Vision Boards (Positivity Exercise)

During the Fall, I made some vision boards after getting out of the hospital. I did this because I felt a bit lost when it came to what I wanted to do with my life. I'm a visual person and I had made a vision board before so I decided to make one to help me visualize and figure out my plans for the future. My first vision board ever was made at a vision board workshop at a local library and it was made on a large bristol board but I felt that it was too big. The whole point of a vision board is to glue words and pictures of things that you want in your life into a sort of collage and then place it somewhere where you will see it all the time so that the words and images will make their way into your mind. Hopefully they create a constant unnoticeable reminder in your head of what you want to manifest and eventually it will happen because you make it happen. My large vision board seemed too overwhelming. There were way too many pictures and words for my mind to take in.

This Fall, after playing around a bit with some words and pictures from magazines on a normal size piece of paper (around 8"x11"), I realized that a smaller vision board was much better. There were fewer words and pictures so it was easier for my mind to focus on them and remember them and it was also easier to narrow down exactly what I wanted from each vision board while being more artistic with the arrangements of the cut-outs at the same time. Also, I could play around with the words more and arrange them in a way so that they all flowed with each other when read in order. I made a total of three vision boards and I put them in plain frames without borders that you would normally use to display certificates. I'll talk about each vision board in more detail in this post.

My "What do I want to do with my life?" vision board:

This was the first vision board that I made out of the total of three vision boards. I wanted to create a vision board that would get me thinking in a more positive way about figuring out what I want to do in my life rather than stressing out about it all the time. I chose empowering images like that of a girl with a smile on her face and her arms in the air in a sign of success as well as that of Wonder Woman. Another image, which happens to be the biggest picture on the board, is that of a woman with her hands on a traditional image of a heart that is on her chest. I chose this image because the things that I really want to do in my life are things that I'm passionate about and I felt that this image was a good symbol for our passions. The words have to do with there being possibilities out there and how I can do what I really want and love to do. Just for fun, I covered the entire vision board in glitter glue (which is a bit difficult to see in the photo) to remind myself to have fun while exploring my interests.

My "Stress Less" vision board:

I created this vision board to focus more on keeping my mind relaxed and less stressed. The images are of activities that I love that are also relaxing and help with relaxation like meditation, yoga, and hiking outdoors. The words are reassuring and encouraging.

My "Creativity" vision board:

This vision board is all about art and creativity. I am a very creative person but I feel like I'm not focusing on the arts and creativity that I love as much as I'd like so I pasted a bunch of images of arts that I love like crafts, drawing and painting, writing, music, and photography. I also added words that are connected to creativity and at the bottom I put a little inspirational sentence about being original when it comes to art.


Those are the vision boards that I made and I'm really happy with them! I feel like I really improved since the first time I made one and really focused on exactly what I wanted to get out of these vision boards.

Cheers,
Kaylie

My Box Of Places That I Want To Go To

In the movie Eat, Pray, Love, Liz's friend is going to have a baby and shows Liz a box of baby things that she has been keeping under the bed. She has been wanting a baby for a while so this was her way of hoping and preparing for one. Liz states that she also has a box under her bed, but that hers is filled with things for the places that she wants to travel to. It's a bit different in the book: Liz's friend still has a box of baby things but Liz describes the excitement she had when the magazine that she worked for told her that they were going to send her on a writing assignment to New Zealand. For this post, the movie's version of the scene is the one that's important.

I watched the movie a few years ago and that scene is one that I always remember. The box of travel things is basically like a vision board, except for the fact that you should be able to actually see your vision board all the time. I have many places that I want to travel to, so I thought that it would be fun to make my own box of places that I want to go to. I decided to just find a box that I had that was big enough and fill it with free travel brochures, travel guides, travel booklets, travel magazines, travel maps, etc. that I could order online. As each of these arrive at my house, I place them in the box.

I now have something that I can physically take out and look at. I can peruse the information and learn more about the places that I want to travel to someday. When I'm thinking of where I want to go next, I have all sorts of options already waiting for me and I have information already at my fingertips to start planning the trips. So far, I have travel material for Newfoundland, Alaska, New Orleans, Hawaii, California, New York State, and Austria. There are many other places that I want to travel to so I'm still working on adding all of them to my box.

This activity can be done for anything that you want to do in the future (just like Liz's friend's box was for the baby that she wanted to have). The possibilities for this activity are endless! Choose a box that you like whether it is a box that you already have or a box that you buy, and fill it with things that have to do with whatever it is that you want or want to do in the future. I recommend putting your box somewhere where you will see it all of the time and make sure to open it up and look through it often to remind you of what it is that you want.

Cheers,
Kay

The Road Not Taken

Lately, I've been thinking about all of the things that I want to do. Things that I want to do now. Things that I want to do in the future. What I want to do with my life. That actually brings up something that I've been working on: figuring out what I want to do with my life. What direction do I want to go in? Which path, or road, do I want to take? Maybe I should just pave my own road?

This always makes me think of "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, a poem that most people know. The last few lines of the poem are surely the most well known: "Two roads diverged in a wood and I,-/ I took the one less traveled by,/ And that has made all the difference." As a person, I am very... different. I was going to say weird but I'll just go with "different." I have known for a long time that I am going to travel down a different road from other people. I want to take the road less traveled. I'm fine with doing that. I'm not afraid. I just don't know what kind of road it is. I'm still figuring it out. I'm still figuring out my life. And that's okay. I'm young. I have my whole life ahead of me. I still have so much time. I still have so many options to explore. Sometimes it feels like there is so much pressure to figure out our whole lives when we are young but that's just way too difficult. We need more time. We need more experiences. We need to explore more of life.

I create my life. People can influence it, but I ultimately create it. I choose what I want my life to be. I can choose to decide now or I can choose to take my time. Some people decide quickly and others take more time. And that's okay. Some people know deep down what they want to do with their lives and others need to explore. I have so many things that I love to do and I'm trying to explore them and figure out how to fit all of them in my life. Which things will I turn into my career? Which things will I turn into my passions? Which things will I turn into my hobbies for when I just want to relax a bit?

Whatever I choose, I can indeed choose to travel down the road less traveled. I can even pave that road, therefore making myself the first person to travel down that road. I can create that road and see where it leads me. Maybe others will be willing to come along with me or at least encourage me along the way. Some people may wonder where I'm going or some may see exactly where I'm headed, because they too know what it's like to travel down these kinds of roads. No matter what, I don't think that anything is set in stone. Roads can change. But I shouldn't worry about that yet. I still have to figure out in which direction I'm going so that I can find my road, or find out where I'm going to build it.

Cheers,
Kay