Make Things Happen by Visualizing Your Goals
Legacy signals
Legacy popularity: 3,065 legacy views
Legacy rating: 4/5 from 1 archived votes
One way I set and achieve my goals is by visualizing exactly what I want and then creating a Vision Board. It helps me stay focused and thinking positively about each goal. You can do the same thing. Here’s a quick overview of how to create your own Vision Board:
- Make a list of the top 10 things you want to have or create in your life. They can be anything – tangible or intangible - like a trip to Macchu Pichu, someone to help you market your business, or a certain amount of money you want to have to give away to charity.
- Get a posterboard or a large sheet of paper.
- Cut out or draw pictures of the top 10 things that you want and place them on your vision board. The order or placement is completely up to you.
- Place your Vision Board somewhere you will see it every day. Your end result should be something that when you look at it, you know clearly what you’re going for and you get excited about the possibility of having it.
My Vision Board is hanging up in my office where I can see it every day. Having my Vision Board front and center keeps me focused on my goals and priorities.
Visioning is a fabulous way to help you achieve your goals. But some people think that the movie The Secret and other mediums that promote the Law of Attraction don’t tell the full story. So let’s de-bunk the myth. Developing a vision for your life and career path, and imagining your goals is a key component to enable you to achieve them.
But you can’t just sit on your couch and expect things to happen because you’re picturing them. My coaching teleclass leader Michael put it perfectly, "action is part of the word 'attraction.'" Nothing's possible without taking action. You have to get off the couch to make things happen, they aren’t going to just appear.
The key is to take inspired action, meaning action that feels good to you and just seems like the right thing to do in the moment. The way I can tell if I'm taking inspired action is if I feel like I’m in the flow and things are just clicking.
There is an important distinction between visioning and goal-setting. Here's the difference...
Visioning: Visioning is pure dreaming. It's allowing yourself to look at your life from a big picture perspective, asking “What do I want to have in my life in the future? Who do I want to be? What people do I want to have around me?” This goes for anything - from tangible things you may want like a a boat or a trip to Bali, to less tangible things like help with your business or to serve on the board of a nonprofit you are passionate about. If it's something you want and it gets you jazzed, it should be part of your vision. Visioning is playful and inspiring.
To create your vision:
- Give yourself lots of mental space to picture what you want in your life
- Think out of the box
- Have fun with it. Imagine it as vividly as you possibly can, down to how it will feel to have these things.
Two important points - visions don't have time frames and you don't worry about how you are going to achieve them. You just picture them, period. Visioning is a helpful tool because it not only provides clarity about what you want, but it also gets you “in the flow” - excited and motivated to work towards these things.
Goal setting: Setting goals is the down to earth, nuts and bolts planning. It's identifying what you want to achieve this week, this month or this year. Goals have a specific time frame, action steps to achieving them, and they include the "how" - how you are going to achieve them.
To develop your goals, you need to make sure they are specific, measurable, tangible, realistic and a challenge for you. They must have a deadline.
While you can use your Vision Board to identify what your goals are, visioning is nothing without action. You have to take action, in the form of setting goals, to achieve what is on your Vision Board.
To achieve your goals I suggest using both visioning and goal setting together. If you need help with goal setting, contact me for a complimentary consultation.
Article author
About the Author
Further reading
Further Reading
Article
A New Method for Finding Your Passion
Are you having a hard time finding your passion? Many of my career coaching clients wrestle with this. It was hard for me too. This month though I discovered a new way for my career coaching clients to find their passion. Although the circumstances are not what I would wish for anyone, everyone has tough times at some time in their lives so this might work for you too. My mother who is 96 came down with bronchitis at the end of September. Two days after the doctor had diagnosed her she got worse so I called an ambulance to take her to the hospital.
Related piece
Article
Tips for finding a job in 2010
Tips for finding a job in 2010 The job market is shaky. Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost approximately 1.4 million jobs. The traditional job search strategy of sending out résumés, attending large job fairs, often ends up going nowhere when there are more than 14 million unemployed individuals and only 2.5 million jobs to fill according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. You may think it’s impossible to find a job in today. Not so! Now is the very best time to move forward with force, while your competition is moving slowly.
Related piece
Article
How to have the Right Relationship and the Right work!
The importance of the RIGHT relationship
Related piece
Article
Client Feedback
When was the last time you asked a client for feedback about your services and how your office staff works as a team? You might turn up some useful information by doing a client feedback session when their work is complete. I recently had an experience with a hospital that is an example of how frustrating a poorly working team can be. I wish they had asked for feedback!
Related piece