How to Create Your Ideal Life Vision
Reading Time: 3 minutes How to Create Your Ideal Life Vision
February is the month of love. Usually this is interpreted as romantic love…after all, it is the host of Sweetheart’s Day.
However, I chose to look at this February from a perspective of self love and kindness.
I am a passionate person. I care about a lot of people and have a cause that is very near and dear to my heart. Because of this, I work hard. Sometimes it is easy to forget grace towards the self.
Here is something I have discovered that helps me to be kinder to myself:
Many people like vision boards. True Confession: I do not. I like the idea. I do believe that you need to have a dream to look forward to. Whether it is a vacation in the summer, visiting friends from out of town, or something else altogether, we all need something that we can dream about to get us through difficult and monotonous days.
I have found a system I love called the Ideal Life Vision. You start by dividing your life into specific sections like: relationships, finances, business/work, spiritual, health, etc. You can choose whatever sections you want. Then for each section, you take some time to say what the ideal looks like (using the present tense).
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My business section was split into two (author and non-profit) and was six pages. You want to really put a lot of thought into it!
The key is that you want to focus on actions that you are doing, not that other people are doing. You want to focus on what you personally have control over.
You may have heard of something similar before. What makes this so different is that you then record yourself reading your vision. Then, for the icing on the cake, you put your recording over a background of baroque style music (lots of evidence on 60bpm and brain waves).
Why record your voice? You are your biggest critic. You are in your head 24/7 telling yourself what you can’t do, what you did wrong, how you don’t measure up, etc. Now you are going to listen to you, every day, telling yourself about how you are living this amazing life. You are living your definition of a successful and happy life, one that your children can seen as a positive example.
I have had to re-record my Ideal Life Vision twice and am getting ready to do it a third time. I have had to do this because I realized that my ideal vision had become my reality and I needed to create a new ideal to aspire to!
I’d like to add a note here about meditation as well. I have read a lot of research about the health benefits of meditation, but I had trouble doing it myself. So I put in my vision for health that every day I reward myself with a calm time in the afternoons and a 10 minute meditation. And now I actually look forward to that time! I look at it as a reward for doing all of my other work. Before, I looked at meditation as a “should but can’t.” It is amazing how just hearing my own voice talking about this as a reward made me actually look forward to it!
Here are some of my favorite meditation sites:
fragrantheart.com
selfcompassion.org
audiodharma.org
I hope that this February has you thinking of a special way to bring yourself love and grace.
How will you fill your cup with love?
-Kara a.k.a. Epic Engineer
How to Create Your Ideal Life Vision by www.funwhystories.com