“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Wayne Dyer
I felt stuck. I really wanted to have a more successful year, but I kept allowing myself to be pushed in too many different directions. I needed focus and, more importantly, confidence.
I’ve been feeling like an imposter recently. I’ve been coaching people and they’ve been asking me some really good questions. They want my advice. You probably know that coaching isn’t about giving advice. Coaching is about helping people explore their thoughts and feelings. I’m only a guide. I’m someone who won’t judge them. This is comforting. I help people see their lives with a different lens.
One woman asked me, “What do I do when someone comes up to me complaining about a co-worker that is just lazy to the core?”
I laughed then asked, “What do you think you should do?”
“Ha! Ok, if you were me what would you do?”
This is when I know people want advice, someone to explain the best way to handle a situation. It’s a tough situation because we connect through gossip and we form bonds, but it forms negative bonds instead of positive one. It can also cause our inner bully to come out. When we judge others, we judge ourselves more harshly.
“I would listen, but then I would try asking a few questions. What do you think would be a good question?”
She then ran with it, “I could ask, ‘Why do you think she is so lazy?”
“Yeah, what else could you ask?”
“Do you think she might be having issues at home?”
“Better. I like how you are trying to see life from her perspective.”
Then we went on to list a bunch of questions she could ask her co-worker, so as not to jump on the complaining bandwagon.
- She seems stressed. Do you think I should ask if she needs some help?
- I wonder why she has been so disconnected? She didn’t use to be that way.
- What do you think I could do to help her?
I share this with you because I fell into this trap recently. I jumped on the bandwagon of complaining about a family member. As the conversation wound down, I realized that I just gave advice to a coaching client that I didn’t apply in my own life. I felt terrible. I’m far from perfect. I understand this, but I would expect that I could live the principles that I teach.
My inner bully came raging at me for the next few hours. I had trouble sleeping. I was forgetting everything that I learned. I knew why. I hadn’t been meditating or journaling for the past few days. I stopped doing what was important to me.
That’s when I researched different techniques to help me stay on track with building up good habits to help me succeed in my career and life. I kept coming to a vision board, but I wanted to do it my way.
You have to ask yourself some deep questions that don’t always come to the surface if you don’t take time to reflect on what you truly want out of your life.
Vision Board
People often create vision boards for things they want like new cars, vacations, and a house.
These are good things if they help make us happy, but they are just things. These things usually lose their luster and then we are back in the same emotional spot we were in when we began our journey to acquire these things.
When I work with people I ask them how they want to feel. This is important because we think a new car or vacation or house will make us feel the way we want to feel.
We want these things to make us happy, but this isn’t usually the case. Then we get those things and we aren’t any happier.
We need to create daily habits that will help us improve our views on life. These microhabits will make the biggest difference to our happiness. I stopped drinking coffee and switched to green tea because coffee made me jittery and anxious. Green tea gives me a little boost, but without all the anxiety. I kept drinking coffee for many years because I got into the habit.
I few years ago I put a cup of green tea on my vision board because I thought it would help with my mindset. It was one of the best additions to my vision board that I’ve ever made.
The key to a quality vision board is to focus on how you want to feel, then cut out “actions” that will help get you there. When you work on things that will help you with your larger purpose, that’s when you build a life that truly makes you happy.
For example, if you want to speak with ease to a large group of people you must understand why. Why is it that you want to talk to thousands of people? If it’s for vanity, this is harder to get behind and keep doing the work each week to make this happen. When you understand your “why,” you will put in the hard work. Maybe you are similar to me. You want to teach people struggles that will help them feel happier and live longer. Then you can envision yourself up on a stage in front of 1000 people. All the fear that floods your body won’t hold you back.
Here is my 2020 Vision Board:
You can see I’m using my Mindset Vision Board to focus on building the type of actions that I can take to live a happier life. I’ve realized that loving myself should be of much higher importance. If I love myself then I’ll have unshakable confidence to do the things that make an impact in the world, like giving keynote presentations and creating shareable content.
Most of these images are things that I can do each day or try working toward. I can write every single day to create content for my community. I can meditate to help me build self awareness. I can journal to help me process my thoughts and keep track of my progress. I can reach out to influencers and conferences to help spread my message.
That to me is the biggest difference between a Mindset Vision Board and a common vision board. It’s important to put things on your Mindset Vision Board that you can accomplish today and skills that will help you make a bigger impact. If you put a house with a pool on your vision board, that might take years to acquire. It could become disheartening. If you put things that you can do to build a more grateful and stronger mindset you can start accomplishing right way.
Ask yourself some probing questions:
- What will help you feel happier tomorrow and the next day? What has helped you in your past?
- How do you want to handle difficult situations?
- How can you tackle goals that scare you a little bit, but will really help you grow?
When you ask yourself these questions keep a journal, your phone or just a piece of paper nearby. You’ll want to jot this stuff down. It’s these insights that will help you create a mindset vision board that will help make this year the best year ever.