Visions of the Future: Thinking Forward to Align Your Life Now
About a week ago, I went to my yoga studio on a Sunday to do a vision board workshop. To preface, I’ve done quite a few of this type of thing before, most notably an online webinar called “Designing Your Life with the End in Mind” - it was facilitated by Donald Miller and was phenomenal. But this day, I was thinking it may be more of magazines and scissors, gluing things to paper and writing big words that are supposed to give me direction, “vision”. While I was open to that method, I’m glad I was wrong in my expectation. Here’s why.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that approach. In fact, I actually really like it. AND what is more helpful for me is to identify and be able to articulate my values as a person first before even thinking much about the future. I’m grateful that in my studio, we first went through a values identification exercise before setting any goals, dreams, or themes for this year or years to come.
Alia, the studio owner, gave everyone a list of values. Here’s a link I like if you’d like to explore some for yourself by the wise and articulate Brené Brown. The idea was to comb through said list and pick out what compels your spirit and what you feel encompasses the essence of you. Now, I know this sounds nearly impossible, but it took me narrowing my list to 50 and then grouping them to even think about selecting 2-5 core values. Here’s my top almost 30 list of values, at least the ones that jumped out at me (it’s harder than you think), that eventually made their way onto my big buckets of faith, spirit, mind, creativity, and action:
Truth
Wisdom
Reverence
Hopefulness
Vision
Wonder
Insight
Intuition
Awareness
Brilliance
Meaning
Significance
Passion
Ambition
Leadership
Expression
Curiosity
Imagination
Individuality
Exploration
Learning
Contribution
Responsibility
Solitude
Sincerity
Bravery
Courage *note the distinctions between these- follow the rabbit trail here*
Transparency
Connection
From here, I chose 7 words that resonated deepest and most consistently:
insight, wonder, awareness, meaning, passion, expression, connection.
Whew! And that was even harder.
From here the next phase in our process was to take a physical position, sitting relaxed or laying down comfortably, eyes closed, to envision our dream day… our most ideal, perfectly composed day 10 years from now. We were asked to think, “What would you be seeing, smelling, eating and tasting? What would you be doing, feeling? What would occupy your brain space; what would you get up in the morning thinking about or fall asleep wondering about? What would your emotions be?”
I’ll be honest, it was harder for me to get here than I anticipated, but when I did, this is the beginning of picture I received:
I woke up in a cabin with glass windows from floor to ceiling just at the cusp of sunrise, the rays just peaking over the trees and a river running through the forest outside. I take my time getting out of bed, because I have the time to be unhurried. I make some black tea, do some gentle movement, and begin to curate and launch my day with enthusiasm and plenty of energy to go around.
I wake up refreshed, zealous about my day– I have passion. Now, I’m a practicing writer, therapist and coach. I’m thinking about who I’ll be seeing that day, and what insight they might need today as well as what I need to get out and express, in words or otherwise. I’m intuitive, with myself and others, and directed. I’m in wonder but not distracted or consumed by self. I have deep peace and equal curiosity and wonder; I’m delighted to take the day as I feel free, unburdened by working for someone, rather I work with others. The change is palpable and I’m overjoyed.
After doing this exercise I was both excited and slightly surprised. I would’ve thought I’d wake up on the oceanfront, walking the coast at sunrise, and maybe owning a shop of sorts, casually approaching a relaxed, easygoing lifestyle. But then as the actual vision came to me, it was crystal clear. I envisioned details of the house, from a large, open kitchen to perfectly woven wool rugs on the floor, beautiful bed linens and lots of plants.
More surprisingly, I have TIME. Time to breathe and I’m not singularly focused, and yet, I’m clear about my path and how I manage my energy. I have multiple facets and objectives… I imagined I was working on my second book, was hosting a podcast and being invited to speak at events. And I was excited to practice as a therapist, to usher clients into a space of self-discovery, growth and healing. As it appeared, it seemed everything had fallen into place.
I am moving towards this becoming my reality as I plan to start school in the Fall which will take a full three years plus supervision afterwards to become fully licensed. I have the desire to become a life coach while going to school, and have my eye on some training around that as well. The writing though feels the hardest to grasp, to really begin to endeavor deeply into as it requires so much emotional bandwidth. I can write here, on this blog, but writing a book for whatever reason feels like a really big lift right now.
Moving back to the vision and goal setting, after the imagining exercise, we came back to the values portion and began to notice what values were represented in the imagery from our ideal day. For me, the values narrowed into a few themes: meaningful contribution, conscious expression, and courageous connection. I was a leader by being myself and wholly devoted to living an integrated, aware and passionate life.
From this point of reevaluating values and seeing what really showed up, what remained, the task was to reverse engineer your plan into goals, things that are measurable, actionable and time-sensitive. This is where I began to feel the overwhelm of deducing what exactly needs to happen by when to get to where I want to be.
And then I remembered to check-in with present me, the one sitting in the room pondering and ruminating. I was thinking about three essential questions:
What excites me right now, in this season of my life?
What exhausts me and depletes my well?
What am I learning right now and how could I use it to better others?
The notion behind these questions are really to mine for what is aligned with the longer term vision versus what is maybe incongruent and there’s evident tension around. Right now, I can say honestly that writing, even here, brings me a lot of joy and hope– it excites me. The idea of putting together my art portfolio to get into the Art Therapy phase two of this program I’m pursuing is also exciting, albeit a little daunting because I’m out of practice, but still energizing.
As much as I love where I’m working and the people there (I work at an education non-profit) it is still exhausting… not so much because the role or the place is so terribly difficult, but more because it isn’t aligned with my future. It doesn’t feel meaningful or expressive.
What I am learning though is that many of my friends and family seek out my unofficial counsel and input in their lives when going through trials especially. When shit hits the fan, I’m often one of the first calls made by people who are close to me. I used to think that was an inadvertent way of communicating, “Hey, I’m sad or confused, and I know you’ve been there so I’m reaching out.” And while I don’t dismiss there’s value in that, I also know that there’s more to it. So, I’m learning my natural state is to lead, to coach.
Lucky for me, the way I answered these three questions validate my vision for the future. This informs me, and affirms that I may be moving in the right direction at least. But now, the hardest part, is creating a game plan for how I will move close toward that ideal state in one year, three years, five years, etc. But now that my values are clear and my dream is a fully expressed vision, I have something concrete to work towards.
So, my challenge to you is to try this. Do some type of values charting, some kind of quiet rumination where you let your mind really imagine what you WANT your life to look like, not just what feels attainable or what today’s ideal day is… let yourself go there. Allow yourself to take up space in your own mind to see what maybe even God himself put there for you to uncover, to see, so that you can work toward it with clarity and conviction, knowing that it really could become real and true for you.
I’ll leave you with this simple but poignant quote by Mary Anne Evans:
“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”
Until next time, take care and don’t forget to look within and then look up.
Kindly,