Visualizing Success
Visualizing the Success we seek can be inspiring or intimidating. This practice will help you identify what it is you truly want your life to look like, identify any potential barriers, and get you moving through the quarter-life crisis!
Dear Dr. Fielding!
First of all, your book is great! It’s really useful and deep therapy. I think not every psychologist can help by offline sessions as much as you do.
Now I am on third part of book but I still have a problem with my values… I mean social activities and public life. I feel it’s important for me. However, firstly I defined it like “spreading values on society and helping people”. Then I understood it’s not about what I really feel, so I defined it like “be known for a good reputation and help people”. Finally, when I rewrote it on “Goals and commitments” I felt it was not exactly what I mean under “social activities” again. Now I am going to start searching third time. Could you help me where can I make a mistake?
Hi Vicki! You are doing a fantastic job getting through the book! Values work can be super confusing. I think you are right on track though. While you may not be able to directly make others ‘know you for good reputation” you can maintain your committed actions to behaviors consistent with helping people. As a people helper myself, I know. It can get tricky. As best you can, stay focused on the kind of person you want to be, regardless of other’s opinions. That is hard of course. Sometimes, being a helper is exhausting. So make sure you also build your skills from Chapter 11, so you can draw boundaries with others. For example, you could ask others to acknowledge you for your help.
I’m sorry for my very late delay. Please do reach out again if I may clarify further! Lara
While reading the book, I identified friendships, health, and career as my most important life areas right now. But I focused on the first two as areas where I needed more work, because I just recently started a new job and I’m really happy with it, so I thought I was okay with my career for now. But during this exercise, I found myself visualizing a career-related success rather than one related to friendships or health, like maybe giving a talk at some sort of science conference or publishing a paper. At first it felt inspiring and light, and I pictured one of my current friends, someone I’d like to be friends with, and future friends I haven’t met yet. But then I also started to feel some doubt about how I could possibly get to that point in five years, because I feel a bit behind in my career and career planning compared to my peers, and I wasn’t sure if I even wanted or deserved this. Additionally, I worried that being at a public event where I’m the center of attention would trigger my social anxiety. And I felt a bit lost because I’m not sure what I’ll be doing in five years, whether I’ll be in grad school, what job I would have, or where I would be living. On the positive side, I liked picturing my friends & colleagues talking about my passion for science and cracking jokes about how much I love it. I think my passion for science is much more important to me than any external achievements. For now, I’m happy with my new job, and at the moment I don’t feel the need to plan out career goals that far in the future.