2016 Vision Board
Day 3&4 of 30 of the #InfinitePossibilitiesProject
(click here for previous days)
Day 3 was to get into the detail of the goals and Day 4 was to start to create some kind of visual feedback of the goals. I have combined both into one as it seemed to make most sense…. here are the goals I listed on day 1
- Become financially free
- Own my own home
- Become fitter and leaner
- Inspire more people to live better lives (by helping them do the same)
- Get up earlier more often (the aim is 5am every day)
I really struggled with this task because I don’t really know where to start, having actually never done anything like this before, I have always struggled with visualisation and imagination and goal setting. I am mildly autistic (for those who don’t know) what’s known as ‘high functioning’ and most people have no idea that I really struggle with some aspects of social interaction, part of that is something called social imagination, and what I only realised recently is that this also means I struggle with many other kinds of visualisation too. I am OK if I get some help and pointers and sometimes if someone just gets me started, but with a blank page in front of me its REALLY hard.
I posted this on Mike Dooleys page and got some great responses, if you are on Facebook you can read the thread here
Onto the task in hand, the way I did this was to think about my past and things that I have already experienced that meets the criteria of my goals and this allowed me to fix on something real rather than something imaginary.
My first goal is financial freedom, but what does that mean to me? Skip that for now, my second goal is to own my own home, which is kind of the same thing, so that’s tricky but then I realised that financial freedom for me (beyond owning my own place) is being able to do what I want when I want. So that would be travel…. which led me to thinking about my recent Cruise around the Caribbean (I will add a link to my Facebook album here when I have finished creating it!) The Cruise allowed me to get up earlier (#5) and watch the sunset every day and sit in a hot tub and attend a kind of simplified Yoga class (#3). During the cruise I also got the opportunity to teach some people some ballroom dancing and I got a chance to stand up in front of a room full of people twice and entertain and educate them and this reminded me of #4.
So this all gave me something to picture in my head, so I headed over to Pinterest to create a 2016 Vision Board over there, this will be a continual work in progress over the year, but for now I am pretty happy with the image that are there. I have selected one image for each goal to include here along with a little bit of explanation…
Become financially free – I am a snowboarder and I have not been for years, I would love to go to a fully catered chalet for a week with some great people. There is a trip going in early 2016, which I missed last year and I don’t want to miss it again in 2017. Plus I would love to go on another cruise, longer term I have had a look at a round the world cruise, which seems like a hugely exciting way to spend 115 days!! Oh and not forgetting walking the Camino de Santiago in May 😀
Own my own home – I would love a place all to myself, I had a three bedroom flat before I lost everything in 2007, so it would be great to be able to own my own space again and have it neat and tidy and a minimalist as I can manage. This time I would like to have a garden so I can spend some time outside in it.
Become fitter and leaner – I enjoyed the time I spent doing cross fit and I enjoyed the semi-Yoga I did on the Cruise and I am quite enjoying running again, now I have a good pair of running shoes. Plus it would be great to feel healthy and fit and have less aching body parts now I am starting to get a bit older. Not only that but it would be great to meet someone who enjoys these things too, so you could do them together, hence the photo 😀
Inspire more people to live better lives – I love being on stage entertaining and educating people and helping them to improve their lives. I love the feeling I get when I am working with an audience and reacting to their reactions and making sure I engage with them all and get them all excited about the content. My biggest audience so far is about 50, I would love to know how it feels to perform in front of thousands!! Plus I have been told I am very funny, so I plan to explore that part of my gift a bit more this year, and in October I have an opportunity to do 5 minutes of stand-up in front of the Professional Speaking Association!
Get up earlier more often – I do love watching the sunrise, and while looking for a good image of a sunrise, I found this great quote, but didn’t like the style of the image, and then found this one, which had the two people holding hands and had a kind of rough look about it, almost like rain, which made me feel like I might be watching it with someone who was not too worried about their appearance all the time. I met someone recently who gets up at 4am and if I were to start getting up that early I would always be up in time for sunrise (which in England happens between 4:43am and 8:06am)