“Be bold envision yourself living a life that you love.”
Suzan-Lori Parks
If the last couple of years has taught us anything, it is that we are resilient and resourceful. As women, it's always been up to us to rewrite the story as we are living it. It could have been as simple as substituting ingredients when the pantry lacked what the recipe required. Or, all the way to as complicated as finding new ways to create a quiet space in a crowded household to conduct the business of life during a pandemic.
The promise of new birth in the spring offers us the hope of rebirth our attitude. To accompany that promise, I'm suggesting you design a vision of encouragement for yourself. As in the quote above, imagine yourself a year from now living a bold new life.
Yes, I realize that you may routinely begin the year with a vision board, new business plan, or another form of annual mapping of the next 365 days. And you may be one who does stick to their New Year's Resolutions.
If this is you, bravo! Congratulations to you! And I’d love to know your tricks for staying on track. Let’s talk later.
However, statistically speaking, by this time, many have given up on their promises to lose 50 pounds, earn 150K, buy a vacation villa in Tuscany, or marry the partner of their dreams.
I believe all of those aspirations can be achieved with the right strategy and definitely over a specific periods of time. However, I think those declarations sound more like examples of setting yourself up for failure than having a bold vision.
The idea I'm proposing here is for you to design a bold vision for yourself. And if you know me, the first thing I’m going to invite you to do is to make a list of all of your larger-than-life dreams. Perhaps you want to get into better shape and release some extra weight. Maybe you want to finish your degree. Or, since you've been watching YouTube videos and reading about exotic parts of the world, you want to plan a great escape to somewhere off the beaten path. These are all wonderful. The next step would be to choose which one calls to you the most, make that one your priority, and start there to transform that vision into your reality.
When I decided to go back to school to get my degree, I first had to fill out an application for the fall quarter. I had one year of junior college and knew that some credits would transfer to the university. However, except for the one Composition class I took as an elective, none of the business classes required for the One Year Secretarial Certificate transferred. So essentially, I was starting from scratch. I was determined to finish in four years and I did. I thoroughly enjoyed my college experience as a 30-something college student, holding down a part-time secretarial job on campus, including attending a quarter abroad in London, and living in the suburbs with my husband of 7 years.
My strategy to achieve my degree goal was to focus on my big vision for the future and then list how I'd accomplish that vision in small manageable steps. I wanted to be a college graduate pursuing a career using my writing skills and at the same time be a great mom and wife. I've seen myself as a writer since I was an 11-year-old documenting who I thought was cute on TV last night. I even pictured myself being a guest on Johnny Carson's Tonight show couch. Not so for others in my life. A college degree would prove to the world and to me that I earned the right to call myself a writer.
Oh, and the other part of the vision for the future is about being a mom. I'd always wanted to get a college degree. The timing of going to school at 30 coincided with the reality that we were trying to start a family. The infertility tests were inconclusive. I took the doctor's suggestion to put my focus somewhere else and quit my secretarial job so that I could go to school full-time. I put myself in a totally new environment and not the same people who knew how much I wanted to have a family.
I had a big vision of me receiving my degree, and the small manageable steps were showing up for class and doing the homework for the class each day. If the course was challenging (like Statistics), I did not panic about how many more sessions I had to attend or papers I had to write. I showed up for the small tasks as I worked towards my big vision.
Happily, my dream has become a reality. The picture accompanying this piece is of our daughter and me at my graduation ceremony. While my dream of being interviewed by Johnny Carson is out of reach, I am making a difference using my writing skills. I'm very much loving my life as a mom and wife. And I'm getting the hang of being a doting NaNa as well.
Whatever you choose to pursue as your bold vision, writing it down is a first step to making it a reality. Seeing yourself accomplishing that vision of your future self is an exercise I’d suggest you do several times on your journey to bringing your vision to reality. And celebrating the fact you did what you set out to do.
My wish for you is that as you spring forward, you unleash your bold life powerfully with purpose.
Unleash Your Bold Life
RHG MagazineTM - March 2022 © All rights reserved.