At the beginning of the year my sister-in-law suggested we all create vision boards. “Great idea” I thought! And so, for a couple of hours in the afternoon of New Year’s Day we all went a few years back to our childhoods and cut pictures out of magazines and stuck them on our own A3 pages. I did not really know what I wanted and as I saw pictures that caught my eye I would cut them out, not sticking them on the board immediately. Once I had been through all the magazines I looked at the cut-outs and carefully selected what would go on my board. “Oh, this is a good idea” or “Ooohhh that’s cool too” I would think (or say out loud – I tend to talk to myself too) as I stuck the pictures on the board. My aim moved from visions for the year to ensuring that there were no blank spaces gaping out at me so I stuck and stuck and stuck…

The vision board was stuck on a wall in the bedroom with the idea that it would be the first item I saw every morning and the last item I saw every evening. It would remind me of my goals and of what I wanted for the year ahead of me.

Now, almost 9 months later, I keep wondering why instead of appreciating my vision board I would try and avoid it. Is it because it is so cluttered and all I want to do is reorganise everything on the board? Is it because I probably have not even accomplished half of what was on there? Or maybe it’s because I truly do not know why I ended up sticking most of the pictures on the board?

I know the surface-reason – the “I am sticking a picture of a big kitchen because it’s nice to have a big kitchen” for all the pictures but I do not truly know or remember the deeper reasoning. I cannot answer “why of the why” or rather “but why” questions.

And maybe it’s also because I stuck everything all at once. There was no “I should pace myself” or “let’s have three main goals this year” – it was a simple “I am going through all the magazines to cut out pictures that appeal to me”. At this point I could easily blame having a hangover (given it was New Year’s Day) however that was definitely not the reason (I promise).

I knew the “how” and “what” but not the “why” and this is probably where it all went wrong.

I am learning every day that even though the “how” and “what” is just as important as the “why” it may make more sense to ask the “why” first. For most individuals this may sound obvious (and it probably is) but to a person who wants to have solutions A.S.A.P. to ensure the problems disappear it is not that easy.
We need to accept at times that it is okay to take our time to answer the “why” and to focus on one or two (okay, maybe three, four and five but that’s it!) goals for a year. This is probably going to more fulfilling in the long term (And maybe that’s a goal within a goal).

So, was my vision board a waste of my time? No. It may have taken 9 months to get to this realisation but it has allowed me to understand the point of it and to have more focus on what I will be doing next New Year’s.

So in reality I am three months ahead on ideas for next year!

So now I pose this to you: Have you done a vision board? What would you put on there for goals for the year ahead? Would you understand the “why”?