Create a vision board
- A vision board is a collage of visual images or words that represent the life you want to live. It is a tangible representation of the vision you have for yourself. You can make one by hand—think old-school magazine cutouts on a bulletin board—or you can make one digitally, via a website like Pinterest. What matters is that you manually create it (no one else can do it for you), and that it excites you when you see it. It can represent your vision for a particular area of your life (e.g. your career), or your whole life in general. Karson McGinley
- A vision board is a visualization tool which refers to a board of any sort used to build a collage of words and pictures that represent your goals and dreams. Jack Canfield
- They say that a picture is worth a thousand words! Using old magazines, tear out pictures that represent what you envision or want for your life. You can include personal photographs as well, creating your collage using the traditional cut and paste method, or create a digital collage, or perhaps a scrapbook or even a photo collage using a collage frame (with multiple openings). You can draw, write original work or include quotes that inspire you – anything that conjures up a rich mental image of the vision you have for your life. Think about the story told by each image you incorporate into your collage. Use each element of your collage to draw out your values.
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Imagine you are 90
- Imagine you’re 90 years old, blissfully happy, healthy and sitting in your rocking chair looking back over your ideal life. Who are you as a person? What do people value about you? What have you achieved? What are you proud of? What added meaning to your life or gives you a sense of fulfillment? What can you see and hear around you? What are you feeling? What shows you that you’re truly happy? Consider how your life unfolded in these areas: Family, Friends, Significant Other, Career, Health and Home. What did you do for Fun? What did you Learn? What did you do in Service and Leadership? What did you do for or in your Community? Emma-Louise Elsey
- You are now 90 years old, sitting on a rocking chair outside your porch; you can feel the spring breeze gently brushing against your face. You are blissful and happy, and are pleased with the wonderful life you’ve been blessed with. Looking back at your life and all that you’ve achieved and acquired, all the relationships you’ve developed; what matters to you most? List them out. Tina Su
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Get perspective
- Once again in your notebook, detail where you want to be in 10 years. Do the same for 5 years, then 2 then 1 and then in 3 months time from now. This exercise deliberately works back from 10 years to the present day…by doing this you will get a sense of what you need to do now in order to make your 10 year goals actually happen. Emma-Louise Elsey
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Imagine a celebration
- Imagine a party is being held in your honor to celebrate a substantial change or milestone in your life. For example, you could be retiring, moving somewhere new, going traveling, embarking on a new career or all of the above! Write a speech that celebrates you. Explore what you’ve achieved and where you’re going next. Be sure to write the speech in the third-person perspective (e.g., “Sarah/Auntie Sarah has always…”). Consider the following questions: How old are you? Who is at the party? Where is the party being held? Who will read the speech? What have you achieved in your family, career, business, community or in the world? What is it about you that people at the party truly value? What would you want to be said about you? What would you be disappointed by if it was not said? What did you do that was truly amazing? Where did you surprise yourself and others? What are you most proud of? What mistakes did you make that you can laugh about now? What is the essence of you that you want captured in the speech? Where are you going next in your life? What are you excited to spend more time doing? How do friends and family fit into your life going forwards? Emma-Louise Elsey
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Imagine you have a magic wand
- If you had a magic wand, what life would you create for yourself? What would you do in the next 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years and then 25 years?
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Draw a picture of your future self
- Draw a picture of yourself and your surroundings five years from now. Draw the elements you see, feel, and hear. Use as many colors as you want and be as detailed as possible. Susanne Madsen
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Write a newspaper article
- Imagine you’ve achieved a great milestone in your life or career. For example, it could be an award received, a book you’ve written, an invention, a fundraising goal reached, a feat of travel or a charitable activity. Write a newspaper or magazine article about this milestone—from 250-500 words—in the past tense. Mention yourself and anyone who has helped you. Quote sources for the article by name. Be sure to give some background including recent successes and other relevant highlights. Consider what your success means for the people reading it. How will the readers benefit? Emma-Louise Elsey
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Imagine your ideal day
- Write out your “Ideal Day”. You should start your ideal day from when you wake up – and write out what you would like your day to be like. What would you do? How would you feel? Who would you see? What are you working on/towards?
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Meet your future self
- Imagine meeting your future self and explore the life, relationships, environment etc. that your future self is living.
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Your best possible self exercise
- This is a mental exercise in which you visualise the best possible future for yourself in multiple domains of your life. You imagine yourself in the future, after everything has gone as well as it possibly could. You have worked hard and succeeded at accomplishing all your life goals. Think of this as the realisation of your life dreams, and of your best potentials. An advantage of the Best Possible Selves exercise is that it is conducted through writing. Because writing is highly structured systematic, and rule bound, it prompts you to analyse your thoughts in a way that would be difficult, if not impossible, to do if you were just fantasising. Writing about your dreams helps you to better understand your priorities, your emotions, and your motives, your identity, who you really are and what’s in your heart. Research shows that people who write about their visions for twenty minutes per day over several days, relative to those who write about other topics, are more likely to show immediate increases in positive moods, to be happier several weeks later, and even to report fewer physical ailments several months thence. Sonja Lyubomirsky
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Describe what you want in all areas
- Use a Wheel of Life Template and ask yourself what you would like your life to look like in each of the key areas. Cover all important aspects of your life: health, relationships, career, personal growth, happiness, creativity, adventure, etc.
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Imagine your funeral
- In your mind’s eye, see yourself going to the funeral of a loved one. Picture yourself driving to the funeral parlor or chapel, parking the car, and getting out. As you walk inside the building, you notice the flowers, the soft organ music. You see the faces of friends and family you pass along the way. You feel the shared sorrow of losing, the joy of having known, that radiates from the hearts of the people there. As you walk down to the front of the room and look inside the casket, you suddenly come face to face with yourself. This is your funeral, three years from today. All these people have come to honor you, to express feelings of love and appreciation for your life. As you take a seat and wait for the services to begin, you look at the program in your hand. There are to be four speakers. The first is from your family, immediate and also extended — children, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who have come from all over the country to attend. The second speaker is one of your friends, someone who can give a sense of what you were as a person. The third speaker is from your work or profession. And the fourth is from your church or some community organization where you’ve been involved in service. Now think deeply. What would you like each of these speakers to say about you and your life? What kind of husband, wife, father, or mother would you like their words to reflect? What kind of son or daughter or cousin? What kind of friend? What kind of working associate? What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions, what achievements would you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives? Stephen Covey
