In the second instance, maybe you don't believe you have the time to tidy up. In that case you need to accept that you're always going to spend time trying to find where you left the car keys, or tracking down that letter from the solicitor, or going overdrawn because you mislaid the bill that should have been paid. In other words you have to take responsibility and not blame circumstances for your situation. The important thing is not just to put up with the way things are and say

"Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last you create what you will." George Bernard Shaw

Everything starts with a thought and visualisation is a powerful tool that you can use to make changes in your life to bring you ever closer to what you really want.

Close your eyes for a moment. Can you picture, in your mind's eye, the Queen's head on a stamp, or your own front door, or a blue sky with a fluffy white cloud floating past? If the answer to any of those is 'yes' you already know how to visualise so it's just a question of harnessing that ability and using it with intent.

Say one of the areas in your life that you decided needed changing was your living space. If it's just a question of a new living room carpet that's a relatively simple thing to do. You decide what type of carpet you want, how much you can afford, what colour (you're probably using your visualisation skills there) and where you're going to buy it.

But perhaps it's more than that. Maybe your living space is cluttered and untidy – maybe you spend ages looking for things you've misplaced, sorting through piles of paper to find that bill that needs paying, desperately trying to find something to wear in the pile of clothes on the chair in your bedroom.

Set aside 10 or 15 minutes when you can sit down, undisturbed, and exercise your visualizing muscles. Just get nice and comfortable, close your eyes and take 3 or 4 deep breaths. As you do so, let go of any tension in your neck, your shoulders, your lower back. Just relax and let go of everything for these few minutes. If thoughts pop into your head don't engage with them for now, just let them go. (You can use the visualisation technique to play with this – see them as thought bubbles, like in a cartoon, and just watch them waft across in front of you and out through the window. Let them go and bring yourself back to the matter in hand.)

When you're nicely relaxed let yourself feel what it would feel like if everything was tidy and organised. Picture that jumble of papers neatly sorted into files and put away. See your living space tidy, everything in its place. How do you feel as you picture that?

(And do you hear any limiting thoughts intruding? 'I'm just messy. That's who I am,' or 'I haven't got the time to tidy up.' Well, in the first instance, you're not 'just messy' -- either you were never taught to be organised -- and no one is born with those skills -- or you're possibly reacting to memories of a parent who made you 'tidy your room' or 'put that washing in the basket.'

In the second instance, maybe you don't believe you have the time to tidy up. In that case you need to accept that you're always going to spend time trying to find where you left the car keys, or tracking down that letter from the solicitor, or going overdrawn because you mislaid the bill that should have been paid. In other words you have to take responsibility and not blame circumstances for your situation. The important thing is not just to put up with the way things are and say i

Say one of the areas in your life that you decided needed changing was your living space. If it's just a question of a new living room carpet that's a relatively simple thing to do. You decide what type of carpet you want, how much you can afford, what colour (you're probably using your visualisation skills there) and where you're going to buy it.

But perhaps it's more than that. Maybe your living space is cluttered and untidy – maybe you spend ages looking for things you've misplaced, sorting through piles of paper to find that bill that needs paying, desperately trying to find something to wear in the pile of clothes on the chair in your bedroom.

Set aside 10 or 15 minutes when you can sit down, undisturbed, and exercise your visualizing muscles. Just get nice and comfortable, close your eyes and take 3 or 4 deep breaths. As you do so, let go of any tension in your neck, your shoulders, your lower back. Just relax and let go of everything for these few minutes. If thoughts pop into your head don't engage with them for now, just let them go. (You can use the visualisation technique to play with this – see them as thought bubbles, like in a cartoon, and just watch them waft across in front of you and out through the window. Let them go and bring yourself back to the matter in hand.)

When you're nicely relaxed let yourself feel what it would feel like if everything was tidy and organised. Picture that jumble of papers neatly sorted into files and put away. See your living space tidy, everything in its place. How do you feel as you picture that?

(And do you hear any limiting thoughts intruding? 'I'm just messy. That's who I am,' or 'I haven't got the time to tidy up.' Well, in the first instance, you're not 'just messy' -- either you were never taught to be organised -- and no one is born with those skills -- or you're possibly reacting to memories of a parent who made you 'tidy your room' or 'put that washing in the basket.'

In the second instance, maybe you don't believe you have the time to tidy up. In that case you need to accept that you're always going to spend time trying to find where you left the car keys, or tracking down that letter from the solicitor, or going overdrawn because you mislaid the bill that should have been paid. In other words you have to take responsibility and not blame circumstances for your situation. The important thing is not just to put up with the way things are and say

Set aside 10 or 15 minutes when you can sit down, undisturbed, and exercise your visualizing muscles. Just get nice and comfortable, close your eyes and take 3 or 4 deep breaths. As you do so, let go of any tension in your neck, your shoulders, your lower back. Just relax and let go of everything for these few minutes. If thoughts pop into your head don't engage with them for now, just let them go. (You can use the visualisation technique to play with this – see them as thought bubbles, like in a cartoon, and just watch them waft across in front of you and out through the window. Let them go and bring yourself back to the matter in hand.)

When you're nicely relaxed let yourself feel what it would feel like if everything was tidy and organised. Picture that jumble of papers neatly sorted into files and put away. See your living space tidy, everything in its place. How do you feel as you picture that?

(And do you hear any limiting thoughts intruding? 'I'm just messy. That's who I am,' or 'I haven't got the time to tidy up.' Well, in the first instance, you're not 'just messy' -- either you were never taught to be organised -- and no one is born with those skills -- or you're possibly reacting to memories of a parent who made you 'tidy your room' or 'put that washing in the basket.'

In the second instance, maybe you don't believe you have the time to tidy up. In that case you need to accept that you're always going to spend time trying to find where you left the car keys, or tracking down that letter from the solicitor, or going overdrawn because you mislaid the bill that should have been paid. In other words you have to take responsibility and not blame circumstances for your situation. The important thing is not just to put up with the way things are and say

When you're nicely relaxed let yourself feel what it would feel like if everything was tidy and organised. Picture that jumble of papers neatly sorted into files and put away. See your living space tidy, everything in its place. How do you feel as you picture that?

(And do you hear any limiting thoughts intruding? 'I'm just messy. That's who I am,' or 'I haven't got the time to tidy up.' Well, in the first instance, you're not 'just messy' -- either you were never taught to be organised -- and no one is born with those skills -- or you're possibly reacting to memories of a parent who made you 'tidy your room' or 'put that washing in the basket.'

In the second instance, maybe you don't believe you have the time to tidy up. In that case you need to accept that you're always going to spend time trying to find where you left the car keys, or tracking down that letter from the solicitor, or going overdrawn because you mislaid the bill that should have been paid. In other words you have to take responsibility and not blame circumstances for your situation. The important thing is not just to put up with the way things are and say

In the second instance, maybe you don't believe you have the time to tidy up. In that case you need to accept that you're always going to spend time trying to find where you left the car keys, or tracking down that letter from the solicitor, or going overdrawn because you mislaid the bill that should have been paid. In other words you have to take responsibility and not blame circumstances for your situation. The important thing is not just to put up with the way things are and say it's because you're messy, or too busy, because that's simply reinforcing your negative beliefs about yourself.

Visualisation can be used in extraordinarily powerful ways to bring about astonishing change in your life but, for now, use it to imagine how you would like things to be in one small area of your life, what you would like to have, how you would like to feel.

Picture yourself doing the job you'd really love to be doing. See yourself in your workplace, dressed for the role, carrying out your tasks, attending the meetings, looking at your payslip with delight. Really feel yourself into that role. Or picture yourself on that holiday you've always dreamed of, swimming in the warm, clear water or visiting the ancient monuments or backpacking through exotic places. Hear the sounds, smell the air, picture it, breathe it in, live it.

Visualising can be hugely creative and enormous fun -- but a word of warning. When I was first learning the technique and working in a dreadful job, living in a wretched house and struggling through an awful winter I would practise on the way home from work, visualising myself somewhere warm and exotic, letting go of all the stress and tensions of my daily existence.

One evening I got so lost in my visualisation that I didn't spot the fork-lift truck shifting pallets outside the vegetable wholesalers until I very nearly walked into it. So make sure when you practise your visualisation that you're always somewhere safe. As I said, it's a really powerful technique and, once you get into it, you'll find all sorts of extraordinary things can happen just from using your mind to conjure up how you would really like your life to be.