Mesmerize
There are those who know early on what they want in life. They know they want to be – president, CEO, beauty queen, housewife.
I did not.
And I looked at those people with awe. It seemed to be the right way to be and so when I was a child I had to force myself to choose to be something (newscaster), not knowing that life can take me to different, more exciting destinations and that it is okay and that it is possible to be many things.
But just between the two of us, asking a child to be what he wants to be – I think this is a dangerous question. It is okay when he knows what he wants with certainty (which is more the exception than the rule because a child would have limited experiences and so would have limited choices) but it is not okay when it fosters doubt in a child (do I know what I want to be? why don’t I know what I want to be? is there something wrong with me?) or gives power to the parents who force the child to fill his head with what they want (many sad stories here).
Because whether people like it or not, dreaming will come, thoughts of what they want to be, and what they want to have, will come. In due time.
But when the visions come, when the desire strikes, what does one do?
Some authors swear by these steps.
The Vision Board
A vision board is a picture (depiction, representation) or collage of your mental image of the things that you want to have, be, or do in your life. People draw or cut up (from colored magazines) or print from websites photos of their dream house, dream vacation, dream family, dream money, dream body (i almost chuckled when I heard this but I am now close to doing it). They get all these images (which must evoke a positive emotion from them) and arrange it on a foam board, hang that form board and allow it to fill up a portion of a wall in their inner sanctum (a bedroom, perhaps), a portion of their lives and their everyday thoughts.
The book The Secret told of the story of one man who created his vision board, put his heart into it, grew up, allowed life to intervene, and forgot all about his vision board. Many years after, as he and his family moved to a new house, he saw his son unpack one of the boxes. The son took something out and it was his vision board! He could not believe it – they were in the exact same house that he dreamed of, a long time ago – it was there on his vision board.
Impossible? Possible.
Christine Kane shares in her blog how to make a vision board (you can read it here).
Creative Visualization
This is said to be “the practice of seeking to affect the outer world via changing one’s thoughts, and the basic technique underlying positive thinking” (Wikipedia). Daydreaming, fantasizing, mental rehearsals, and imagination are some ways that creative visualization is done.
Some athletes practice this technique. Without running the track, they would imagine how they would run in their minds. For some reason, those who did this perform better than those who beat up their bodies practicing.
Others are more creative.
Jim Carrey, they say, wrote a check to himself to forge his dream. He wrote “$10,000 payable to Jim Carrey”. He put in on the ceiling so that it will be the first thing he sees when he wakes up and the last thing he sees before he sleeps. He put a similar check in his wallet and he would drive to Mulholland Drive, park his beat-up car, bring out the check and stare at it. He was a struggling, scraggly comedian then and no one knew him and no one was laughing at his antics. But you know how his story ends (or begins).
My husband did something similar when he wanted to win a particular truck, from a raffle, of all things. He got as many raffle tickets as he can, encircled the car, put the words “Mine!” and magnetized the ticket to the ref, pinned it to his reminder board in the office (his employees are witness!), and we would look at trucks too (he would make goo goo eyes at them and will not want to leave) and bought more groceries that gave us more raffle tickets. He did not win the car and he was very frustrated. I told him that time does not exist in the Universe, that the Universe does not want to be bound by our deadlines, and that he will get it.
He will get it.
Bo Sanchez and I – we use the power of the written word. But more on this in the next post.
Be rich,
Issa
Article by Issa. Art by D. Copyright 2009.
Website: www.YouWantToBeRich.com
Email: issa@youwanttoberich.com
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Where do you get the pictures for ur postings?
Hi Koh! The paintings and photos were by my husband. He is an artist – and he has exhibited locally and abroad. I am very proud of him and his art (as you can see, he is everywhere in my blog) 🙂
Wow!! very impressive.. can i take a look at his gallery online if there’s any..
@Koh Thank you for the appreciation – hubby loves it. You can check out his art work at his website. He did all the paintings and illustrations in my blog and took the photos too. I am sure he will be happy to do the same for you or your website. You can email him privately at danvic.briones@gmail.com.
Yes! Awesome idea. I made TWO smaller (more manageable!) vision boards – one for my office and one for home. I found that using more pictures and less words worked the best for me. I’m also going to try to ‘change the landscape’ of the boards from time-to-time to keep them fresh.
For extra inspiration I went for some good-looking cork boards with custom frames on them. FWIW, I picked them out online at http://www.wholesalecustomframe.com/ . I’m sure there are other places as well, but this place was pretty cheap.
@CV Oh! Oh! I like! I like! I checked it out and yes, the cork boards were very affordable. I wonder if they ship overseas…? I am starting to think of how my board would look too, because more than doing something with my hands, I write (well, that uses hands too…). Good idea too, doing 2 boards… Thanks for visiting. Let me know how it goes with you and your board (I am sure you will get all you put there and more). As for me, I should really start my vision board (and writing that check)…
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Thanks! But yes, you have to sign up with Digg first.
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