Inspired Visions for the new year
As the year winds down (and the decade!), I’ve started to jot down reflections to distill what I’m most inspired to embody and call into the new year.
After I reflect on where I’ve come from this past year, and what I desire for the upcoming year, I spend a few weeks putting together a Vision Board to express this in a visual form.
Here's one of my vision boards from the beginning of 2019 called, Speak Out for Hope: Truth and Fury. It prompted me to hire a coach a few weeks later to develop a short talk on the Neuroscience of Disconnection. A couple of months later in March, I gave the talk in front of a live audience. Looking back, the vision board helped hold me accountable to following through with my own desire.
The title for this vision board from 2017 is, What If? As I was putting this together, what came up was curiosity about possibilities. The momentum and movement of the vision board was channeled into the creative process of re-designing my class into its current format. What is your version of “What If?”
What’s amazing about the vision board process is how it can harness the power of an intention, and translate it into something visual.
If you have some magazines lying around and feel inspired to get creative, I encourage you to do a vision board! Here’s a window into my process...
I light a fire in my wood stove, put on my favorite music. I get a big stack of magazines and leaf through the pages quickly, ripping out images, colors, words that I’m intuitively drawn to.
When I have a big pile of torn pages, I cut out out images and words I'm drawn to and arrange them on a big piece of cardboard. I use cardboard that's around 2ft x 2ft. I try to not overthink the process. Have fun and go with with your intuition. Start gluing the images and words down. You can do this on your own timing and pace. You can come back to it over a few days or a few weeks. This process may take more than one sitting.
Often I’ll start the board with a friend. We hang out by the fire and go through magazines together. I also end up working on my vision board by myself, spending quiet time immersed in my own creative imagination.
When it’s done, on the other side of the board, I like to jot down some of the learnings, experiences, etc. from my reflection, or key moments from the past year, that I can recall at-a-glance.
I put my vision boards where I see them every day (on my piano, above my refrigerator), as a way to pierce through all the distractions that can occupy my attention. Just seeing them everyday keeps me connected to what inspires me, and what I most want to create and manifest in my life and the world.
If you’re feeling adventurous, consider making vision boards with your friends and/or family. Share what inspires you about the upcoming year with each other…!
