Creating my Annual Vision Board

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My Dad use to tell me about making a goal and creating a plan. This website touches on all of the same ideas he once told me about. I list it here as a constant reminder as I often get side tracked…. SQUIRREL !

The human brain is the most powerful organism in the animal kingdom. Scientists discover more and more about this organ’s amazing capabilities every day.

One of the things that’s becoming more and more apparent is you have the ability to create what you want by using the power of your mind. Use these 10 methods to start cultivating your ideal day today.

Write down what your ideal day looks like.

There’s a useful exercise I’ve used over the years to help me create a crystal clear vision of my goals and dreams. Here’s how to do it: write down a detailed account of what your ideal day looks like. Start with when you first wake up, and write down everything you would do in a perfect day.

Visualize it.

Once you’ve written a detailed account, visualize your ideal day. Spend time every day really feeling it. Right when you wake up and before you go to bed are great times to do this. It helps your brain form the mental image of your ideal day in your subconscious.

Make a commitment to live out your ideal day.

In his increasingly hard-to-find and now famous book, The Social Animal, psychologist Elliot Aronson details fascinating research around the power of commitment. The basic premise is simple: when you commit to do something (either verbally or in writing), you’re much more likely to follow through. Simple though it may be, committing to living out your ideal day can be a useful strategy to help you make it come to life.

Start small.

You don’t create your ideal day overnight. It takes time to build the necessary habits that stick. So go back to the ideal day you wrote down and visualized and ask yourself, “What’s the easiest thing to accomplish on this list?” For example, maybe during your ideal day you spend five minutes in the morning meditating or doing yoga. Focus on doing this small habit every day for the next few weeks. Once it becomes habit, move on to the next thing on your “perfect day” list.

Think positive thoughts.

Harness the power of positive thinking, which is supported by mountains of empirical evidence. Your days unfold in accordance with your thoughts. So work on keeping those thoughts positive, even when you’re stressed. Identify the triggers that make you upset each day, and start changing those thought patterns. For example, maybe you hate traffic and slow drivers cause you to go mad on a regular basis. Try bringing an audio CD in your car that contains soothing music or an audio book about positive thinking and happiness. This will help curtail some of those angry thoughts. Negativity arises from habits but you can un-learn these habits with practice.

Start doing work you love.

What do you love to do? What type of work makes you happiest? Take some time to think about the answers to those questions. Then start doing it. Love to write? Start a blog or journal. Love playing music? Then set aside 15 minutes each day to do it. The key here is to just start. Once you habitually do the things you love, you’ll be much closer to achieving the vision of your perfect day.

Create habits.

More than anything else, creating better habits will help you accomplish your goals and cultivate your ideal day. In Charles Duhigg’s insightful book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, he talks about using the cue-routine-reward approach to developing better habits. Here’s how to do it:

Take your written version of your ideal day you created and identify the specific behaviors needed for each part of your day (i.e. doing yoga). Start with one behavior at a time.
Identify your cue for the behavior you want to form into a habit. For example, if your ideal day includes doing yoga, your cue might be “waking up” or “getting home from work.”
Start working on this habit every day (for just five minutes to start).
Take one minute every day to recognize the reward you’re getting from this new habit. For example, if you do yoga you’ll probably experience increased flexibility and an increased sense of self. Allow yourself to anticipate these rewards every day.
Once this habit has become ingrained, move on to the next behavior.

Manage your time better.

We waste an incredible amount of time each day. Creating habits is the first step toward automating how you spend your time, but there are several other strategies you can use too, like these:

Delegate tasks.
Check email only once or twice a day.
Talk on the phone as little as possible.
Set timers to increase productivity.
Commit to watching just one hour of TV per day (most people watch three to four).

Measure your progress.

Make checklists and to-do lists your best friends. They help you measure your progress toward your ideal day. Keep a daily planner, and at the start of each day write at the top: “Actions I will take today to get closer to my ideal day.” Write down your action steps, then check things off as you do them. I personally use this strategy, and it works.

Keep focusing on the journey.

Don’t get caught up on the end goal. Creating your ideal day is about the journey–those day-to-day action steps that culminate into healthy, efficient, productive behaviors. You have the power to create your own happiness. Life is simple, so stop over-analyzing and start doing. If you fail, so what? You’ll learn from those missteps. You won’t learn from doing nothing. Life is about the people you meet and the things you create. So go out and start creating your ideal day right now.

Daily Time Sheets – (Printable)Download

Quotes to dwell on

5. “Chase your passion, not your pension.” ~Denis Waitley

9. “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~Howard Thurman

12. “It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dream of meeting your heart’s longing.” ~Oriah Mountain Dreamer

20. “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” ~Maya Angelou

21. ‘The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” ~Steve Jobs

25. “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.” – Yoda

27. “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” ~Rumi

18. “The heart of human excellence often begins to beat when you discover a pursuit that absorbs you, frees you, challenges you, or gives you a sense of meaning, joy, or passion.” ~Terry Orlick

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. – Tony Robbins

Deciding to commit yourself to long-term results rather than short-term fixes is as important as any decision you’ll make in your lifetime.

Nothing in life has any meaning except the meaning we give it.- Tony Robbins

The only reasons we don’t have what we want in life are the reasons we create why we can’t have them. – Tony Robbins

If you don’t set a baseline standard for what you’ll accept in life, you’ll find it’s easy to slip into behaviors and attitudes or a quality of life that’s far below what you deserve… – Tony Robbins

Our lives begin to end the days we become silent about things that matter – Martin Luther King Jr.

The time is always right to do what is right. – Martin Luther King Jr.

Everything you’ve ever wanted s on the other side of fear.

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them

“The first on to the Red Light waits the Longest” by Krista Owens

I wish I could overcome the restrictions caused by my fear of succeeding – Krista Owens