No one needs to be told that 2020 was a rough year. On January 1, 2020, none of us could have predicted all that the coming year would entail. As we move into 2021 and start to get some perspective, many of us would agree that it changed us. It changed what we value, how we spend our time, where we spend our money, and how we view our relationships, plus so much more.
Maybe you learned to value the ones you share a roof with a bit differently. Maybe you realized how little you need to entertain yourself, or conversely that you can’t wait for concerts, games, and other big venue events to be held again. Maybe it makes you excited to make in-person plans with friends when it’s safe, or you’re dreaming of the trips you’re going to take. Maybe it made you realize that you need to save for a rainy day because financial surprises happen. Maybe it made you value your health and well-being, and you want to preserve it the best you can. Maybe you realized that you don’t understand some social constructs as well as you might want and need to research and learn.
I’m a slow processor, and 2020 taught me a lot with which I am still coming to grips and probably will be for some time.
Last year reminded me how grateful I am to have a home in which we can operate a business, host school, and still play as a family. However, a good portion of our guest room, which hasn’t been used all year, has been converted to an office for my husband, so now I’m beginning to dream what finishing our basement with a new guest room might look like.
Or, what about health? Ah, stress did a number on me. I am honing my vision of what my own wellness looks like now and for years from now, and it’s changing some of my lifestyle behaviors.
Admittedly, I am a home body, but 2020 gave me a bit of wanderlust, and I am beginning to think again about travel - places I want our kids to see and new places I want to go.
There’s a lot of benefit for us in the process of dreaming. We open ourselves up to possibility, to new ideas and hopes for what could be.
Research shows us that visualizing something, whether it is a long jumper going through their jump routine over and over again or a sales executive imaging how a successful call will go, creates more of a likelihood of it coming to fruition.
So, maybe 2021 is the year to dream, to imagine or re-imagine, and to visualize using what 2020 taught us.
It’s important to allow time and space to dream, to create a vision, and even to take steps toward them with goals. We can do this when we give ourselves time to think and process and freedom from our own judgement while we brainstorm.
As a step in that direction, I created the Dreaming and Creating Your Own Vision Workbook as tool to help you dream. This workbook takes you step-by-step through the process of imagining what is possible in your own life and then taking steps to turn that vision into goals followed by steps toward those goals. By the time you have completed the process, you will have identified your first step toward your goal and thus be on your way to making your dream coming true.
The Dreaming and Creating Your Own Vision Workbook walks you through a process of brainstorming your dreams and then breaking them into categories, which you can label in a way that works for you. Maybe it’s health and wellness, family, finance, career, travel, or maybe you have other categories. You can define them and then put the dreams from your brainstorming sessions in the appropriate topic. From there, the workbook guides you to begin to make goals at certain time intervals, depending on how they apply. In the end, you will have documented your dreams and begun to create goals that will help to bring them to fruition.
When you’re done with the Dreaming and Creating Your Own Vision Workbook, you can keep it as is, or you could take your ideas and find visual representation by making a vision board (a kind of photo montage) using magazines, photos, images, and/or words that represent your vision and goals. If you are more of a writer, you could write about your dreams, why they are important to you, and how you envision accomplishing them in a journal that you can refer to as you take steps toward making those dreams a reality.
If you feel like 2021 might be the year to start dreaming again, download the Dreaming and Creating Your Own Vision Workbook and give yourself permission to imagine what is possible.
I would love to hear what you imagine.
Finally, if you can identify all the “whats” of your dreams and goals but have a difficult time with the “hows,” the implementation and accountability, maybe I can help.
As a coach, my job is to walk alongside clients to help them realize their own goals, to uncover what might be holding them back, and to co-create a plan to move forward. If that sounds like something that would be helpful for you, feel free to reach out to me via email or schedule a free consultation here below!