Creating a Vision BOOK!
/Think New Year’s Eve…2019 soon approaching….a brand new year!
When the clock strikes midnight and the new year is upon us, I don’t know about you, but I start dreaming…
What MAGICAL moments does the year ahead hold?
What BIG goals do I want to accomplish?
What can I do to make this the BEST year-to-date?
The last couple years, I have been using New Year’s Day to map out the year ahead and physically write out my goals for the year. Usually by this point, many ideas have been swarming my mind. I need to get them on paper before they escape me!
This year, the only difference is I waited until the weekend to do this. Social media reminded me “there’s nothing special about January 1st”…and let’s be honest, I was running around Indy that day, picking up a car on the North side and prepping for the Whole30 Justin and I were starting the following day.
That Saturday (January 5th), I woke up and knew today was the day! I had the whole weekend to dream + focus on my goals for the year. When I stretched my arms and rose from bed, I noticed the journal my brother gifted me for Christmas laying on my desk. “Hmmm…I thought! A blank start. A fresh beginning.”
I opened the first page of the “Funemployed” notebook and said to J, “Hey babe, pick 3 colors!” He responded: blue, green and orange. I grabbed those Flair pen colors and almost instantly wrote 12 visions I have for 2019. It’s like they were brewing for awhile…because my hand kept writing without stopping. It was SO nice to have these thoughts out of my noggin’ and on paper.
Later that day, I thought to myself, “What’s going to keep me motivated to work toward these aspirations?” The summer before, I created a vision board on a blank canvas. It was not only therapeutic to make, but it served as a reminder of the person I was trying to become. I decided: I’m going to make another vision board for my new goals! I can hang it up and see it everyday to remind me where I am going!
I went to my #CraftCloset to see what materials I had to work with. While inside, I found a square cork board (PERFECT, I thought) and a TON of random magazines I saved from the last couple years. BINGO! I grabbed a pair of scissors and got to cutting!
For Christmas, Justin and I got a King size bed, so we moved the Queen size bed into my “old office” AKA the “new guest room”. But I keep using it as my office with the bed being my desk ;) I started flipping through the magazines, cutting things out that made my heart happy and making piles all over the bed! Each pile relating to a goal from my book.
After hours…and I mean HOURS and HOURS of flipping + cutting, it was time to get these cutouts onto the cork board! I had grabbed a bag of push pins and was going to begin “tacking” them on the cork board, but OMGSH there was WAY too many to fit. The struggle was real!
Hmmm…..
Do I abandoned the idea?! (Psh, no!)
Do I find a GIANT corkboard instead? (That sounded like a bunch of $$$ dollar signs…)
Oooo! Wait!
Laying right next to me was the notebook I had wrote my 12 goals in. Originally, I was going to fill the remaining pages by WRITING the same goals down, everyday for the next year. (Rachel Hollis taught me to write down your goals, as if they have already happened, every single day….to keep them fresh in your mind!)
But….what if I used this space to fill the pages with VISUAL reminders of my goals + the person I am striving to be + the things I want to do this year?!? And then instead of writing down the goals, I could flip through it to be inspired and reminded. I absolutely LOVED the new idea!
A VISION BOOK!
…I called it! It would be the best book I read all year ;)
When my mind shifted from vision board to vision book, I put the push pins away, grabbed my glue sticks and got to pasting!
I thought of my vision book as a giant puzzle. I had the pieces…now I just needed to “put it together.”
Let me tell you…this process took weeks! My “100 piece puzzle” soon turned into a “250 piece puzzle” and then a “500 piece puzzle” and finally landed at 1,000+ PIECES!
I didn’t finish my Vision Book until the middle of February (nearly a month later, and I worked on it almost every day).. But in reality, I don’t think I wanted it to end.
I could have easily stopped when the page was “somewhat full” but I kept wanting to add more, more, more! That meant…. more magazines!
My first magazine venture: Justin and I visited Barnes & Noble to get a couple new books. Before leaving the bookstore, I swung by the magazine rack and grabbed two magazines off the shelves. Surely this would be enough!
Nope. Haha. I devoured those magazines in one evening! So the next day, I went to Goodwill to get more. If I was going to buy a lot more magazines, I would not be paying full price for them!
I’m pretty sure I kept Goodwill in business for those next few weeks. When I ran out of magazines at home, I went out to buy more.
You guys know what….if you go to Goodwill enough times, you’ll probably stumble upon a magazine holder for all the magazines you just purchased. LOL. I meant, look how happy I am about this spectacular find. Seriously, a kid in a candy shop.
When I began putting the pages together, I “guess-timated” where all the pages would fall in the book. I kept the order of my goals that I originally wrote down. But there was a lot of guess-work involved.
One afternoon, I thought, “I need tabs!” So I made tabs! That way I could easily find a section and flip right to it. All I needed was a bunch of colorful paper, a sharpie, scissors and some packing tape to “laminate” them.
Tabs were created and then I kept cutting / pasting!
There were a couple times when I “miscalculated” the # of pages I needed for each section, or the page placement was off, so I had to take each page out and rebind the book. But that’s what I really liked about having a SPIRAL bound notebook. It was easy (though a little time consuming) to do!
Even though the book took me more than a month to create, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire process. It was my way to relax. It gave me a space to get creative! And I didn’t know it when I started, but after my Grandma passed away on January 9th, it gave me a place to grieve. Several pages in the book are dedicated to her <3
Finally on February 10th…my Vision Book was COMPLETE!
150 pages of inspiration had been made with love! Since my birthday was February 9th, I like to think of it as my birthday gift to myself :)
Since the completion of my Vision Book, I have really enjoyed going back every week, and re-reading it. The pages get me so excited! They remind me why I set the goals in the first place. Words are great, but sometimes you need photos to help remind you. At least, that’s what I’ve always said (AKA why I take so many dang photos on my iPhone! LOL. They help me remember!)
Now…I’m off to tackle my goals! One of which can already be crossed off :)
#12 - Launch “A Day in the Life”
If it wasn’t for this vision book, #ADayInTheLife would probably still be in my head. This book inspired me to quit waiting around, and make the dang thing happen already :) I gave my blog a complete makeover and wrote my “first” post under the new branding!
Movement is being made as a result of my Vision Book! It’s really working!!! As the year progresses, I am excited to see the pages in my book come to life! It’s quite the feeling!
XOXO
To create YOUR very own VISION BOOK…
Here’s a step-by-step HOW TO:
Step 1: Set Your Goal(s)
Step 2: Cut out pictures / words from old magazines that relate to your goal(s)
Step 3: Find yourself a nice, blank journal!
Step 4: Create tabs to separate each goal (optional)
Step 5: Puzzle + Paste your clippings
Step 6: Repeat (as needed) - AKA buy more magazines!
Step 7: Reorganize pages (if needed)
*Note: This works best with a SPIRAL notebook.
Step 8: Enjoy your vision book!
Read it often and let it motivate you to make your DREAMS come REALITY!
I’d absolutely LOVE to see your Vision Book!
Feel free to tag me on social @ashleynnoga to share your completed book!
