Episode 496: 5 Steps to Visualizing Your Dreams (Mindset & Self-Care) with Megan Porta

EBT496 – Visualize Your Dreams

Intro  00:01

Hey food bloggers. Thank you so much for joining me in this mindset and self-care focused episode here on Eat Blog Talk. One of the reasons I started Eat Blog Talk was to hold a space to talk about the importance of mindset and self care. Being an entrepreneur can be a lot. If we are not taking care of ourselves, then getting actionable information about SEO, Pinterest or whatever else is all moot. I will meet you back here every Wednesday to discuss various mindset and self care topics. So you have the energy and space to tackle the rest.

Sponsor (Jennifer Farley)  00:37

Hey, food bloggers if you’re looking to get more blog posts out into the world this year, I can help. I’m Jen and I work behind the scenes as a ghostwriter for food bloggers, so you’re able to put all of your beautiful recipes out into the world. I optimize all posts in rank IQ. And you’ll get great helpful SEO optimized content without any useless filler. And that’s written for humans to read. Whether you need to update old posts or create new ones, I’m your person. If you’re interested in more information, you can go to food blog writing.com and see a list of packages frequently asked questions and a link to get started. Again, that’s food blog writing.com. That will direct you to a landing page with all the information I hope to hear from you soon.

Megan Porta  01:18

Well, hello, food bloggers, how are you doing today? Welcome to another self care and mindset focused episode of a blog talk. I’m so happy to be recording this episode. Today, I’m really excited about this topic, we’re going to talk about five steps to visualizing your dreams. I don’t know if you’ve ever experimented with visualizing. If you haven’t, you’re in for a treat. Because this is a really great way to accelerate your dreams, those things that you really want in your life or in your business or both. Visualization can be such a powerful tool for accomplishing really anything, whether it’s something little you want in your life, or it’s a big dream that you’ve wanted for a long time, it really doesn’t matter how big it is visualization is very powerful in achieving it. When you visualize something so by visualizing, I mean like closing your eyes and really doing your best to see that thing that you want. When you do that it can feel like it is actually happening. Like it’s actually a real thing. Instead of just a visualization in your head, which amplifies the emotion that you’re feeling about it, which is going to accelerate your path to accomplishing it or achieving it. Getting into the habit of visualizing what you want will also increase your confidence so that you feel more capable of achieving it, you feel more worthy of having it because it feels like you already do have it. And feeling those emotions associated with having your dreams really will accelerate your path to achieving them, instead of just wanting certain things, which accentuates the fact that it is not here in your life now, which is also a signal that you are lacking that thing, see or visualizing things in your head, your mind and body both believe it’s actually happening. So that signifies abundance, you feel like it’s there you have it. And this is really powerful. 

Megan Porta  03:20

The whole message of this episode is not to underestimate the power of visualizing what you want, I think it can be really easy to get hung up with the idea that it takes too much time or that you don’t want to stop what you’re doing to do this. But as you’ll hear as we go through this episode, you will see that it really doesn’t take that much time, a very little amount of time invested in this can carry you a long way in achieving your dreams. One other thing that I didn’t mention that visualization will bring you is clarity. This process will equip you so that you know which action steps you need to take in order to move forward towards your dreams. I had read a lot and heard a lot about how powerful visualization was over the years. I’ve experimented with it a little bit. I’ve dabbled here and there. And a couple of years ago, I decided to really dig into visualization to kind of just test it out and see if it actually worked. I would say it took me about a year of experimenting and doing it here and there to see what really worked for me. So I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned in hopes that you don’t have to take a whole year and to experiment with this, that you can take some nuggets away from this episode and really know what to do to visualize and to make your dreams come into your reality. 

Megan Porta  04:44

A few years ago, one of the things I knew I wanted in my life was a person to help me level up in my business. I don’t exactly know where this desire came from. It was just more of an in internal knowing I knew I needed someone, whether it was a business coach, a mindset coach, a mentor of some sort, that would come into my life, and kind of take my hand and guide me to greater success. The reason I wanted this person was because I knew I had tapped out on doing this on my own, I had come so far in my business, doing it on my own, I knew I needed a little bit of guidance beyond what was in my experience, my knowledge, my capacity to do it for myself. I also knew that I didn’t want to keep working my butt off, like I had been for a decade, I wanted more time. For me, I wanted more time for my family. I wanted that freedom finally, that I started this business for. I was just ready, I felt ready for that. And I knew that I needed a person to guide me there. So that was kind of my what and my why we’ll get more into that in a little bit like what the steps are that you’ll need to think through before you start visualizing. But those are my first two steps. I knew what I wanted, I wanted a person. And I knew why I wanted my freedom, I wanted to work less, I wanted to earn more. And I knew it could happen, I just needed guidance. Those are the two biggest pieces of the puzzle that you need to figure out, you really need to know your what and you need to know why you want it. I am not really sure where this whole process that I used to visualize things came from, to be honest with you, but it came to me. And it’s the same process that I use. Now, every time I want to visualize something into reality. And it really works. So I’m going to share with you what worked and works for me. And you can cater it to your own needs. If what I say doesn’t really make sense, adjust it to fit what makes sense for you. And use that don’t use my method just because it works for me. I’ve teased a little bit about what my initial want was when I really decided to do this, and why I wanted it. So I’m going to talk you through the five steps first. And after that, I’m going to share with you my method of visualization and how I used it to manifest this person into my life because it did happen and how exactly I kind of see that in my head as I do it. 

Megan Porta  07:31

So if you’ve never visualized before, I suggest starting with just one thing, just to get the hang of it. Don’t start with 10 things because you’re just going to muddy the waters, you’re going to get confused, you’re gonna confuse God or the universe, or whatever you call the entity that you speak to. Start with one thing and maybe even make it a little thing at first, once you visualize and manifest that you’re going to have more confidence in your ability to do this. And it’s going to snowball into bigger wilder dreams that you have for your life. So let’s talk through these five steps to visualizing your dreams. 

Megan Porta  08:09

Number one is figure out what you want. What is it? Is it a thing? Is it an experience? Is it money? Is it a vacation? Is it a person, just be clear on it. Also, on this note, be willing to be flexible with the details of it. So my example with my person, I knew I needed a person to guide me to greater success. I didn’t go beyond that. I just knew it was a person, I didn’t associate a he or she, I left it very generic on purpose because the details aren’t necessarily mine to fill in. If you want money, if that’s something that you want to draw into your life, I think it’s okay to state an amount you want. But be open to the way that it comes to you. So if you want $10,000 Just say that you don’t need to say I want $10,000 exactly from my ad network, which is blah, blah, blah. You could even say I want a minimum of $10,000. $10,000 plus. If you really desire a tropical vacation be open to the location of it. Don’t say I want to be in Hawaii exactly on these dates be open to the times and be open to the exact location because again, your job is not to deliver the details and think about this too. What is it that you really want? Is it the $10,000? Or is it the freedom that comes from the $10,000? For me, it wasn’t the person that I actually wanted. It was the freedom that was going to count to my life because of the guidance this person brought to me which leads nicely into number two…

Megan Porta  09:54

Which is know exactly why you want what you want. What is your ultimate why it’s not the money, it’s never the money. It’s the thing, experience vacation, freedom, fill in the blank, that money allows. It’s not even necessarily the vacation. It’s the time spent with loved ones, the time spent not stressing about work, the freedom to explore the world, or fill in the blank that the vacation brings to you. If you don’t know what your why is, I always recommend journaling it out, I do this a lot. Keep asking yourself why you want the thing until you get to that point where you feel emotional, when I start to feel almost teary with gratitude, or love or whatever that is exactly when I know I’ve hit it, that’s my y right there. And I write it down. I take note. So once you have your what figured out and you’re why write them down. 

Megan Porta  10:56

And number three, you need to believe that it is yours. Not that some day 20 years from now, it may be could be possibly yours. Believe that it is yours. This is my favorite. This is when it gets really fun. So you sit with your what and your why. And you close your eyes. And you envision that dream happening to you now not in the future. But right in this moment. And you sit with that emotion and you feel it when you think about your why. And you express gratitude for it. You think it you feel how grateful and how powerful this is for your life. And you allow yourself to sit with that. There have been so many times when I’ve visualized, when I’ve done this part of the process when I actually feel so emotional that I’ve cried because I’m in it, I’m in the moment, I may as well be experiencing the thing that I am wanting as if it were actually happening to me. So that is your goal, you want to actually experience it as if it is happening. Now. In my experience, I found that doing this daily is really helpful, but you don’t want to overdo it. If you go too long with it, at least for me, I can start overthinking things to the point where I’m not believing myself or I’m getting too much into the details, I can tend to be an over thinker. So I give myself a time limit for that just so that I can experience the powerful emotion and not get to that point where I’m over analyzing or overthinking or kind of like throwing a wrench into the whole thing and messing it all up. I never want to mess it up. I just want to experience the good feelings and never get to those negative, bad doubting feelings. So that’s why I say put a time limit on it. For me, it’s no more than five minutes a day. And again, when you do this, do your best to convince yourself that it is happening. This might take some practice, if you’ve never done it before, which is totally fine. Give yourself time to experiment with this process. Just do your best to feel that gratitude and the positive energy as much as you can. 

Megan Porta  13:08

After you actually do the visualizing believing it’s yours now then you go on to number four, which is release and trust. This is when it’s time to hand it over to your higher power. So whatever you call that higher power, God, source, universe, fill in the blank. You have done what you’ve needed to do, you figured out the What, the Why you’ve believed it, you feel the power of that emotion of actually being in your dream. Now it’s God’s turn to sorted out the how’s and the details are not for you to figure out, this was a really hard point for me to really understand. But once I did, the things that I could bring into my life increased exponentially. This is a really important piece of it, you are not in charge of the house, that is not your business, it is not your job. So you release that. And you also just have faith in this entire process, you laid the groundwork now you hand it over, and you do so with faith. You also do so with the intent to take action on anything that inspires you. 

Megan Porta  14:15

Which leads to number five, take inspired action. When you do the first four steps inspiration will come to you. It’s just how this process works. And don’t be afraid to ask for inspiration at this point. Put it out there say I know my what I know my why I believe I’m releasing it and I have faith. Now please universe, God, source, fill in the blank inspire me in ways that bring clarity so I know which actions to take. And once you ask that it’s going to come to you so be ready for it. Don’t ignore inspiration when it comes your way. I think it’s ingrained in a lot of us unfortunately to ignore inspiration to stuff it down to shove it aside. So it might take some practice to get to the point where you’re actually seeing it like, oh, yeah, that’s what I asked for. This is the inspiration. You could take note, you could write it down in a notebook or put it in your phone when it comes to you. So you don’t forget, because honestly, sometimes inspiration comes to me at really inconvenient times, when I’m busy with something else, I’m recording an interview, or I’m hanging out with my family. And I don’t necessarily want to put things down and go act on the inspiration. So have somewhere where you can log it, so you don’t forget it, but return to the inspiration as soon as you can. 

Megan Porta  15:39

Those are the steps that I take, every time I want to visualize something into my life. Now I’m going to tell you what I see in my head, and what really works for me. And I hope you can take at least pieces of this and use it for yourself. Going back to my example about the person I really wanted to bring into my life, I will talk through the process manifesting him, my process is a visualization inside of a visualization. But if you find it easier to just hop right into visualizing the thing that you want, that is totally fine, too. But I’ll use my example with Cliff, the person who I ended up manifesting as my business and mindset coach to talk you through my process, I usually lay in my bed, or I sit on my couch, I go somewhere in my house that is comfortable, where I can close my eyes for a little bit. I close my eyes, and I imagine a balloon that is filled with helium. That is somewhere in my house, it’s in a different place every time I do this. But when I close my eyes, I just automatically know okay, it’s in the living room. So in my mind, I go to the living room and I find the balloon, the balloon holds my visualization. And I do this because I can create different balloons for different things that I’m trying to bring into my life. So if I go to find the red balloon, for example, that was the color I associated with the person that I was trying to manifest. So I’m closing my eyes, I go find the red balloon, this time, it’s maybe in the living room. So in my vision, I walk to the living room, I jump up and I grabbed the balloon down from the ceiling because it’s bouncing along the ceiling in there. And in my vision, I sit down with a balloon and I look inside of it. And inside of it, I see the person that I am trying to manifest, I didn’t attribute a gender to this person, I just had certain qualities that I knew this person had to carry, I start envisioning the characteristics this person has. They’re smart, they’re probably an entrepreneur of some sort, they’re happy, they’re fulfilled, I get a feeling for their vibe, their energy. And then I start thinking about the ways that this person is going to guide me and lead me to those freedoms that I want in my business and in my life. So I start really tapping into that and feeling those emotions that I want to feel. If you are trying to manifest more of an experience, then that’s where you go, if you want to envision an object, you just focus on the object, so catering to whatever it is that you’re trying to manifest. Once I do this for a few minutes, then I kind of see my balloon that I’m holding start to glow or get more power,

Megan Porta  18:39

I always associated the balloon for Cliff as being red. So after I was done just feeling that emotion of yes, he’s going to be or at that point, it wasn’t here it was just like this person is coming my way. I would give it power and then it would start to glow shine almost got sparkly in my mind. And then I would take the balloon and I would prepare to hand it over. So I did my part. Now it was time to have faith that God was going to take care of the rest. So I always envision like an entity that kind of has human characteristics, I walk over to the front of my house in my mind, and I take the balloon and that’s now glowing and shiny because it has so much power. And I hand it over to this entity. The entity isn’t a human, but it does in my mind have like a hand to grab the balloon with so this entity takes the balloon from me with a smile with just a knowing feeling that I have done my part and that it is now taking over. So once it has the balloon, kind of envision it just figuring out the details on its own. So that I don’t have to and then God, source, the universe. This entity smiles at me like thank you. And now I’ve got it. And we kind of do like a little high five. And that’s my sign to let it go for now. So I hand it over, and I let the balloon go float up back to the top of the ceiling. And then I go about my day and I come out of my visualization. 

Megan Porta  20:21

There is a method behind the madness, with my whole balloon visualization with me handing the glowing balloon over to an entity, and all of that. So I kind of want to explain that. So you know, what my reasoning is behind doing that. If I just sit down to visualize, I don’t follow through with the other steps. So I might know what I want, I might know why I want it. And I might sit down and visualize it and tap into really believing it’s mine. And being in that vision and feeling that emotion and all of that. But when it comes to the steps of releasing, and trusting that God is taking over from there, and then trusting that inspired action is going to come to me, and also making sure that I don’t continue to obsess about whatever it is that I want. When it comes to those parts, everything is baked in to this one process. So I believe there’s power in just sitting down and visualizing a scene, I have the scene that I commonly go to where it’s me in my backyard, I am surrounded by loved ones we’re having a great time, like there are very specific things that I see. But then I kind of end the visualization, and I’m just done. And the whole, like releasing it and having faith that the details are going to fall into place. And knowing that inspired action is going to come to me. I don’t actually follow through with any of that. So yes, there’s power in visualizing. But I like this whole story I build in my mind where I’m holding the thing, and then I hand it over, and then I have faith. And then I’m inspired and I can kind of peripherally see it in my day to day life. I like that because it’s all taken care of in one little package. If that makes sense. However you want to visualize do it however it feels good to you do it, I just wanted to share this process that I use with you in case it helps some of you. The first time I use this method to visualize was with Cliff who ended up being my business and mindset coach. And I’ve used it a lot since then. And it always works. It is a no fail method for me. Sometimes it doesn’t always happen in the timeframe I have in my mind. But this is a really powerful and effective way to visualize. And I can say with 100% certainty that this method of visualizing has changed my life. I manifested my business and mindset coach, he completely changed the way my life looks. 

Megan Porta  22:58

My life looks so different now versus before I had my business and mindset coach, I have so much more freedom and he helped to guide me to this place where I am confident in myself, I have the courage to do things that I wouldn’t have before he led me to where I’m at today. And I so strongly believe that none of the freedoms that I’m feeling now would have happened without first visualizing having the guidance of a person that I knew I needed. Visualizing can work for you. It can work with anything that’s really small, it can work with really big things. I hope that you feel encouraged to try it. And please reach out and let me know if or when I should say when it works for you. Let’s recap the steps really quickly. So number one, you are going to figure out what you want. Number two know exactly why you want it. Number three believe it is yours. Feel that emotion. Number four, release and trust that the details are going to be taken care of for you. And number five, take action when you are inspired. That’s it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you back here next week. 

Outro  24:09

Thank you so much for listening to this mindset and self-care episode here on Eat Blog Talk. If you are a food blogger providing a service for other food bloggers, and you want to spread the word about the value that you offer, I would love to offer you a free way to do just this. Send me a 60 second audio clip to be featured in a mindset and self care episode here on Eat Blog Talk in 2024. Go to eatblogtalk.com/audioclip to learn more