A picture is worth a thousand words
Our brains will work tirelessly to match our deepest truths and longings.
What you desire and can imagine, can be yours. To move closer to it, however, you must first gather the courage to establish what you want.
For years I have kept a diary practice. The habit is over 25 years old. As I reflect on everything that has happened to me to date, one thing is clear.
Life, on the whole, tends to bring me what I focus on most and what is good for my soul.
What is a Vision Board
A personal vision board is a collage that reflects what you are attracted to the most in terms of words, slogans, and images. By capturing what you feel naturally drawn towards, building a vision board helps anyone stimulate their true emotions while helping the mind become clear about what we desire.
While not everyone builds a tangible vision board, experiments in spatial cognition and object representation show that our brains build 3D maps all the time. At any given point we have a map of what we desire and where every critical element of this picture is located in terms of space and distance. The mind does this largely outside of our daily awareness. But if our life tends to reflect this vision, we feel better and are more at ease. When our life does not match this internal picture we suffer. A vision board exercise helps us externalise this process. By doing this our conscious mind can access it and establish focus and clarity to help guide our actions in alignment with this vision.
Gaining clarity calls for an active and conscious process.
Building a vision map can help one understand what one truly desires. The process adds distinct focus and clarity.
I highly recommend creating a vision board if you have:
- Too many ideas and feel a constant tussle around where to spend your effort and energy.
- Conflicting possibilities and difficulty choosing to commit to something.
- Feeling always on and being so busy you have no time to stop and ask what it is you truly want.
- Stuck or unable to progress.
- Lacking balance and/or feeling anxious you may be heading in the wrong direction.
- Focusing on what is not working thus sabotaging progress yet not being able to help it.
Building a Grid Vision Board
If you’re new to the Grid model then here’s a quick recap.
We can’t find happiness by trying to separate work and life. They intertwine and feed off each other.
Similarly, our health and wellbeing are central to a good life. If we ignore this, we construct lives that cause us to suffer and make us ill.
Finally, work and careers matter and deserve separate attention.
Building the most satisfying life and work arrangement, means we have to devote time and energy to figuring out what we want in all of these areas.
This is where the Grid framework comes into play.
Grid helps one attend to everything that matters in life by helping to keep everything in one place.
This is done using a two-by-two matrix where you have a space for your:
- personal life,
- self-care,
- your work, and
- your career.
When the Grid framework is applied to a vision board, one can construct a desired future in each of the key four areas. This means that from the start one is having to balance the four domains helping to eliminate conflicts between them. Because the mind, heart, body, and spirit all have their own needs, the process of building a Grid Vision Board is deeply transformative to the builder. It helps him or her integrate within and also integrate their life as a whole. The resulting picture can give the mind accurate and deeply resonant instruction as it reflects what all four parts desire.
Continue to the next step and build your own masterpiece
Ready to build? Continue to Part 2 of this article series.
