Networking to a Better You

Start your New Year with Vision

Although I believe that we can start new and fresh every day, there is something about the tradition of a New Year that inspires people to reset their goals and renew their energy toward becoming their best selves. It’s easy to make a goal to lose weight, read more, get your house in order, or finally get that long awaited promotion. Lists of goals are great because they help you develop accountability for your hopes and dreams. Sharing that list of goals is even better. But if you want to do anything drastic or difficult, you need vision.

Today, I hope to inspire you to not only create goals, but to add vision to your goals. Yes I’m talking about creating a vision board. Vision boards are a powerful tool to help you visualize and manage your goals. It’s really simple. Half of your brain uses language and dialogue. List of goals appeal to that part of the brain. But you need whole brain activity to create new habits, break old ones, and get where you want to go. If you want to get your whole brain involved in helping you to accomplish your goals, you need to also stimulate the creative side of the brain. This side works in images.

How to create a vision board:

  1. Get a poster or just find space on an empty wall
  2. Find or draw a picture of what you want
  3. Write a brief description of what you want (in present tense)
  4. Put them up on your wall

That’s it. I recommend starting with no more than 9 goals on your vision board.

How to use a vision board:

  1. Look at it in the morning for 3 minutes when you wake up
  2. Look at it at night for 3 minutes before you go to bed
  3. When looking at your vision board, imagine yourself having accomplished your goal and enjoy the feeling of accomplishment

If you follow these simple steps, you are well on your way to a new and better you.

If you would like to take it a step further, write a vision statement as well. A vision statement isn’t just a one-liner. It is more like a paragraph describing what it is like to have accomplished your goal. This only requires you to use your creative energy once (I know it can be exhausting sometimes). But once it is accomplished, you can read it to yourself right before you drift off to sleep at night (kinda like a bedtime story).

With a vision board and a vision statement, you can train your brain and your subconscious to do exactly what you want them to do, achieve your goals.

For more inspiration, join us at Facebook.com/B.CareerMinded