Visualizing
Creating a Vision Board
Creating a Vision Board
Creating a Vision Board
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If any year deserves a re-start or a slower start, 2021 does! Perhaps you’ve thought about creating a vision board for the New Year but didn’t get around to it. Give yourself some grace and know you can create one this month or any time. Vision boards can represent a year, a specific period of time, or a goal.
A vision board, sometimes called a dream board, is a visual representation of your goals for the year. Joel Barker, a visionary thinker who popularized the concept of paradigm shifts in the corporate world, states, “Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with vision is making a positive difference.”
The vision board concept can also be used to focus on gratitude. As an alternative to journaling, this visualization technique can help us focus on our blessings and important moments. In Simple Abundance, by Sarah Ban Breathnach, she suggests we “use acrylic magnetic picture frames to create a gratitude collage for your refrigerator… Or create a bulletin board for your Gratitudes, and as the seasons change, take them down and place them in an album.”
Having visual reminders of our blessings, our goals, and what is important to us is a great way to find moments of reflection as well as motivation. Remember where you came from, what you have in your life, and where you want to direct your energy. Use elements that inspire you and bring you joy each time you look at them. The possibilities of a vision board are as endless as your ambitions! Be creative, use what you have, and customize it to your unique life and goals.
Creating a Vision Board
Creating a Vision Board
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How to Create and Use Your Vision Board:
- Identify Your Vision: Reflect on the kind of year you’d like to have and select a phrase or word as your vision (i.e. theme for this year and your board). Since we are human beings, consider focusing on being. How do you want to be? How do you want to feel? What is your primary goal for the year?
- Clarify Your Vision: Gather materials such as beautiful pictures and inspirational quotes from magazines, postcards, or a local craft shop that support your theme.
- Create Your Board: Glue your gems to your board, which can be a piece of paper, card stock, crafter’s square, or canvas. You can plaster the images to your board in a spirited collage or in an organized manner. Add a title or a caption on the board. We recommend using the year and your theme. Example: “2021: Wellness.”
- Reinforce Your Vision: Place your vision board in a location where you see it regularly. Use daily affirmations and deliberate intention settings to support attaining your vision. Consider sharing it with others or perhaps an accountability partner to bolster attaining the positive change you desire.
- Periodically Review Your Board: Review your board at a scheduled weekly, monthly, or quarterly interval, or as needed. Remembering that life is fluid and not rigid, feel free to make changes. Most importantly, reflect on the board at the end of the year and celebrate your success or update the board and make changes for the coming year.
Note: You can skip the cutting, gluing, and potential mess on your rug disaster by creating a digital vision board. There are vision board tools and apps such as Pinterest boards, Canva, Visuapp, and iWish to name a few.
Gratitude Journaling
Attitude of Gratitude Journaling
November is the month of Thanksgiving. This can be a great time to use our journals to remind us of our many blessings. Try out some or all of these Gratitude Journal Prompts and see how they change your outlook. Can you use them to embody an Attitude of Gratitude?
Gratitude Journal Prompts
1. What moments are you grateful for?
2. Who in your life are you grateful for?
3. What food that you ate yesterday or today are you grateful for?
4. What new skill are you grateful for?
5. What about your body are you grateful for?
6. What new item are you grateful for?
7. What smell are you grateful for?
8. What new connection are you grateful for?
9. What books are you grateful for?
10. What tradition are you grateful for?
11. What colors are you grateful for?
12. What did you overcome recently that you are grateful for? How did you overcome it?
13. What season of the year are you grateful for?
14. What recent challenge are you grateful for?
15. What sounds are you grateful for?
16. What new places did you see and love you are grateful for?
17. What in nature are you grateful for?
18. What invention are you grateful for?
19. What did you learn this year you are grateful for?
20. What role model are you grateful for?
21. What lesson are you grateful for?
22. What attribute of God are you grateful for?
23. What change this year are you grateful for?
24. What part of the day are you grateful for?
25. What was the best moment this year you are grateful for?
26. What voyage are you grateful for?
27. What talent are you grateful for?
28. What unexpected beauty are you grateful for?
29. What in day-to-day life are you grateful for?
30. What blessings are you grateful for?
Breath Work
The 4-7-8 Breathing Technique
Do you ever want to send a message to your brain to calm down or relax? You can with breathing techniques that bring the mind and body together to focus on the breath. With a single point of focus on your breath, the replaying or looping of negative thoughts, stress, worry, and anxiety may lessen. There is evidence that deep, rhythmic, diaphragmatic breathing practiced daily has many benefits ranging from a sense of calmness, lower heart rate, better sleep, and relaxation. I liken the effect to taking my busy mind from a 6-lane highway of thought traffic to a 2-lane country road or a quiet goat trail. The noise of the world peels away like layers of an onion. Dr. Andrew Weil, creator of the technique and an advocate of complementary and alternative medicine, describes his 4-7-8 breathing technique as a “natural tranquilizer for the nervous system.” (www.healthline.com; April 20, 2018).
How do I practice The 4-7-8 Breathing Technique?
Step 1: Breathe in for 4 seconds.
Step 2: Hold your breath for 7 seconds.
Step 3: Exhale for 8 seconds.
Step 4: Repeat for 4 rounds
Journaling
Need help finding a word for your year?
Here are some websites (we do not get anything for you using these sites) to guide you in finding your perfect word. This is also a great opportunity to journal. Many of the sites recommend journaling! Some of these sites reference 2019 words; simply change the 2019 to 2020 and begin the journey to making 2020 your best year ever!!
▪“How to choose your POWERFUL, FOCUS Word of the Year" Click Here goes into great detail on why to choose a word, how to choose the word, and how to make the word a part of your everyday life.
▪“How to Choose Your Word” Click Here discusses how choosing a word helps us discover self-love. This site has access to a workbook and planner you can purchase and a Facebook page you can join.
▪“20 Questions That Can Help You Reach Your 2020 Goals” Click Here is simply 20 questions to help you choose a word that will help you reach your goals. (This is a great site for journal prompts! Megy even references an article “Carrol and his Bullet Journals.”)
▪“How to Craft an Inspirational Mantra to Use All Year Long" Click Here offers five steps to help you choose a word to guide your actions or what you want to embrace.
▪“Tips for Choosing Your Word of the Year” Click Here goes into more detail with its five steps to guide you in choosing a mantra to guide your daily actions and help you to become a better version of yourself.
▪“# OneWord 365” Click Here allows you to find a tribe to share your word. You can join through Twitter, Facebook, or Email.
▪“word of the year 2019” Click Here offers a Christian-based seven question quiz that will email you your word that corresponds to your answers. They also send additional information on where you can find your word in the Bible.