In 2019, I walked into Hip Expressions Dance Studio on the first Sunday of the year and did my first “vision board.” Orange is my power color, so I chose a neon orange paper as by backdrop. I spent the 2 hours scouring through 50 magazines looking for words, phrases and pictures that spoke to me. I found mostly phrases, and meticulously cut them out and carefully placed them on my board, and glued them down after ensuring perfect placement. I proudly displayed my vision board on the refrigerator at my office on Central Ave, and glanced at every time I handed a client a bottle of water.
5 of the phrases I chose in 2020 really struck a chord with me:
Shake Things Up
Enkindle the Nest
Inspire the Mind
Hack This
Transform Your World
Little did anyone know, that less than 3 months later, Covid-19 would “shake things up,” cause everyone to “enkindle their nest,” “inspire the mind,” “hacking this,” and ultimately “transforming our world.”
I don’t know about you, but whatever plans I had for 2019 went out the window.
The stock market crashed, and the quarantines went into effect.
All of my vacations were canceled. All of my comedy gigs vanished. My client base dwindled.
Life was changing fast, and I could be ahead of the game or behind it.
Choices had to be made…and quickly!
I decided to close down my office of 1.5 years and move operations to my house. I let go of my part-time assistant who did my marketing and website design. I sold my office furniture and bedroom furniture and fixed up my spare bedroom for business. I learned how to design a website, and then proceeded to design 9 more. I set a goal for myself of attending 200 dance classes at Hip Expressions in 2020. I studied belly dancing, tap dancing, burlesque, and even took a sexy chair dance class! I ended the year with at least 270 classes under my belt and 30 lbs lost. I earned my White Belt with an exercise I practice called Nia.
I saw Covid-19 as an opportunity to scale down and work on myself. And it worked! Business began picking back up in September, and somehow, 2020 ended up being my best year ever!
Covid-19, has horrible as this experience was for everyone, pushed me to be better.
Yesterday, I walked into Hip Expressions on the first Sunday of 2021 and did my second “vision board.” I did two of them, pictured below.
This time, instead of looking through 50 magazines like last year, I found one magazine that had all the words I needed, and some pictures too. I didn’t spend as much time laying out the pictures and words as last year, I slapped down my words and pictures and just trusted they;d be in the right place. I didn’t give a damn about perfect placement. A year ago - perfect placement mattered. Perfect pictures and phrases mattered. I now see my priorities have changed. Get it done, and do more with much less. I saw the word “mindful” as “mind full.”
I especially like the picture of the ladder reaching into the clouds (pictured below, upper right corner). In 2019, I would have torn through 100s of magazines to find a picture of an expensive lift truck or elevator so I could reach that very same cloud. This year? A ladder is sufficient. Provide for me the means to make it happen, and I will power myself through.
Challenge: create a vision board for yourself. Cut and paste pictures, words, and phrases from magazines that speak to you. When you’re done, study it for a second. What do you notice about the pictures you chose? What do you notice about yourself?
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