A few weeks ago I read a book called "The Answer" by John Assaraf and Murray Smith. This book has a business orientation but includes other aspects of life. I am following a process which they call "neural reconditioning". Part of it involves writing a detailed vision of future success, creating affirmations which support that success and then after a short period of meditation, reviewing the vision and affirmations. (For those not familiar with the term "affirmation", it is a statement of something which you aspire to. Examples of affirmations from the book are: "I am very focused and persistent" and "I feel happy and at peace with myself".

What you wrote makes me think of the power of this reconditioning process. I know firsthand that it is possible to use visualization and repetition to work on at least the "mental game" portion of reaching a goal.

The feeling which you describe in the paragraph which I quoted is real to you. Even though the event which evokes the feeling hasn't yet happened in reality, it has happened in your mind. It is hard for me to describe this in a way that doesn't sound hokey, but perhaps the mind doesn't know the difference between reality and a vividly imagined visualization.

Without droning on about personal experiences, I will just say that you can train your mind to visualize success in any kind of endeavor. And when you do that, you will feel a sense of well-being which is very real. And, just maybe, this process will lead to these visualizations becoming your reality.

Powerful stuff.