If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there – so the saying goes. The first step in the plan requires you to look objectively at your life – both the parts you like and the areas you don’t. It’s not about dwelling on the things that you are not happy with but rather using them as a foundation from which you can turn it around and work out what you would like to see instead.
Get clear about what you want
A vision board is a simple yet highly effective way of changing our thought patterns. Instead of reliving memories of our old life, we can start reprogramming our brain to focus on situations we want, that haven’t yet happened. Numerous studies have been conducted worldwide to prove the power that comes from focusing your thoughts on what you want. Books such as ‘The Law of Attraction’ by Jerry and Esther Hicks are perfect for those who want to understand this process more. Anyone who has seen The Secret will also know what I am talking about.
This strategy has been so powerful in my own life that I just want you to trust me and set aside one night this week to do the following exercise. This is what you need to do:
1. Gather all the glossy magazines you can from friends and family
2. Get yourself a cork board and some pins to stick things to it
3. Put on some relaxing music and take an hour or so to just flick through the magazines leisurely. You are looking for pictures that call out to you in some way – anything that moves you or interests you, even if you don’t know why.
4. Don’t over-analyse what it is that attracts you to an image – just tear it out and put it in a pile to use later.
5. Once you have plenty of images, go through them to work out which you want to stick onto your vision board.
6. Be open to what the images are telling you – you may have torn out a picture of a healthy woman running along the beach… this could indicate that you want to improve your health and fitness or be more connected to nature. The only rule is that if it moves you emotionally, then it deserves to be on your mood board.
7. Resist the urge to put up pictures of things that validate the life you are already leading – ie. Models wearing clothes you already wear or a picture of a house like that you already own… this is supposed to be about change and getting you to move forward so you can experience new things and situations.
8. Stick your pictures up on your board, alongside any words, quotes or inspirational lines that you come across.
Put your board up somewhere you will see it many times each day and watch as your ‘vision’ starts to become reality!
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Using the Vision Board that you created in Step 1, decide what kind of changes you need to make – perhaps start by selecting 2 or 3 areas that you would like to focus on. These might include things like:
