In January this year, I posted a blog called What are Your New Year Resolutions?
As in the year before, I had done a vision board illustrating my goals for the year and what I wanted to focus on.
The three things in the centre of my vision board for 2016 were:
- Developing my memoir to a publishable standard
- Becoming a feature writer for House&Garden
- Visiting Uluru and the Northern Territory
I have just finished evaluating the past twelve months, which is an important exercise to set the foundation for my vision board for 2017. I started with a list of milestones, private and professional ones, that I achieved this year. Writing the milestones down will help you acknowledge how much you have achieved.
I noticed that there were many milestones in my year and that I often didn't take enough time to celebrate them. Can you relate to this? If we don't learn to practise stillness and mindfulness and to stop along our journey, we end up in this never-ending current of busyness that seems to be the new norm these days.
What were your milestones or important events this year?
My milestones in 2016:
- Angel Card Reading (Feb)
- Cover Story in Home Ideas (Feb and Aug)
- BettinaDeda.com website launch (April)
- Finished memoir manuscript and started submitting it (May)
- House feature published in House&Garden (May)
- House feature published in Country Home Ideas (Sept)
- Holidays in the Red Centre (July)
- Launched the Downsize with Style Online Course (July)
- Copywriting Course (Aug)
- Downsizing workshop (Oct)
- Applied for two biography fellowships (Oct/Nov)
- Freelance blogging for BeigeRenegade (Oct/Nov)
- Copywriting for LookUpStrata (Oct/Nov)
- Started and lost new book project (Nov)
- My first Literary Speed Dating (Nov)
- Started rewrite of memoir (Dec)
My vision board for 2016. I achieved two of my top three goals this year.
In the next step, I went through a list of evaluation categories that I found on the US-blog The Write Life. This list concentrates mainly on business categories such as Income, Business Growth, Professional Development, Technology, but you can easily adapt it to your private life as well.
Think about what you want to achieve in 2017.
What are your personal goals?
What are your business goals?
What will you do to invest in your personal/professional development?
Where would you like to spend your holidays?
Which hobbies would you like to pursue?
How can you improve your work/life balance?
Which groups (offline and online) would you like to join?
What would you like to learn new?
What else is important to you?
11 steps to make a vision board
To manifest and illustrate your ideas, wishes, and goals for 2017, consider making a vision board. I have written about the versatility of mood boards several times this year because I believe they are powerful tools to help you accomplish your goals.
Plus, making a vision board can become a social event with your family or best friends. You immerse yourself in a creative exercise, become clear about what you want to achieve in the next twelve months, and you will surely learn something new about your family or friends.
Here are my 11 steps to make a successful vision board:
- Choose a day to create your vision board.
- Buy a foam core board in an art shop; I recommend at least size A2.
- Gather a stack of magazines – you can use old ones that you have at home – and make sure that you have a variety of genres: lifestyle, wellness, travel, hobbies, interiors, etc.
- Go through your collection of cards, postcards, or other memorabilia you kept for more inspiration.
- Collect paint chips from a hardware store.
- Find natural objects, such as stones, shells, seed pots, or driftwood, from the beach, bush, or your garden.
- Prepare your worktable with coloured pens, markers, glitter, ribbon, glue sticks, and tape (double-sided tape is very handy).
- Start tearing out inspirational images, cutting out text, and gathering everything that speaks to you and tells the story of what you want to achieve in 2016.
- Curate your items on your board and give it a name.
- If you are happy with your board, start fixing your chosen items to it and display it where you can see it daily.
- HAVE FUN!
Stay tuned for the publication of my 2017 vision board early January!
And for those of you, who want a more detailed step-by-step guide how to prepare and curate a mood or vision board
