I’m done with my first 30-day trial! To read more details about the trial go here.

The original goal was to make visualization a habit because it was so beneficial for me when I was at my lowest point.

I also wanted to see how it would affect blog traffic and earnings since that is a huge goal for me. I started this blog with the intention of earning $1800/month blogging and I wanted to see if visualizing would have an impact on that. I threw in that I also wanted 1000 visitors a day too. The first day of the trial I realized this wasn’t very easy to visualize. I had no idea what 1000 visitors a day would look like or whether 1000 visitors would result in $1800/month or what my life would look like earning $1800. Then I questioned why I should even put that limit on it anyway. So on day 1 I changed that and started visualizing owning a blog that had an incredible amount of genuine value on it for readers to freely take. That felt more right and was much easier to visualize.

Traffic stats

I decided to share the stats from September 2 through September 30 to give you a before look. September 2 was the day I put my first post up on this domain. All entries before that were on broderickallen.com

Before Trial

Unique Visitors: 128
New vs. Returning: Out of 159 visits 129 were new, 30 were returning
Adsense Earnings: $0.00

During Trial

Unique Visitors: 173
New vs. Returning: Out of 192 visits 171 were new, 21 were returning
Adsense Earnings: $0.62

All but one indicated positive growth and it’s good to see the trend moving in an upwards, positive direction (2nd pic) vs. down to practically nothing (1st pic). There were more visitors, more page views, more pages/visit, lower bounce rate, and longer average time than the month before the trial. The only thing that went down was the amount of returning visitors. That’s a big stat for me, but I have some ideas on why it went down. One could be that not as many people care to see the duration of the trial. When I view other people’s 30-day trials I look at the beginning then come back to see the results when they’ve finished. I would have to give it some more time to truly see why returning visitors dropped though.

Tweaks

Within the past 30 days there have been several tweaks to the blog itself. I put my picture up, restructured my about page and tagline, played with the location of Adsense ads for better optimization, cleaned up the sidebar, added a “What’s Next?” section under the posts and added a Recommended Resources page.

I’m seeing that small tweaks are what make reality more consistent with vision and lots of small changes over time make a big difference.

Changes to me

Ultimately anything that changes with this blog is an effect caused by me and during this trial I’ve noticed significant changes in myself. Overall I’m just a lot happier seeing that I’m actually progressing with this blog and other goals I have. There’s an awareness increase which allows me to be in more control of my state from day to day. I’m much more motivated to take positive action. Blogging each day has really helped me get into a rhythm with writing and I really want to keep that up. And lastly, I feel I have more direction. If I can lock in more empowering habits I know life has no choice but to go in a positive direction.

What I learned about visualization

Three things.

1. Visualization can help overcome fears. If you have some fears and you play them out in your mind repeatedly, you might see that there’s nothing to be scared of. Honestly, I was pretty scared of putting my picture up online and hadn’t even put it on this blog that I started in November 2008. It really felt good to overcome that. When I visualized I would play it out in my mind and eventually desire just overrode fear and I ended up putting a pic up on my About Page, my Twitter page, and my StumbleUpon profile.

2. Visualization while in motion is easier than while things are still. What I mean is if I’m visualizing a health goal, it’s a lot easier for me to visualize that goal with intensity while I’m working out or taking a walk or drinking water etc. If it’s visualizing a money goal then it works better if I’m actually earning money. It’s easier to see that I can earn more. I know when I had a job and I received a paycheck I would be unconsciously visualizing right then and there what I would be doing with that money.

3. I visualize better laying down rather than sitting in a chair. Maybe it has to do with my weight and breathing, but visualization laying down seems much more clearer and comfortable for me than sitting upright in a chair. Maybe I’ll try sitting on ground during this next 30 days.

I don’t know this for sure, but I think what you eat could have an effect on how clear your mind is which would affect visualization. I’ll have to play with this to see if it’s true for me, but I’m pretty sure it would be. I’ll let ya know after a future 30-day health trial.

67% of what I set out to do

I said on the original visualization blog entry that I would visualize at 8:30am for 20 minutes each day and blog about it. I didn’t realize I was actually trying to lock in 3 different habits by saying that – waking up and 8:30am, visualizing, and blogging each day. I was able to visualize and blog each day but waking up at 8:30am didn’t happen. Two outta three ain’t bad.

The next trial I be waking up at 6:00am. I found productivity was way higher when I got such an early start to the day.

Closing thoughts

I plan to keep visualization as a habit and to further lock it in I’m going to keep doing it for 30 more days. I am a beginner with it so I plan to keep learning, tweaking, and getting better at it. I’ve learned a lot just experimenting with it for the past month and I’m glad I kept going with it.

Related Articles

1. Visualization – Day 1
2. Visualization – Day 24
3. Visualization – Day 16
4. Visualization – Day 25
5. Visualization – Day 12
6. Visualization – Day 7
7. Visualization – Day 21