When you prime your brain to think about something, whether its positive or negative, it’s more likely to come true. This is often called a self-fulfilling prophecy and it’s what you may have heard called the “law of attraction.” While wishing a spot to open up in a busy parking lot is unlikely to wield any results, the “law” is true is a more general sense. If you prime your brain to look for certain outcomes, this gives your unconscious brain the job of searching that outcome out, causing a lot of behind the scenes work that comes across to our “astonished” minds as serendipitous. It’s pretty simple though, if I say the words “one”, “two”, “three:” the word your likely to think about next is “four.” This isn’t amazing its just the brain doing what its suppose to do. Visualization is about creating the right conditions for the outcome you want to come true to actually come true.

• FACT: Researchers had subjects practice a set of music on a piano and the part of their brain that dealt with motor skill memory physically changed. The more impressive part though is that researchers then had another set of people practice the same set of music, but only in their mind visualizing themselves playing, and that same part of the brain changed as well. (not as drastically but still changed none the less)

• TAKEAWAY: Visualization is a powerful tool to help shape your brain. The “law of attraction” may be somewhat overplayed, but it is true that what you think about will physically alter how your brain works and what your brain becomes good at.