I’ve never read The Secret so I might be way off base here. But back when Oprah was hot on it, I recall someone telling me that a big part of the whole Secret is visualization: to go about changing or achieving something in your life, you practice consistent visualization of the outcome in an almost meditative way. Paint the mental picture and refer back to it so attentively, wholeheartedly and frequently…that it eventually becomes real. Or, rather, you begin to naturally design your life choices around the intent of making it real. The hard work part of getting to the place you want to be becomes that much more effortless, easy.
There’s more to The Secret than that (at least I assume there is), but this notion alone really resonates with me. I fully buy it, probably because I experience it all the time. Because visualization is not just a self-help principle—it’s an important part of the creative process.
It happens intuitively: I’m tasked with an assignment—it could be an identity design or a storyline, a speech or an event theme—and at some point, if I’ve consciously set the right conditions, a picture of it pops into my brain. Sometimes the picture is nuanced and I can see colors and shapes and typefaces, hear a voiceover, the delivery of a pitch. Others, it is kind of devoid of detail, a more general, sensory thing, like a mental mood board. Regardless, this focus on the final outcome lights the fire, gets the wheels turning, and most importantly, it becomes my motivation. It gets me excited to do the hard parts of the work, the actual planning, the editing, the selling, the vetting, the revising—and it carries me through the inevitable tedium that comes par for the course of bringing something into existence.
These are the best, most personal kinds of projects, the ones that have shape from the get-go versus those that emerge forcibly through the effort of talking, sketching, wading through sources of inspiration…trying.
They’re logistically superior, too. All of that mental pregaming speeds things up considerably—most projects fly when I’m finally ready to hit the keyboard.
Still another key benefit is job satisfaction: When we bring our own, individual theoretical into the shared actual, well, this is gratifying stuff. It’s where “work” becomes less about process, less about results, and that much more about footprint—personal contribution to the world around us. Even if we’re not saving lives, that high can be addictive.
It’s worth nothing that outside of business, in an art-for-art’s-sake kind of time and place, I’m a firm believer that none of the following applies. The best art is created with an all-in level of attachment and passion, no holds barred. But in a paid creative environment, to keep it a positive and helpful kind of addiction, there are a couple of caveats to the if you see it you will build it thing:
Don’t fall in love at first sight.
The first outcome you see isn’t always the best one, so better not to get too attached too soon. I find that while I “see” lots of potential outcomes all the time, there are only a handful that I can’t stop thinking about day in and out. The ones that stick with me, thatI can’t get out of my head, even after a few days—those are the ones worth exploring.
Commit to the forest, not the trees.
It can be tricky to toe the line between enough emotional investment and too much. You want to ride the initial wave of energy that comes with genuinely caring, but you don’t want clouded judgement if and when things don’t go exactly as planned. If you’re too attached to the specifics of your visualization, you’re vulnerable, and you won’t see the better version coming when it does. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t trust your instincts: if you’re really, really, into an idea, rest assured, it’s a good one. Invest in it. But just like good people, it can look, sound and feel many different ways in its optimal physical form. Be open to that.
Now go see what you can see!
