Personal Growth From the Bottom Up – BroderickDurisseau.com
A Blog Dedicated to Personal Growth, Success and Goal Achievement

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. :smile:

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.

This is a continuation of the 30-Day Visualization Trial. More detail about the trial can be found here.

Visualization was so calm today. Really peaceful and light. There were so many thoughts going through my mind today. How am I going to structure my next 30 day trial? How far should I push myself? Has visualization become a habit?

I’m going to extend it 30 more days just to make sure, but I won’t be blogging about it everyday. This next 30-day trial I’ll probably post an entry at the start, on day 15, and at the end to share results.

I’m wondering if doing something every day at the same time makes a difference in building a habit. I visualized for 20 minutes every day throughout this past 30 days, but I didn’t do it at the same time every day.

Final Thoughts

Overall I’m really glad I started and finished this trial. There were several results that came from it and I plan to post all about it tomorrow. They weren’t huge, monumental results but I feel like I planted some great seeds. I’m a beginner right now when it comes to visualization so I imagine if I can keep it up and learn more about it I can use it more effectively.

Thank you so much to all that followed along. Whether you’re aware of it or not, I felt like you really kept me accountable. This has really sparked some type of fire in me, so I guess it’s my job to keep that fire burning.

This is a continuation of the 30-Day Visualization Trial. More detail about the trial can be found here.

Visualization was great today. Not really that much intensity, but an extreme calmness. It’s starting to get kind of scary because I know visualization is working. It’s bringing new experiences that push me out of my comfort zone. That’s a good thing though.

Productivity was great today. I got a lot of things done that I had previously been afraid to do. Looking back on the whole situation makes me think how stupid it was to be scared of doing those things in the first place.

I’m almost done with this trial and I’m so glad I did it. I’ve learned a lot about myself and about the power of 30-day trials. I can’t wait for the next 30-day trial (Nov 1). I really want to push myself more.

Day 30, Let’s GO!

This is a continuation of the 30-Day Visualization Trial. More detail about the trial can be found here.

Visualization was good today. I visualized laying down and the vivid intensity was there.

The Ten-Day Challenge

I kept having this Ten-Day Challenge in my mind from the book Awaken the Giant Within. Basically he challenges the reader to “not indulge in or dwell on any unresourceful thoughts or emotions for ten consecutive days”. Also to be solution-oriented and change your state immediately when you catch yourself wallowing in negative emotion.

That really hit me. No stress/anxiety? No anger? No frustration? No fear? All I could visualize was a day like that. There’s no question it would drastically enhance the quality of life immediately. I ran across the concept of catching negative emotions before, but the first time I heard it someone was talking about living your whole life like that. That would be great, but it might be overwhelming to a person just starting out in personal growth. It was overwhelming to me so I just brushed it off. Now I feel like I have such an important tool – less. I know if I can live one day like that then I can live ten. If I can have ten then I could have 30 and so on.

I’ve decided to wait to read Creative Visualization. I would be rushing if I tried to read it now, but I still have every intention on reading it and other resources on visualization.

Day 29 let’s go!