Top 3 Lessons on Visualisation from Maya Raichoora

Hey everyone and welcome back to my On Reflection series. where every single week I break down my favorite three lessons from the podcast guest who's come on the show. Each week, I'll be providing you with my favorite lessons, with my personal insights, and some journal prompts that will help you too.

So this week's guest was Maya Ritura, who is a visualization expert, and she's just written an incredible book called Visualize, where she goes through the five different visualization techniques that she talks about in the podcast. There were so many things...

they learned from Maya, just from her own story, how she's used visualization in her life, how she's grown an incredible platform to inspire and help so many people. So I really wanted to break down my first reflection, which is about the mind-body connection.

Maya talked about how visualization helped her with her recovery. She talked about how she was visualizing her first steps, walking out of the hospital. She never said that she was imagining herself running or starting this platform and inspiring millions of people. She just said that she took really, really...

small steps. And this really reminds me of my own journey. When I quit my job to start this podcast, I used to constantly think about having these massive guests on my podcast. I think about what I would do when they enter the room, how I'd have a conversation with them. And I've done this with so many people.

many guests just not knowing i've been doing it before a guest comes in i always think about how my energy is going to be in the conversation how my body language is going to be how i'm going to see when i how i'm going to how I'm gonna act when I meet them, how the conversation's gonna go, am I gonna laugh, am I gonna be shocked, am I gonna be stunned? And I constantly think about this so that I'm really prepared.

And this also really reminds me of a conversation that I had with Zizo, which is probably one of my favorite podcasts. Zizo was somebody I've interviewed twice, but my first interview with him, he talked so much about visualization. And he's a boxer, and he was saying that when he steps into the arena...

when he sees the crowd and he gets hit and he gets knocked out, he's already been through it in his mind a million times. So when it happens to him on the day of the fight and when he's in the ring, he's not so thrown by it. The key lesson here is about your body listens to what your...

mind tells it. I just recorded a podcast which is coming out very very soon with a hypnotist and he was telling me how powerful our mind can be at getting us to take action. Maya talks so much about how mental rehearsal and mental fitness can be and I really believe in how powerful affirmations can be too.

Because what you tell yourself daily matters. And I've seen this with myself. I never used to think I was a lucky person, but I started doing luck affirmations. And if you follow me on TikTok, I share them on there. I never used to think that I would be financially abundant. I was always quite scared of money. And now I feel like I'm...

actually somebody who's never scared about making money, even though sometimes I don't have as much as I want coming into my bank account, I'm no longer scared about it anymore. And it's because I rewired my thoughts through affirmations, which is why I think that they are just so important and so incredibly helpful.

So my two journal prompts for you. Think about a time where you had an experience where your mind influenced your emotional or physical outcome. How did your thoughts impact the experience? I think this is a really powerful question to ask because so often we never really think about our thoughts. We think about our actions.

but what was our mindset telling us? How was our mindset pushing us? How are we speaking to ourselves before this experience? And my second question, if you fully believed in your ability to overcome your challenges that you're facing today, What would you be telling yourself and what actions would you be telling yourself to do?

I think that is a really empowering question to ask yourself because so often we want to overcome our challenges and we don't know how to and I always say that you should talk to yourself you should therapize yourself I've spoken a lot about this online but I think it's really really important to ask off that question and think if I had no limitations if I believed in myself 100%

If my hero wanted to do this, what actions would they take and how can I do that today? And I think it's really, really powerful to see how if you remove the limitations from your mind, what you can do. Now, the second thing that I really love that Maya shared in this podcast is how visualization is not just manifestation.

It's a skill set. I think the term manifestation has been popularized in the last few years and everyone's just using it to say anything. Oh, I manifested this chocolate bar. Oh, I manifested meeting this person. Oh, I manifested this random thing. And what Maya said was really, really important about the distinct...

between manifestation and visualization. Now, if you listen to the full episode, she goes into this in detail and she also talks about the five different types of visualization. And what she says is not just about picturing success, it's about preparing your mind for the different possibilities.

So many of us think that visualization is just about attracting things, but it's so much more than that. It's about really putting yourself in that situation as you would be at the time and going through everything that could possibly happen. Now here, I asked Maya what the difference was between

visualizing and overthinking because I've been in that position where I've thought about so many different things and I kind of got really stressed out about it and I really love her answer so if you really want to know the answer to that I recommend you watch the full episode.

So my first general question for you is what's one goal that you want to achieve? And instead of visualizing success, visualize the steps that you need to take to get there. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it sound like? Think about all your different five senses and really put yourself in that position and think about the steps needed to get to that goal rather than visualizing that goal. I spoke about this in my goal setting workshop at the start of the year.

very easy for me to visualize myself on stage at TED. But what's not easy is me thinking about all the things that I need to do and then visualizing doing those. Because it's really fun to visualize me being on stage. What's not fun is for me to do the graft. And that's what I need. help with that's what I need to train my mind to think that it's normal to think that I need to do that to not feel overwhelmed to not feel scared to push myself

for me to reach that TED stage. My second journal prompt is actually something that I really, really love to do. And if it's safe to do so, I'm going to ask you all to close your eyes. Roll your shoulders back. Take a deep breath. Breathe out. One more time. Deep breath in and out. Unclench your jaw.

Relax your jaw. You should be feeling a little bit more relaxed now. Now I want you to think about a challenge that you're struggling with right now. And with your eyes closed, I want you to visualize yourself overcoming that challenge.

now this could be anything this could be that are falling out this could be a money challenge this could be a health scare this could be a really difficult conversation you need to have really think about this challenge and now really think about yourself navigating it successfully and if you're struggling with that really think about someone that you admire someone that you love a hero in fact and think about what would they do to overcome it

So often we think other people have the answers. But whatever someone else can do, we can do too. And so we've just got to allow our minds in this moment right now, keep your eyes closed, to really, really think about... what we would do to overcome this challenge. And once you've really thought about that, take some time to now think about how you would feel, how you would act, how you're standing, how you're talking. And again, really use your five senses to really describe this.

I did this in my goal setting workshop as well this year where I did some affirmations. I asked people to close their eyes and we did lots of exercises. And I find these to be really, really, really powerful. So if you need some time, I really recommend pausing the video here and really taking some time in. to do this exercise.

The third thing that I really love that Maya said so openly and vulnerably in the podcast was how confidence is not just something you wake up with. It's a skill that gets better the more that you repeat it with. Now, if you've watched my videos, you'll know that I constantly talk about the...

confidence competence loop which is when you are more confident you become more competent and when you become more competent you become more confident and it's the same the other way around when you become more competent you become more confident when you become more confident you become more competent

And whichever route you start off with, the first step is always gonna be either confidence or competence. And a lot of us, when we start something new, you know, when I started this podcast, I wasn't competent but I just gave myself really, really small actions to do every single day that I knew that I was building my competence loop up which in turn was building my confidence loop up.

What I really loved here that Maya said is you don't need confidence to start, you just need courage. And I encourage this all the time. One of the things that I always tell people to do is just ask. Most people say to me, how did you just ask Jay Shetty or Stephen Bartlett or any of these people?

be on your podcast and I'm always like well I've done it so many times and the first time I was so scared so I asked someone who I knew someone who I knew of I didn't just ask Jay Shetty and Stephen Bartlett the first time and I think so often we give ourselves such a big step that we forget that there's all these small steps that will give us the confidence, the courage, and the boost to go after that big step.

It's also important to remember here that just because you're not confident in one area of your life doesn't mean you're not confident in other areas of your life. And just because you're confident in one element of your life doesn't mean you're confident in every hour of your life. I find it very easy to talk in front of an audience or a camera, but I find it petrifying to sing in front of...

anyone. And lots of people are like, but you're so confident. I'm like, yeah, in some areas of my life, I'm very confident. In other areas of my life, I'm not so confident and that's okay. And I think people get confused by that. And I was actually speaking to a hypnotherapist the other day. I'm so excited for you to all listen to this podcast, actually. Make sure you've subscribed and put bell notifications on so that you're the first to know when this goes out. But what he was telling me...

is that if you go to a supermarket and you're picking something out of the rail, you're not like, oh my God, should I get that? Should I not? You just put pasta in your trolley. You don't... feel that you're not confident to go food shopping so if you have the confidence to go food shopping and you never did before because none of us were born out of the womb knowing how to food shop that means it's something you can build up which means it's a skill set which means that you can learn it

So my two journal prompts for you. One was the time that you felt out of your depth, but you took action anyway. Really, really hone in on this time because this can be a really great way for you to think about times in your life where you didn't feel confident, you didn't feel ready, but you did it anyway. What made you do it? How can you apply the lessons from that time to your life today? And my second question is, if confidence is built through repetition,

What's one thing that you need to remind yourself today and every single day? Now, this could be an affirmation. This could be something that you've done. This could be a past experience. It could be a mantra. It could be honestly anything. What do you need to remind yourself every single day so that you can become more confident to take action?

I love affirmations. I've talked about them so much. Like I said, I speak about them all the time on my TikTok. And in my performance planner, I write down three affirmations every single day after I write down three things I'm grateful for. So I first write down all the things that I'm grateful for.

in my life and then I write down three totally new affirmations which depending on what I want at the time I'm really focused on that one thing so you can choose one mantra every day you can choose two affirmations every day you can choose anything you like but what I'd recommend is your

at least stick to one thing that you repeat every single day so that your brain allows it to be repeated and you start rewiring your subconscious thoughts. So these are my three favorite lessons from my podcast with Maya. I'd be so interested to know what your favorite

And if you would add anything to this episode, thank you so much for always watching these episodes. You have no idea how much it means to me. I'm really trying to get better at these. So if you have any feedback, if you have anything that I can do, please, please, please let me know. week to make these podcasts even better for you thank you so much for watching if you could press the like follow and subscribe button i'd be so so so grateful and i hope you all have a wonderful weekend