To prepare for this, get a pile of magazines and newspapers and set aside a couple of hours. Go through all the magazines and find pictures, headlines and illustrations that capture key pieces of your vison statement Cut these out of the magazines and put them in on the floor or on a table.
Some of these pictures can be literal things such as places you want to visit, or a car that you want. Others may be symbolic, such as a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow to show wealth, or someone finding their way through a maze to show that you can figure out solutions to problems. The important thing is that it’s got to be meaningful for you.
Once you have clippings that address your most relevant goals, get a sheet of bristle board or card stock paper (about 2 feet by 3 feet). Then sit down and arrange your clippings into a collage on the piece of card. Group them in a way that works for you. One area may represent work, another your home, another travel, and another exercise, if those breakdowns work for you. Fit this to your needs.
Once you’ve arranged the clippings in a way that works for you, glue them to the card. Then post the card up where you can see it daily. In realizing goals, it’s important to have a clear mental picture of what you want, and by seeing this ‘vision board’ daily, you imprint it upon your unconscious mind.
This is an amazingly simple process to imprint important goals into your unconscious and to keep your focus on attaining them. Doing this with others helps you understand more about who they are, what they want, and why. It’s simple, and it’s fun. And it’s a delight to look at your vision board over time and see each picture being realized.
In the next post, I’ll show you how to turb0-charge your vision over the next 30 days to produce results that will amaze you!
In my previous two posts I showed you how to identify and prioritize what you want in your new vision. Now that you have your list of what’s a priority for you to bring into your life, I’m going to give you the structure for crafting a simple, compelling vision statement. Think of this as personal strategic planning.
What you need to know before you do this is that there are two keys to creating a compelling vision statement, and bringing what you envision into form. The first is detail – the more clearly you can see what you want the better, as if you’re right there. The second thing is emotion, the more intense the better. Any emotion will do. Unfortunately, most people focus on what they’re afraid of or worried about, and so that’s what they manifest. The key to a powerful vision is creating what you’re passionate about. That’s why, in the previous exercise, you prioritized on the basis of energy, or passion, not on what you thought you should do/have or intellectually needed. There’s no passion in ’shoulds’ or intellectual choices.
OK – that said, you now have a list of the top things you’re passionate about manifesting in 2010. What you need to do now is group those things that are related together. For example, if there are social things you want to do with friends or family, they could go together. If there are different material things you want, they can go together.
Look at your list and take a few minutes to close your eyes, and imagine you’re already living this life. If you don’t visualize easily, just imagine how it would feel or sound. Key to doing this is stepping into the picture/feeling (as opposed to imagining you’re watching it on a tv or movie screen). Be in the picture.
Then get a piece of paper and write out your experience as if you’re already there, in present tense. I always start off my vision statement by saying:
“It is now December 31, 2010, and I am so happy and grateful now that I am…”
Don’t write your vision as a future thing – write it imagining you’ve already achieved it, and you can include your feelings of achievement and excitement in the statement. The more details you have and excitement you have, the better.
And don’t worry about getting it ‘right’. In two posts I’ll show you a simple, incredibly powerful process for turbo-charging your vision and bringing things about faster than you ever imagined.
In my last post I provided an exercise to help you discover what you want in various aspects of your life. In this post, we’re going to start concretizing your vision with a simple process for prioritizing all the things you want in all aspects of your life.
After a few days with the previous exercise you should have a list of things you’d like in various aspects of your life. Some lists may be long, some short, and that’s fine. What you need now are a number of small post-it pads (the ones that are 1 or 2 inches to a side), with as many colours of pads as you have lists (ie: if you have 6 different lists, have 6 post-it pads, each of a different colour). Choose one colour to correspond to each list you have.
Then simply transcribe each item on each list to a single post-it note. For example, if you have 3 items on the list of things you want for your physical life (exercise, activities, etc.), and you’ve chosen blue post-its for your physical items, you should have 3 post-it sheets, each with one of the items from that list on it.
Once you’ve transcribed all of that, put all of the post-its on a big wall. Then just pick two at a time, and ask yourself which one has more energy for you. NOTE: Do NOT choose based on what you think you ’should’ want. Choose on the basis of energy – which *do* you want more. Put the one you want more high up on a fairly empty piece of wall, and the one you don’t want as much below it.
Then choose another post-it (from all the others) at random, and compare it with the lower post-it note. See which has more energy. If the new one (#3) has more energy, put it above the second one. Then compare it with the one on top. Whichever one has more energy goes on top. If #3 has less energy than the top one, it stays in second place. For those who’ve done any sort of training in this, it’s a simple bubble sort – you just keep going with all the post-its until you have them all in order.
For example, let’s say you the first 2 things I pick are ‘to be my ideal weight’ and ‘to take a history class’. Let’s say the ideal weight is more important. I put that up highest, then the history class second. The next post-it I pick up is more time with my kids. Well, that comes in as more important than the history class, so I move it into second place. Comparing it with my ideal weight next – my kids come in first, so I move it up to first place, ideal weight is second, and the history class is third.
Next, I might pick up a post-it about having a new car. Let’s say it feels more important than the history class, so it moves into third place, and the history class moves to fourth place. Comparing it to the ideal weight, let’s say being my ideal weight is more important, so it stays where it is, so the new order is 1) my kids, 2) my ideal weight, 3) new car, 4) history class.
Then I would just get the next post-it, start at the bottom and see how far it goes up.
What’s most important is that you choose on the basis of energy, not on what you should want or what intellectually seems right. This is about feeling what’s right for you.
Once you’ve sorted them all, you may have a long list. The colours will show which areas of your life have the greatest priority now.
You don’t need all of these. Just pick what feels right – it may be the top 10 things, the top 20 or the top 30. Your vision should be fairly simple and focused on what’s most important to you right now.
Once you have these top items, you’ll be ready to write your vision, which I’ll give you an outline for in the next post.
The first step to creating a clear vision of where you want to be is to get the details – in every part of your life, and there’s a simple method for doing that.
What I do is identify the key areas/aspects of my life – usually 5-8 categories. The areas I generally look at are social, physical, mental, spiritual, career, and material/financial. What you do is get one sheet of paper for each area/category. Then, taking one at a time, write down everything you want or want to be doing in one year. Don’t judge. Don’t worry that it’s too big or too small. Just write it down.
Once you’ve finished one sheet of paper, go to the next and the next until you’ve started them all. Some may be full sheets, some may only have a couple of things on them. Whatever works is fine.
After you’ve come up with everything you can think of at the time, put the sheets together and carry them with you for a day or so. I find that doing this exercise ’shakes up’ things in your brain and gets you thinking of other things, so it’s useful to have the sheets with you for the next day or so. Just jot down whatever comes to mind, whether it seems realistic or not.
In my next post I’ll show you a simple method for sorting through all these things you write down to move toward creating your personal vision.
Last night I watched the finale of season 5 of 'So You Think You Can Dance', and it taught me, once again, how it's so important to stay persistent in pursuing your vision. The woman who won had 8% of the support prior to the final performance night, giving her slim chance of winning, but that blossomed to 45% after those final performances, assuring her the victory.
For those who aren't familiar with it, So You Think You Can Dance is for dancers what American Idol is for singers. Hopeful dancers compete under grueling conditions for several weeks, learning and performing dances in a variety of dance genres while America votes for their favourite. On Wednesday night, the top 4 dancers competed – 2 men and 2 women in the Kodak Theatre, and then America voted.
Two of these dancers – Brandon and Kayla have clearly been the technical dance stars of the season. Jeanine's technique is phenomenal, but not quite up to Kayla, but she far exceeds Kayla with her personality. The last dancer, Evan is a good dancer, but nowhere in the league of the other 3. But he has cute cheeks that are just squishable, as has often been said on the show, and as a result, he has had the lead in most online votes. And that's what this show is about – the favourite dancer, not the best dancer. Most people thought that Evan was going to win it, whether they thought he should or not.
Anyway, Jeanine came up as the underdog, always peforming well and strongly, but not quite blowing people away like Brandon and Kayla did, or charming people as Evan did. That's why, going into the top 4 performance show, she only had 8% of the vote.
But did she give up? Ever?
No.
Every week, she worked incredibly hard, mastered her routine, whether it was in her genre or not, and just delivered. Then, on the top 4 performance show, she pulled out all the stops, and took phenomenal chances in her solo to blow everyone away.
The result? A 500% increase in her vote and the crown of 'America's Favourite Dancer'. And she grew so much as a dancer over the season that she was certainly entering the caliber of Brandon and Kayla by the end. A well-deserved championship.
The moral of this, for me, is that she never waivered from her dream. She stayed steady, even when she seemed to be at the back of the pack. And it all turned around in one night.
What happens around us is just feedback. As long as we stay focused and emotionally vested in our vision, we keep moving forward. The moment we give up, we've lost it.
Building your vision board or treasure map is something
you can share with a spouse or with your whole family.If you’re doing it with your spouse, you
should each (separately) go through a pile of magazines and find clippings that
link to your own personal, individual goals. Then, when you each have your own clippings, share them with each other
and talk about what they represent.This
process is a great way to understand more about each other and what you each
want.You’ll often find you have
clippings for similar things in your relationship.In this case, you decide together if one
picture best represents that goal, or if both are to be used.
Distill both sets
of clippings together, with each person keeping some for his/her own individual
life, as well as some that represent your shared relationship.Then you jointly make a collage on a sheet of
bristle board.In this case, it’s good
to have one side for each of you, and the central area to represent your shared
life and relationship.Work together to
create a collage you both like, and, once again, post it up where you can see
it easily on a daily basis.
If you’re doing
this with your whole family, the process is similar.Each person goes through a stack of magazines
to cut their own clippings.Then,
everyone shares what they have cut, and you synthesize the piles (each person
keeps some that apply to them alone, as well as in relation to others in the
family).Once again, take a piece of
card stock and give each person a section. If there are four in the family, for example, each person can have a
corner.The area between the husband and
wife can represent their relationship, and the center represents the family as
a whole.Using a layout that works for
you, create the collage and post it up where everyone can see it daily.
This is an
amazingly simple process to imprint important goals into your unconscious and
to keep your focus on attaining them.
Doing this with others helps you understand more about who they are,
what they want, and why. It’s simple,
and it’s fun. And it’s a delight to look
at your treasure map over time and see each picture being realized.
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