The Groundhog Day Technique

I've found an interesting technique that is helping me improve my life. Part of this technique, I gleaned from the book, Awakened Imagination, by Neville Goddard.

He has a chapter on forgiving yourself and recreating your day, the way you would have liked it to go, in your imagination. What I've discovered over these past 16 years is that visualization and imagination are very powerful. By closing my eyes and viewing the day, the way I want it to be, I am, in a sense, rewriting my reality. It's sort of like being in the movie Groundhog Day.

In that movie, the main character, Bill Murray, constantly relives Ground Hog Day. Every morning he wakes up at 6am to the same music, and its Groundhog Day again. It is one of my favorite movies. He goes through many different experiences. He realizes he doesn't have to suffer any consequences because the next day he gets to start all over again.

Therefore, he indulges himself with all sorts of food and pastries. He finds out personal details about a woman so he can convince her they went to the same high school in order to get her to sleep with him. On later days, he starts breaking the law and he ends up in jail, but in the morning, he wakes up in the hotel and its Groundhog Day, all over again.

Later he tries to kill himself. He does it many times but the next day he wakes up in the same bed. After hundreds of days of the same day, he starts turning himself into a better man. He starts saving people, taking piano lessons, starts learning the names of all the people in the town. Eventually he is able to get his girl, but only when he's given up on that goal, via manipulation and instead is just doing good deeds, all day long. She ends up liking him because of the man he became. Previously he tried to seduce her by knowing all her interests but she didn’t fall for that.

It is a wonderful movie and even has a few funny moments in it. I don't understand why people call it a comedy. It is actually a drama and a deep spiritual story.

In essence, we have our own Groundhog Days every time we wake up. We can choose to live our lives and get the most out of them or be like Bill Murray was at first; very negative.

This has nothing to do with morals. We shouldn't do things just because they are right, but because that would give us the most enjoyment and fulfillment out of life. Try not to be enslaved by false morals. Determine your own morals. Morals are a man-made creation; sometimes they are right and other times all they do is limit your freedom unnecessarily.

To learn more about this, read the awesome book, How I found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne. I've given this book out to many of my friends -- it is liberating. There are many concepts in there that can totally change your life. I like to reread it at least a once a year.

In other words, you are not improving yourself for some moral reason, but because it would bring you greater happiness. Sometimes we think we are happy by watching TV or doing other things that have little consequence to our goals. However, you may find that you would actually enjoy your time much more and feel a tremendous sense of self-esteem if you get meaningful things in your life accomplished.

Therefore, this is what the Groundhog Day Technique can help you do, among other things. Just visualize your day the way you would have liked it to go. Do you wish you didn't do or say something? Do you wish you had worked on a project instead of channel surfing the TV for 4 hours and having watched nothing interesting? Just look at your whole day and see areas of your day the way you wish they were. Make it a reality in your imagination. Even if you got negative news, replay it in your imagination in a positive light. This is no time to be realistic because your reality is created first, in your imagination.

Even if events happen, you can take away the sting by visualizing a positive outcome. Say you had an argument with someone at work. You can visualize the experience, as having gone on without any confrontation at all. The funny thing is that your visualization will affect the other person on a subconscious level. I've proven this in my own life repeatedly. We are all interconnected spiritually. If you send out positive vibrations, then only good things will come back to you. You don't have to react to circumstances -- you can create them instead.

If you visualize bad things, then bad things will come back to you. Don't be quick to anger because it will come back to you. Your thoughts are very powerful -- you must be careful with them. Be careful in how you speak to yourself, in your inner dialogue. What you say will manifest itself in some form in your life. It may simply manifest in limited thinking and therefore limited results.

Now to the second part of the technique: I start my day in the morning by visualizing how I would like my day to go. You can visualize things you expect to do. You can also visualize meeting people or having a day of adventure. You'll certainly have a better chance of attracting these things into your life if you expect them to happen. You can even repeat to yourself that you are going to have a wonderful day. Try it, it works.

I've been getting fantastic results. I've been getting much more accomplished. Plus my day is now infused with the magic of imagination. I'm living the life I've imagined and it is extremely enjoyable. Visualization is equivalent to programming a computer, except you are programming your own mind. It's a great way to get you doing more of what you really want to do, even if you have some initial resistance or bad habits.

I just do a short reading of a spiritually inspiring book and then I do my visualization for 10 to 15 minutes. Then at night, I do another visualization as I go to bed and relive my day the way I would have liked it to go. But as I'm improving, I find less need to revise the day because I am more and more happy with the way my day is going.

You could shorten the technique even more by doing it at night in bed as you are falling asleep. Then in the morning visualize your day going the way you want it to go while you are still in bed. Even if you just put in 5 minutes a day, morning and night total, the technique is effective.

Another thing you can do is to revise past events that are still bothering you. They could have been from years back. However, if you have guilt or anger from a past event, this can hold your progress back in your current life. You have to forgive to be able to move on in life. Anger and feelings of guilt, attract discord and negative results in your life. That is why it's not good to be argumentative or to be pessimistic. You attract into your life what you imagine and what you BELIEVE you are. Why not be an optimist instead? You'll find that you have a much more positive and magical life when you do this.

Roger Haeske is the creator of Superbeing.com.

About the Author: