Photo: Eye Test, by John LeMasney, Creative Commons
My darling husband is in a bit of a funk. This is hard for me, because he is generally a positive person and he is always working toward something. He is having some moments of self-doubt, not sure of what direction he wants to pursue, frustrated because the hooks he is putting into the water are luring no big fish.
“I’m thinking we need to do a vision board,” I said to him this weekend. “You need to be able to really envision what you want. It can be very simple, but I think you need something to look at every day in your workspace so you can see clearly what you’re working toward. Even if it’s something as simple as what you want your home office to look like, where you’d store your cameras and video equipment – just something positive to move toward and look forward to.”
Many years ago I
was introduced to the concept of a vision board (sort of the Pinterest of its
time) through The Artist’s Way. Vision
boards are boards you create to graphically illustrate your hopes and dreams –
what you want to see in your life. The process is designed to help you create a clear, very detailed
picture in your mind of what you want for all aspects of your life.
When I made mine,
I was close to 30 years old, single, trying to figure
out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Oh, and my 18-year-old cat had died. I
was doing a lot of soul searching and I realized I was lonely and kind of
directionless. I found some lovely recycled deep purple paper, took a stack of
magazines and a glue stick, and went to town. My vision board included a handsome
black man, an adorable brown-skinned baby, a cat, a dog, a writing table, lots
of pictures of nature, a cup of tea, and a beautiful woman with a gorgeous
smile who to me just screamed “happiness” and “fulfillment.” I hung the board on
the closet door in my bedroom.
Within
a year I met the handsome black man who would become my husband, and 18 months
after that had my firstborn adorable brown-skinned baby. I have no idea where that
vision board is today (we have moved approximately 700 times in the intervening
years), but Sweet Dub still teases me about it to this day. As a toddler, Viva
looked eerily similar to the vision of the baby I had. He jokes that I dreamed
her into existence.
I believe our
success in life is in direct proportion to our clarity of purpose. After
thinking about it, Sweet Dub agreed that perhaps visioning would help him
focus. He has been trying all different kinds of things in an effort to create
some income streams, which is admirable, but it translates into his energy going
in a million different directions – some of which occasionally result in him
getting paid, which let’s face it, no complaints about that.
We have decided
we will each create a board and hang them in our bedroom where we will see them
every day. It may sound kind of nuts, but I’ve already seen it work once. I’m
interested to see what his will look like, where there are areas of overlap or
surprises, if he wants a pet unicorn, etc. Have you ever done anything like
this? What would yours look like?
