I’m feeling 2023, you guys. I’ve this hunch that it’s going to be a yr filled with progress and journey, and when you clicked into this put up, I’ve a sense you’re additionally able to embrace the yr forward with open arms and an open thoughts. I’m a giant believer in setting targets with a purpose to deliberately head within the course of our desires, and for me, the beginning of a brand new yr is probably the most highly effective time to do it. Final yr, I shared the Imaginative and prescient Workbook that I created and use myself to reside extra purposefully all yr lengthy, and as we speak—I’m so excited to share this yr’s Vision Workbook 2.0!
Over the course of 2022, I made a number of tweaks to how I take advantage of the workbook myself, so I wished to create a model that helps us go deeper and is even extra impactful for outlining your “why” and creating the lifetime of your desires. So, seize your Imaginative and prescient and Aim Setting Workbook proper here, and let’s dive in!
Here’s Why I Write Down My Vision for the Year
There’s a lot of content about manifestation and vision boarding, and white it’s heavy on the visualizing, sometimes it stops short of actually helping me map out a strategic plan to brings it to life. I’m an enneagram 3, y’all. I like a roadmap. I wish to know the “how.” And that’s why this workbook is an extremely highly effective device in my life.
Right here’s the deal: Visualization, plus a tactical plan for doing the work, is the key to creating actual traction in direction of creating our dream lives.
All through January, I’m going to be sharing a sequence of posts on how I stroll by means of my vision workbook. It begins with creating the imaginative and prescient (what this put up is all about), then defining my high priorities for every space of life: relationships, profession, well being, and private progress. As a closing step, I articulate one highly effective factor I can do in every of these spheres to take advantage of traction in direction of my long-term purpose. It helps me visualize how I would like the yr to look in an organized method that I can revisit and remind myself of each day.
Right now, with the recent begin of a brand new yr, we’re going to concentrate on creating that high-level imaginative and prescient. It’s what is going to gasoline your ardour and make you wish to leap away from bed every morning and get after it. We’re going to provide ourselves permission to dream massive, get artistic, and strategy our lives with an abundance mindset. This step ought to be actually enjoyable, and it’s key to the method. And bear in mind:
“You solely have to know the course, not the vacation spot. The course is sufficient to make the subsequent selection.” – James Clear
How to Create a Vision for the Life You Want to Live:
It’s pretty typical for companies to create mission statements or vision statements to inspire and give direction to their teams. It’s how a business articulates their goals for the future, and defines how they’re going to get there. But I think it’s equally important to take the same intentional approach in who we’re becoming day-by-day, year-by-year, and this requires crafting a purposeful vision for your life.
Here are the 9 steps I use to create my own vision. I walk you through each of these in the Vision Workbook so you can define your own.
1. Write Your 2023 Mantra
If the entire workbook is the long version of your 2023 vision, consider your mantra to be the short version—typically just a sentence or a few words. You want to be able display it where you’ll see it daily, and quickly repeat it when you need to recenter. Though I lead with this step in the workbook, you may not know your mantra right away, and that’s okay. Complete the rest of the steps first, then come back to this one once you’ve been able to look for patterns and themes.
This year, my own mantra is:
Less distraction, more engagement.
Here are other examples of mantras I’ve written through the years to help get the creativity flowing:
- Slow down, stop rushing.
- Raise your energy.
- Enjoy today.
- Be here now.
- Simplify.
- Have more fun.
2. What Does Your Dream Life Look Like?
Visualize what your dream life appears, sounds, smells, and looks like, then journal about it. Don’t restrict your self to what appears sensible within the second—permit your creativeness to run free. To assist break freed from the mindset that “dream life” equals standing or materials possessions, I wish to focus extra on what an precise day in my dream life appears like, by answering these questions:
- The place are you?
- Who’re you with?
- How do you are feeling?
- What does “success” appear to be for you?
I all the time discover that this train unlocks some new realization for me. It helps me get clear on what I truly need, as an alternative of what I believe I ought to need.
3. How Do You Wish to Really feel This Yr?
Subsequent, create an inventory of feelings that you simply wish to really feel extra of in 2023. A part of the Every day Apply in the workbook is reviewing this listing every morning to ask, “How can I really feel extra of those as we speak?” It’s wonderful how setting an intention for the way in which you wish to really feel adjustments the way in which we feature ourselves by means of the day. Attempt to restrict your listing to not more than 5, so you possibly can truly focus in on these and incorporate them all through your day.
Right here is my listing for this yr:
- Current
- Curious
- Energized
4. When Are You the Happiest?
It’s a simple question that may unlock some major aha’s for you. How often do we go on autopilot and forget to ask ourselves if we’re incorporating the things that make us happy into our day-to-day lives? A bit of soul looking could uncover that you simply’re happiest if you’re cooking, strolling with a good friend, making an attempt a brand new sport, touring, or misplaced in an excellent ebook. No matter it’s, the purpose is to deliberately make extra time for that in your life this yr.
5. The place Do You Wish to Go This Yr?
So typically, our journey plans get pushed to the underside of our precedence listing, after which we’re making choices within the eleventh hour based mostly on flight prices or our busy schedule. What if we took a extra proactive strategy to our journey locations by dreaming in the beginning of a brand new yr about the place we most wish to go to? Then, we will take an trustworthy have a look at our calendar and our budgets and get artistic about find out how to make it occur. I normally goal one “massive journey” a yr and a pair smaller journeys to locations within the US. Chances are you’ll not get to all of them in 2023, however I’m assured that when you take this strategy, that “dream spot” will be in your future. Listed below are mine this yr:
- Costa Rica (it’s already scheduled))
- Los Olivos, CA (have to plan this)
- Japan (stretch purpose)
6. Who Are the Folks in Your Life You Wish to Prioritize?
For a number of years, I’ve stored a notice in my Evernote referred to as “My Record.” It’s ten or so names of individuals in my life (exterior my household) who’re high precedence. These are the folks I wish to spend money on, spend time with, and cultivate our relationship in a significant method this yr. Everyone knows how busy life will get, and retaining this listing in a spot the place I can simply entry helps me bear in mind to test in and keep linked by means of the yr.
On this step, you merely make an inventory of the chums, co-workers, prolonged household, and so on who you wish to prioritize this yr–hold it brief sufficient so that you could actually spend money on every of them.
7. What Books Do You Want to Read This Year?
I like to set an intention at the beginning of the year for a few books that I want to read start-to-finish. Four means one book a season–feel free to get ambitious and up your number to one a month.
Here’s my list for 2023. The first two are tied to two of my goals (continuing to develop my voice as a writer, and being a better listener with my kids) and the last two are beautiful narratives that I want to dive into.
- Everybody Writes, by Ann Handley
- Good Inside, by Dr. Becky Kennedy
- A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini
- A Heart That Works, by Rob Delaney
8. What’s One Factor You Wish to Study This Yr?
Learning something new yearly is majorly inspiring—and it’s cool to suppose that whilst an grownup, when you study one new factor yearly, in 20 years you should have cultivated 20 new expertise, hobbies, languages, and so on. That stated, some of us could be a bit too, ahem, formidable about what we’re truly going to study in a yr.
For the aim of this train, I wish to concentrate on simply ONE factor I’m going to study within the yr forward. Don’t chortle, however this yr my purpose is that I wish to learn to do face yoga. Critically (google it.)
9. Create a Vision Board
For the uninitiated, a vision board is the visual representation of your goals. It’s typically made up of words and images, and is meant to provide inspiration and remind you where you’re headed. No matter what your goals are—to slow down, to start a company, to be a better parent, to travel more, to be more creative, to workout every day—a vision board is a tool that can be incredibly powerful on the journey.
So, how do you actually make a vision board? Well, I like to start by completing all the other parts of the Vision Workbook first, so you actually start the process with a solid understanding of what your own vision actually is. Then, you can search for imagery and words that spark those feeling and represent those goals for you. There’s really no wrong way to do it.
I love to make digital vision boards in Canva—they’ve templates with all types of gorgeous layouts that make it straightforward for freshmen. Simply import your inspiration images and prepare them right into a collage on the digital canvas.
Nonetheless, for the start of the yr, there’s actually nothing like utilizing my arms to make a large-scale imaginative and prescient board that lives in my workplace the remainder of the yr. I get out my stack of magazines and scissors, print pages from my Pinterest boards, and undergo my folders of postcards and stickers that I’ve saved by means of the yr. I’ll additionally use pen and paper to put in writing out quotes or inspiring phrases that I wish to see daily.
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You probably did it! How does it really feel? Look again by means of your Imaginative and prescient Workbook and rejoice—you’ve taken your first main step in designing your dream life this yr, and you ought to be so pleased with what you’ve created. If you happen to haven’t but grabbed your personal copy of the workbook, access it right here. Subsequent week I’ll be sharing how I deal with the subsequent step—setting targets and making a strategic plan to succeed in them.
