What I learnt from my dogs!
February 16, 2017
Creative visioning and goal setting: Visualise your Future
May 8, 2017
New Year, January 2017 – the traditional time for us all to set out our Resolutions for the year, to itemise the things we will stop doing and to list those we want to do instead. I have never been one for New Year’s Resolutions myself – they always seemed a bit of a hostage to fortune; something too easily broken, forcing ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’ into my mind.
I have, however, discovered the potential that Visioning has to create an altogether more positive and achievable collection of aspirations and hopes for the future. Here’s how I know…
In 2013 I took part in Springboard, a supporting, coaching environment for women in leadership and management roles. One of the many ways in which the facilitator encouraged us to understand our own minds better was to imagine we were standing all together again at some time in the future. We were to write on a post-it note how we wanted to be introduced to someone we were meeting for the first time. Here’s what I wrote:
This is Sarah, she enjoyes her life outside of work, dancing, walking her dog and seeing family and friends. She works in a creative, mentoring, supporting role and changed her life.
At the time, it seemed perhaps wishful thinking, not necessarily achievable but it came from the heart. And with that statement in my Springboard book (and having heard my Springboard buddy introduce me with exactly those words) that vision was lodged in my mind.
And now, nearly 4 years on? Here I am, The Authentic Spark, enjoying a new, fulfilling, supportive, creative role in coaching, and mentoring and training! I have a dog, in fact I have two, because my husband and I found a way to make it work so that we could enjoy what dogs bring to our lives. And outside of work, I have a network of friends – those from home who I reconnected with virtually on Facebook, those I have met here through dog walking, through Springboard and through just being more truly myself. I did change my life – and embraced that change.
And the dancing? Well, I did do a little and I’m always still on the look-out for opportunities to do more … so if you’re asking; I’m dancing!
I can recommend this Ted talk about Drawing your Future if you want to try on your vision for size too… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zESeeaFDVSw
