I asked: "Do you think I could have the keys by July"?" "No, there's no chance before September. Everyone's on holiday in July and August." "No, no, I really want to be in before the 15th of July at the latest." Two weeks later, I received a phone call from the estate agent's to tell me that the solicitor was keen to settle everything before he went on holiday and would the 16th July suit me? So I had the keys for the apartment I had imagined, at the price and on the date I wanted