Episode 134: Mastering Visualization for Daily Success

In this deeply personal and powerfully practical episode of Wellness in Every Season, Autumn Carter invites you into a transformative conversation about the power of visualization—not just as a performance tool, but as a wellness ritual and a mindset shift for everyday life. Blending personal stories, including her journey from self-doubt to growth through pickleball, with guided visualization exercises, Autumn shows how inner belief shapes outer reality.

You’ll begin with a grounding mindfulness moment to calm the noise, then explore how visualization isn’t just for athletes or high achievers—it’s for parents navigating chaos, professionals seeking purpose, or anyone standing at a life crossroads. With heart-centered encouragement, Autumn walks you through a vivid mental rehearsal practice you can return to again and again, helping you embody your future success in relationships, career, and well-being.

Whether you’re working toward a new goal or trying to remember who you are beneath the layers of “shoulds,” this episode offers space to breathe, to hope, and to reimagine what’s possible. You’ll leave with coaching questions, affirmation prompts, and the gentle nudge to take one aligned step forward.

Tune in to reawaken your inner vision and remember: you were made to live life on purpose.

One last thing to cover the show legally. I am a certified life coach giving general advice. So think of this more like a self-help book. This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist. So this podcast shouldn't be taken as a replacement for professional guidance from my doctor therapist. Or any other qualified expert? If you want personal one-on-one coaching for my certified coach. Go to my website, wellness and every season.com. 

For more wellness tips and exclusive content, join my newsletter! Sign up now at wellness-in-every-season.ck.page and receive a free 5-day guide called "Awaken and Unwind: 5 Days to Mastering Life's Mornings and Evenings."

Transcript

Episode 134: Mastering Visualization for Daily Success

[00:00:00] Introduction and Welcome

[00:00:00] This is episode 1 34.

[00:00:08] Autumn Carter: Welcome to Wellness In Every Season, the podcast where we explore the rich tapestry of wellness in all of its forms. I'm your host, autumn Carter, a certified life coach, turn wellness coach, as well as a certified parenting coach dedicated to empowering others to rediscover their identity in their current season of life.

[00:00:27] My goal is to help you thrive, both as an individual and as a parent.

[00:00:31] Welcome. Thank you for being here. If this is your first time, I'm very excited. If it's not, I'm still excited. I'm just an excited person when I get to have this moment with you, especially because I record far enough in advance. I know this is going out August 14th, which. Happy anniversary to me.

[00:00:53] It's my wedding anniversary when this comes out, but I am recording this the last week [00:01:00] of school in real time, and it's so peaceful right now. My youngest is down for his nap, not sleeping yet, and my other three are at school. The weather's nice enough that our two dogs are outside. All I hear right now is the air purifier.

[00:01:21] Mindfulness Moment

[00:01:21] If you're feeling extra tight and anxious, feeling all of those feelings. Let's take the mindfulness moment. Now the beginning. Tighten up all of your muscles, your face, your eyelids, your neck. See if you can even get to your ear muscles. I don't know if that's even a thing where you could just tighten all of those muscles, tighten your butt cheeks, your pelvic floor, all the way down to your toes, tighten everything you can imagine, muscles in your brain tightening as well.

[00:01:56] Tighten all of those and [00:02:00] then release it all together and just take a deep breath out. Whew. And then if you need a little more, shake it off. I understand what it's like. Like I said, have four children to feel really anxious and feel like summer is never going to end, because when this is finally going live, I'll be feeling that right along with you.

[00:02:27] Let me segue into my thought and what this episode is actually about today. 

[00:02:35] Personal Journey with Pickleball

[00:02:35] Any of those that have been listening for a while are on my newsletter, listening to my podcast are in my world. You'll know that about a year ago I started learning about pickleball. This is my first hand sport ever. I played soccer in high school and I was on the track team.

[00:02:56] I did shot put in discus because I hurt my knee and soccer had a lot of [00:03:00] fun doing it was never. I never applied myself all the way. I always left a lot in reserve because I was worried that if I put my all into it and it wasn't good enough, then what Have any of you ever felt that in your life?

[00:03:19] For me, this very much came from my childhood. There was a lot of abuse going on and the hardest abuse out of all of it. Well, it's kind of a tie between two. One of the hardest that has been, I'm still struggling to overcome even with all the therapy coaching and all the inner work that I've done on myself is the negative talk because I had so much fit around me growing up and with pickleball.

[00:03:50] It's a very interesting sport. I was never good at tennis, but when, I found out that. In PE I needed to either do [00:04:00] tennis, like go through and do all the sports, or I could go and do weightlifting. I chose weightlifting, so I was with all the football players and I dated a football player, so had a lot of fun with that.

[00:04:09] I had a lot of fun, learned about weightlifting. I still help other people in the gym when I go on Weightlift, have a lot of fun with that. But when I played tennis with my mom and half brother. I was so bad that, they would be running to the other courts to get the ball that I hit.

[00:04:30] I was everywhere. I thought this was gonna be the way it was. I just, I had eye foot coordination. I did not have eye hand coordination. It's just the way it is. How many of us do this through our lives though? Hopefully you're resonating even if you're not a sports person. There's gonna be sports analogies here, but bear with me.

[00:04:52] We do that to ourselves. Tell ourselves it, this is only as good as it's gonna get. I'm not gonna get any better than [00:05:00] this, that whatever we're struggling with right now, it's not gonna get any better. This is just the way it is. Can it get any worse? And then we have the negative spiral of thinking and we set ourselves up for failure.

[00:05:16] Well, when my youngest, he is four, when he went into preschool. This last school year, it was my first time having eight hours a week without any kids in 10 years. Amazing. Mind blowing. Well, I decided that I wanted to do something with that. I could take on more clients, do more coaching. Cool. But I wanted to do something for me.

[00:05:46] So I decided to look through the catalog at our YMCA. It's the gym that we already have a membership at. Really love their whole philosophy. They really give back to the [00:06:00] community. I grew up going there on and off when I was a kid. My grandmother was a member, so I was my four year old's age going with her

[00:06:09] quote unquote old lady water aerobics. Had a lot of fun doing it. So when we were looking for a gym, I was already pretty well stuck on that one. We are very much creatures of habit as humans and it's funny. We think that we're not, and we laugh at animals for being that way.

[00:06:28] And then once in a while we have these glimpses of, oh, I park in the same parking spot. Oh, I go in the same cell in the bathroom. I go to the same cash register, whatever. Anyway, I flip through the catalog and I see pickleball during COVID in our, community, the courts were switched from tennis courts to pickleball courts.

[00:06:53] So it's more accessible. I know it's becoming more popular. I figure, you know what? [00:07:00] I'm a coach. I'm coaching other people on how to tear down these limiting beliefs. I wanna do this for myself. So find a pickleball class. I was looking for something else that was gonna be easy I didn't know how to do, and I had that moment of I could choose the easy path or I could choose for learning.

[00:07:21] I love learning. I just finished today, my second, so I signed up for 1 0 1 and I just finished 1 0 2 today, and I've also been in a whole league. Okay, and tomorrow is the last competition for the league. So I don't even know where my standing's gonna be yet. And that's not the point.

[00:07:41] The point is that I've been learning, and the point is I now have a new teammate for the next time, and I've already signed up for the next league, so I get to learn with somebody else. But with pickleball, I don't know if you've ever watched the game, but it's not actually about how fit you are.

[00:07:59] It [00:08:00] is. Even more a mind game. There's parts that are, if any of you have played pool, it's very getting the angles right and there's kind of that foosball where you need to be about 10 feet apart from your partner and a little bit staggered. So when they move, you should move so you don't give openings.

[00:08:22] There's a lot of. Thinking ahead and it's very, very mental game, which has been interesting for me because of the abuse in my childhood.

[00:08:34] I have more of a freeze response and that's the first response I go into. And then it's okay, no, I need to move. I need to get that ball. So it's been a very big process.

[00:08:45] So we had our very big in the beginning are. 

[00:08:48] Visualization Techniques

[00:09:01] If you're feeling stressed, tense up all your muscles. So you can count that as your mindfulness moment. But the rest of this is gonna be even more mindfulness, but deeper it's visualization. So I wanted to create this for myself. So where I start, a lot of times when I do these visualizations, and then I realized that I'm not the only sports player out there.

[00:09:10] So I wanted this to work for people who do sports even through having this intro with you, I hope you are really getting the grasp that this works for other areas of your life, not just sports. So listen on, see what you think. If you like it, keep listening to it. If you don't move on to the next episode, there are right now that this is live, they're 134 for you to choose from and you don't have to listen to just me.

[00:09:36] I interview every other week with somebody and. It is impactful. There are amazing people out there that I have learned from, and hopefully you have to at this point. So with that said, I want you, you don't even have to close your eyes if you're not in a space too. I know a lot of people listen to [00:10:00] podcasts while walking.

[00:10:01] I am one of those. So if you want to take this even deeper, you can do this when you're relaxing in bed. I have a massage chair where I do my meditation because I can't be totally still all the time. I have four kids, not used to it. Eventually, maybe my body will learn to fully relax like that, but you can be moving, you can be doing things, you can be doing nothing.

[00:10:27] Totally up to you. Take that moment to think about what do I need right now, and then go from there. With that in mind. I want you to think, and we'll start with sports analogy and then I'll show you how you can switch it. What does the vibration need to be?

[00:10:45] The energy vibration, what actually needs to be said. So I'm trying really hard to allow more of that and not have it be written things. Hopefully you have felt the difference here. In the podcast. Starting with [00:11:00] sports, for me with pickleball, it's thinking ahead, what is the next play going to be? And I needed that with soccer as well.

[00:11:11] What am I anticipating? And then how do I visualize that going well? And when it doesn't go well, it's. What do I need to change and stay curious and then don't go to the judgy part. That's where I'm still learning and growing in, and I've coached other people through that. It's me coaching myself through that and talking to my coach with that as well.

[00:11:39] Applying Visualization to Life Goals

[00:11:39] And then you can think about this, say, I know a ton of people are looking for work right now with all of the. Governmental changes, I think might be the cleanest way to say that. And just where we're at right now with the economy thing, things are [00:12:00] dirty, scary, they can be, and we can really feel that. For me, I start to feel it with the heaviness right in here.

[00:12:10] So thinking about looking for jobs, you can use the same type of visualization of. Okay, let's visualize this interview going. Well. Let's visualize me coming in and feeling totally embodied where I am sitting with really good posture. I'm feeling confident. What does that confident body maybe you need to take over?

[00:12:38] I have these here in my office for a reason. My little pumas think about. I know you can call 'em different animals, but I like to call 'em pumas. Think about the strength that they have maybe, and visualize whatever your spirit animal that you need is in this. [00:13:00] The confidence, the grace, the strength, the endurance that they have.

[00:13:09] There's so many adjectives that you can use for Puma. They're very agile as well, stealthy. So that's my reminders. I have Pumas in my office.

[00:13:27] So with this interview, when applying for a job, you can envision that going to the right place and you can envision. You can visualize them being excited for your resume and then you can backtrack it from there to, okay, what do I need to have on my resume for it to look that way?

[00:13:52] So you can take this a lot of different ways you can look forward and then look back. Think about it like you're [00:14:00] sculpting clay and you don't really know how everything's going to turn out, but you're responding, appropriately. In the end, this is going to turn out exactly how it's supposed to be and it's going to be beautiful.

[00:14:14] It's crazy to say that while thinking of sports, going back to the sports analogy, some people like sports enough to call it beautiful. For me. I'd rather play it than watch it, but you can visualize, especially the areas where you are feeling like you, what would be the best word?

[00:14:30] The areas where you don't have as much confidence that you don't feel as secure the areas that you want to grow in. Take some time to journal it out if you need to, but let's just visualize one of those for me. Right now it's pickleball. So what do I need to visualize to get the outcome that I want?

[00:14:52] There's this gap in between there, and that gap is me. It's my brain. So between the two of those, [00:15:00] what needs to happen there and then visualizing that going? Well, last summer I gave a talk in front of. PhD candidates, people who already had their PhD and they were a group of women who have done dissertations on women's studies, these type of women.

[00:15:26] And I have an undergrad and I have earned certifications. It was scary. I visualized so many times up until right before I gave my workshop that going successfully, me having participation and that allowed me to, in my nervousness, I forgot to put in my contacts so I could not see very clearly.

[00:15:55] But I still gave a great workshop and it was my first [00:16:00] workshop that was in this type of setting. I had people come up to me with great feedback. I had great participation, and it was because of my visualization going to sports, because that is the whole point of a lot of this. What do you need to be visualizing to get to the level that you want to be at for work, for the level that you wanna be at

[00:16:36] a position? Are you looking to move over a position? Are you looking to start completely over again? What does that look like? What does success look like and feel like to you? What are you wearing? What are you embodying? What are you saying? How are you showing up for yourself? And even better, because I'm a wellness coach and this is really neglected, [00:17:00] what are you doing to take care of your wellness?

[00:17:03] In this next season of life that you are choosing. I hope this is so helpful for you. So let's take that moment now that I've talked it through and let's actually do it. 

[00:17:19] Guided Visualization Exercise

[00:17:19] If you are in a place where you can do this, close your eyes. If you're not, you can multitask. We're all adults here. We know how to do that.

[00:17:31] But if you are in a space, close your eyes.

[00:17:37] Take a deep breath to remind your body that you are in a safe space.

[00:17:46] Big, full breath in hold at the very top, and then out. Hold out the bottom for a little bit and then breathe in and out like that. [00:18:00] Do about three to four times until you feel your body starting to relax. If you still can't get there, tighten up all of your muscles, hold it for a breath or two, and then let it out.

[00:18:14] All your muscles, relax 'em all at once and just whew, type of moment. Visualize something in your life. Is it a relationship? Is it a new job? Is it new clients,

[00:18:39] new home,

[00:18:45] new car?

[00:18:50] New relationship in general,

[00:18:54] becoming a better athlete, getting into the [00:19:00] school of your dreams,

[00:19:04] what is that thing that you feel called to do? Not the shoulds is stronger than that. It feels like your purpose,

[00:19:19] you feel you're feeling that magnet pool and you maybe aren't sure if you have what it takes. If you have the worth, if you have the whatever negative words you wanna put in there to do that thing.

[00:19:41] Take a moment to breathe into that. Allow the negative feelings to fall away.

[00:19:48] They're still lingering. That's fine. We're human. We're working on it. And then let's release that and then let's take your [00:20:00] ideal of whatever it is and let's imagine it being. Even more beautiful than you ever imagined. Let's imagine you showing up with your 100%, you giving your all and having it go well imagine and really bring in all the textures, the colors.

[00:20:32] Your emotions. If other people are involved in what you're imagining, you're visualizing, you can use either word. This is grownup form of imagining and we just relabel it. Visualization. If there are other people, what emotions are they bringing in? And we're gonna color this with those rose colored glasses.

[00:20:57] So put it all in there.[00:21:00] 

[00:21:03] What else do you need to do to bring this picture really to life in all of its clarity, all of its dimensions, all of the colors.

[00:21:17] Get that as firmly in as you can. Your feet has firmly planted on that

[00:21:19] and. This can be a still picture, it can be a moving picture, whatever you need this to be. And then

[00:21:31] what positive self-talk do you need to give yourself right now? What affirmations to really pull this in together?

[00:21:39] Then let's pull ourselves out just slightly. And look at where you are now and where you wanna be. What things do you need to change? Do you need to take a class? Do you need to reach out and gain a [00:22:00] coach that specializes in whatever you need to do, maybe gain a mentor for somebody else who has already done this successfully?

[00:22:13] Who do you need? What do you need? Do you need certain supplies?

[00:22:21] And take the time. You can go ahead and open your eyes now if you need to journal this out and let's end with some questions. So that you can really take some time to ponder this, pull up your phone, work on notes, send a text message to whoever, do whatever you need to do to get yourself there.

[00:22:49] Because we have so many thoughts a day, positive and negative, we need to focus on the more positive ones. Absolutely. But the thing is, they [00:23:00] are just thoughts that come and go because we have so many every day. Unless we choose to hold onto that thought and make it become something bigger by reaching out to that person, signing up to that class, applying to that job, finding the coach you need whatever came to mind that you need to do.

[00:23:23] If you don't start making a little bit of momentum on that, then there's another thought that replaces it. 

[00:23:32] Coaching Questions and Conclusion

[00:23:32] Now let's work on some coaching questions on this. So I asked some during our visualization, what do you need? Who do you need to talk to?

[00:23:48] Why does this matter to you?

[00:23:52] What is the difference between your ideal that you visualized and where you are right [00:24:00] now?

[00:24:00] Can you break those down into little tiny baby steps? And if not, it goes back to that question of who do you need to reach out to for that help so you can, we all have this life to live. I still really like the term, the acronym yolo. You only live once and because. We should be living our life that way with purpose, and I want you to have that and we can go through the eight dimensions of wellness that are on this poster behind me.

[00:24:38] But at the end of the day, are you living your life on purpose? Do you feel like you have a purpose with your life? That is what will get you out of bed in the morning. That is what will get you striving for the harder things. We will get you holding on when things feel like they're falling apart, and we'll get you [00:25:00] other people in your life who have the exact same thing and you can lift each other up.

[00:25:05] And it is so beautiful. I highly recommend it. If you need any help on this journey, I am here for you. If I don't hear from you through Autumn at wellness and every season.com or through. The comments if you're watching through video or through signing up for one-on-one coaching with me, I'll see you in the next episode

[00:25:31] you'll at least hear from me then I won't hear from you yet, but know that when you are ready, I am ready to help you and serve you in the best way that I can. And if I am not the right fit for you, for whatever reason, when we meet, I will set you up with the person who I think is the best for you, or I will research and find the right fit for you.

[00:25:53] I care so much about you and your journey. And I will see you [00:26:00] in just a couple more days in the next episode.

[00:26:02] Autumn Carter: Thanks for tuning into this week's episode. I am your host, autumn Carter, a certified life coach dedicated to empowering individuals to rediscover their identity, find balance, miss chaos, strengthen relationships, and pursue their dreams. My goal is to help people thrive in every aspect of their lives. I hope today's discussion inspired you and offered valuable insights.

[00:26:25] Stay engaged with our wellness community by signing up for my newsletter at wellness and every season.com/free resources. When you join, you'll have the option to receive a five day guide called Awaken and Unwind, five Days to Mastering Your Mornings and Evenings, along with Free Guides, special offers on my programs, practical tips, personal stories.

[00:26:47] Much more all related to wellness by setting up for both offers on the page. Don't miss out on these valuable resources designed to help you thrive in every area of wellness. Join today [00:27:00] and start your journey to wellness in every season. Your share subscriptions and reviews help us reach more people seeking empowerment.

[00:27:07] So please spread the word about our podcast and about our newsletter. Thank you for being a part of our podcast community. I look forward to continuing our conversation, sharing stories and exploring wellness in all of this aspects. Take care until our next episode. You can also work with me one-on-one or on demand through one of my programs by visiting wellness in every season.com/programs.

[00:27:35] One last thing to cover the show legally, I'm a certified life coach giving general advice, so think of this, this more as a self-help book. This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, so this podcast shouldn't be taken as a replacement for professional guidance from a doctor or therapist.

[00:27:55] If you want personal one-on-one coaching from a certified life and parenting coach, [00:28:00] go to my website, wellness and every season.com. That's where you can get personalized coaching from me for you. See you in next week's episode.