My head is often a messy attic room. One with piles of cardboard boxes that bulge valuable and less valuable items that sometimes have something to do with each other and sometimes not. When you come in, you immediately breathe a sigh: how are you going to get started? Maybe Marie Kondo's cleanup expertise can help you? Keep track of the things that make you happy. Although Mrs Kondo focuses mainly on living rooms, her expertise also comes in handy on upper chambers. Do the things that make you happy.
And I'll do it from now on. Because I am quite visually set and like to structure my life, I made a vision board a few weeks ago. The word, visionboard, already reveals itself; it is a kind of collage that you make about the visions and goals you want to achieve in the period of about a year.
How do you make such a vision board?
A while ago I saw a video in which the Canadian Youtubester Lilly Singh makes a vision board on the occasion of the New Year. In it, she explains step by step how to make such a board. I will see the video here links for those interested. If Lilly isn't your style, there are a lot of other videos and tutorials you can watch!
It's not my intention to repeat Lilly (or others) completely, so I'm going to explain very briefly what a vision board is and then I'm going to show what I've done myself.
- You create concrete and achievable goals. So not: more sports, but for example 10 km jogging. Or, for example, save x euro for a new apartment or house.
- You can set both professional and personal goals. Anything is possible (as long as you remain realistic 😊).
- Search on the Internet or in magazines for fun pictures, texts,... that have to do with your goals. Cut or print them and then stick them on a plate.
- You can brighten up your board with inspiring quotes and personalities (can be fictional and non-fictional).
- Hang the board somewhere in a place where you often come. The intention is that you will always be reminded of your goals when you see the board.
And does it work? Let's see!
Such a vision board can be fun and beautiful, but does it work? I don't know. That's why I'm trying it out! My board is certainly not as colorful as other examples, but because this is a try, I don't want to throw too much money and effort at it. That's why everything is printed on my black-and-white printer (if it works, I'll put more effort in the next board!). Anyway, here's my plate!
I have divided the board into three pieces: professional goals, health and hobbies. On a professional level, I mainly want to find my first job. I have a degree as a translator so a job as a translator or as a copywriter, content creator, lyricist are at the top of the list. Things that can help me with that are creating a portfolio and training myself in Photoshop, InDesign and online marketing. During my training, I also learned to subtitle, so TED's voluntary subtitle program can help me maintain that skill.
For my health, I mainly rely on food and sports. Not necessarily because I want a beautiful body (is nice extra, to be honest), but because I believe in the concept of 'a healthy mind in a healthy body'. Therefore, I want to eat more fruit (at least twice a day) and drink more water or tea (about 3x). Meanwhile, I swim for about a year and want to increase my swimming pace from 50 to 75 laps and I also want to try to learn crawl. I want to go jogging again and for the time being aim at a distance of 10km.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I want to write and draw more in terms of hobbies. This is how I want to start a blog (check!) and start a own book/story. The coming year also wants to start with a “100 days of sketching challenge” so that I learn to draw more on a regular basis. Because I'm the type that buys a lot of books but barely reads them, I actually want to read them now. Then I have added some new things that I want to learn: baking and Flemish sign language. That seems incredibly interesting to me, so why not?
And now get to work! It's cleanup time
In my next posts I will show you if I am able to pursue these goals. I should like to make a few important observations. The board itself does not help me achieve goals, I have to do that myself, but as someone who sometimes needs structure in chaos, it teaches me to put a few things in perspective. It's okay if some goals don't work out, I have plenty of other things I can focus on. It's a bit difficult in the job part of my life, but I shouldn't feel bad about that. On a personal level, I still have a wide range of possibilities that do make me happy.
I am aoverthinker and that often causes panic in my head. Therefore, a wise lesson for myself: concentrate on the things you really want to do, the things that make you happy and drive those needless thoughts into the background. The vision board is a possible tool and may be just the Marie Kondo that my head needs.
