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By divine design, you possess a tremendous power-tool. This tool can make the difference between you achieving unbelievable success or being an unrecognized underachiever. You can use this tool to obtain things you desire or to advance your career. What is this great power-tool and how can you use it to your advantage? Let's take a look at the gift of imagination.

Your Built-in 'Movie Theater Technology'

When you were born, your creator endowed you with mental 'movie theater technology'. This mysterious technology allows you to show yourself a movie clip of what you want to create or accomplish. This technology also serves as a private workshop within your mind allowing you to create, solve problems, anticipate, navigate and understand the world around you. It enables you to preview and execute the simplest to the most complex plans.

When you create a physical thing, you always do it twice ' first in your imagination, then in reality. This two-step process is so natural that you are often unaware of it. Used frequently, skillfully and with purpose, you can direct your imagination to help you create or obtain almost anything. It can also help you to achieve your most cherished goals.

How Does This Mysterious Technology Work?

Everything that you undertake or make starts first in your imagination. You generate real-time 'movie clips' of each undertaking. Every book you've read, every car you've driven, your phone, radio, house, and computer-- in fact, every invention made by man-- was first created in someone's mind using this movie theater technology. Look around you at an ordinary room. Man, using his imagination, created every thing you see that was not already created in nature, including the room itself. Many objects in the room represent the culmination of the efforts of several individuals over many years using their imaginations.

If you shave in the morning, you create a 'movie clip' beforehand of the steps to get this accomplished. You imagine getting up, walking into the bathroom, turning on the light, running water, picking up the razor and shaving cream, lathering, then shaving. You are able to produce this internal 'movie clip' in a nanosecond and then execute it flawlessly in the real world. You are constantly imagining ahead, creating movies of what you will do next. You can think a few minutes, a few weeks or even a few decades ahead. You can also use your imagination to think thousands of years ahead, imagining places, things and creatures that don't exist. If you've ever seen an episode of Star Trek and witnessed the operation of a 'holodeck' or transporter system, these are all things that don't exist anywhere but in the imagination.

Your Power-Tool In Action

You get to decide what you want to create or achieve with your power-tool. If you can visualize what you want in minute detail, this image can serve as a blueprint for carrying out your desires or choices. Here are a couple of the many ways you can use your imagination:

Realizing goals

Let's say your goal is to acquire a certain car ' your 'dream' car. You can imagine yourself possessing just the car you want, perhaps a new Volvo. You can imagine the color of that car, the shape, the new interior smell, the tires, the trunk, the radio--- all the features you'd like that car to have. You can also imagine when you would like to obtain the car. The next step is to imagine how you will acquire the car. You could imagine going to work, working diligently, saving ten percent of your salary for three years, and then purchasing the car. Alternatively, you could see yourself taking money from your savings account to make a down payment on the car, and then financing the balance over four years by getting a bank loan. You can visualize yourself on a certain date going to a car dealer, negotiating a price for the car, and then driving the car from the lot.

Once you use your imagination to formulate a plan for acquiring the car, you can break your plan into smaller executable actions to bring the car into your possession. These are the steps you plan to take each day to achieve various parts of your plan. Executing these steps is the next important part of achieving your desire ' acquiring your 'dream' car. This uniquely human process of creating with our imaginations, formulating strategies and plans, then directing ourselves to take the required actions to bring about our desires has served mankind since our beginning. It has enabled our species to rise above all others, eventually fashioning the lives we live today.

Solving Problems

You can use your imagination to solve problems. Recently, I was driving home from work and caught a glimpse of my cell phone shifting in the passenger seat every time I rounded a corner. In one curve, it finally threw itself into an unreachable corner on the front passenger side. All the way home, I thought of ways to secure the phone. I wanted an easier, more reliable way to access my phone while driving. I also wanted to use a method that wouldn't interfere with carrying the phone in my coat pocket or briefcase.

Because I'm a bit of a cheapskate, my solution needed to be inexpensive. I imagined devices that would mount delicately on the dashboard with screws, adhesives or even strings. Finally, the solution began to take shape. I imagined using simple, inexpensive Velcro. For around $ 2.00, I could buy a swatch of Velcro and attach it to both my cell phone and dashboard. I could fasten my cell phone to the dashboard when not in use. It also wouldn't interfere with the way I carry the phone around. I had fashioned an inexpensive and effective solution to my problem. However, the first solution was formulated in my mind using my imagination.

Mastering Your Power-Tool For Results

How do you weld your imagination power-tool to realize maximum results? The key is to learn and practice the steps to effectively harness and direct the power of your imagination. First learn the steps, and then practice them as often as possible to master this great skill. Here are the basics:

• Set your goal. Choose something you would like to accomplish, obtain, create or realize. Try to make your choice consistent with what you really value. It's much easier to imagine things consistent with your beliefs and values.

• Make it tangible. Create a clear picture or idea of your desire in your mind. See yourself possessing it. If your goal is abstract, find a way to represent it tangibly. If you want to have career success, define what that means to you. Is it a certain salary, a position at a company, ownership of a company? Quantify your goal or break it down into tangible aspects.

• See yourself having and doing the things necessary to obtain your desired result. Paint in as much detail as possible. See it, hear it, feel it, smell it and taste it. This visualization is your imagination 'movie'.

• Focus on it often. Run your movie frequently. Set aside a few quiet minutes each day in the morning, at mid-day and at night to run your movie clip.

• Give your movie clip positive energy. Think about it in a positive way. Think and say affirmations ' positive statements of your intention to have what you want or to accomplish what you desire.

Make these steps a routine. Applied consistently and regularly, these steps will enable you to master your imagination power-tool. You can use this tool to achieve whole goals or to achieve the individual steps that bring about your goals. Use it liberally.

Successful business executives use their imaginations to perfect their performance. They imagine performing each important aspect of their jobs ' speeches, meetings, reports, presentations, and even negotiations. In their minds, they practice what they want to accomplish and they see themselves succeeding. They also imagine achieving their longer-term goals.

While imagination is not the only power-tool for success, it is one of the best. If you are determined and motivated, this tool can often put you over the top in achieving success. Coupled with perseverance, faith, a positive mind-set and a willingness to work hard, skillful use of imagination can give you a competitive advantage and help you rise above the crowd in achieving almost anything.