Reaching Personal Fulfillment

In January of this year, I hosted a Vision Board workshop in my home town. We started the workshop off with some guided yoga and meditation, then jumped into action making a vision board for the year. 

If you’ve never made a vision board, you should consider it!

There is an enormous amount of research that shows that the body will follow the mind. If you tell yourself that you are terrible at something, the likelihood of getting really good at that activity is much lower. 

It’s the same with your eyes. If you constantly see negative statements or images (hello news!), your mind will perceive things in a much more negative way. 

Fortunately, the opposite is also true. If you get into the habit of telling yourself that you are good at something, or surround yourself with positive images, you increase your likelihood of those positive things happening. 

This is where the vision board can become very helpful. 

There is no right or wrong way to create a vision board, but the idea behind them is to create a visual cue.. Something that you can see often that will spark motivation, inspiration, and positivity! 

This can be something as simple as a bulletin board with images pinned to it that inspire you, or as complicated as a 3 dimensional object that you create using paper mache!  

The main point is that your vision board is full of uplifting images and is placed in an area of your house or office that you see regularly (ideally, multiple times per day). When you get into the habit of looking at this vision on a regular basis, your mind will start to drive you in that direction. 

Since I already wrote an entire blog post on vision boards before (which you can check out here if you’d like!), I’m not going into the ins and outs of vision board creation. Instead, I want to use the concept we used in the workshop to help you RIGHT NOW with finding more balance in your life. Because I think given our current circumstances, we can all use a little more of that, right?

When I lead clients through creating a vision, we use the concept of the Wheel of Life. The Wheel of Life is a visual representation of all areas of your life.

Usually this is represented by a circle that has been cut into slices, each of which represents a different area of your life. For example, work is one slice, hobbies are another, and relationships are yet another. 

You then take a look at each slice, or area of life, and give them a score based on how satisfied you are currently with each one as well as where you’d like each one to be.  This allows you to understand what areas of your life are in need of some attention and what the gaps are between where you are and where you want to be.

This exercise may seem silly but once you have a visual display of the current realities of your life, it’s like something clicks!  And you are now better equipped to create a plan to achieve it! 

The entire goal of this, and the vision board in general, is to create a life of balance. It’s very easy for many of us to become ultra focused on one area of our life while neglecting others, despite wanting those other areas to be fulfilled.

This type of behavior can lead to unhappiness and frustration, especially in times like these when certain parts of our lives have been changed (or taken away) against our desire. 

For example, instead of getting mad that our gym is closed and we can’t take our favorite spin class right now, we can look at other areas of our Wheel of Life that could use a little more attention right now. 

Eventually, the gym will reopen and you can recommit to your spin class. But for now, what other areas can you give some attention to that can help you achieve your overall vision and obtain more life balance?  Because, the reality is, life will always throw us curve balls! It’s okay, and necessary, to pivot and adjust as necessary. THAT is what the Wheel of Life can help us do!

Common Life Categories to Consider

Personal Development- which includes things like your life's purpose, learning, spirituality, health and fitness. Have you ever wanted to learn a new language? Maybe now is the time!

Career- which includes areas like your business life, work environment and finances. Does your current career path provide fulfillment? Do you wake up and love to go to work? Does your career provide you with the financial freedom to live the life you want to live? If not, now is a great time to explore ways you can make some changes. 

Relationships- which includes things like your marriage, love, friendship, family, and can also include spiritual relationships. These things take work! If you find that you are less satisfied than you would like to be with any of your relationships, how can you change that to make them more fulfilling?

Social Life- We are social creatures and we were made to interact with one another. So this area can include things like volunteering, community, environment, mentoring, having fun and possibly your hobbies if they involve a group. 

The important thing when you sit down to create your own personal Wheel of Life is to create a wheel that includes categories that are most important to YOU. Be sure to include all aspects of your life, including your strengths and the areas that you already know could use a little focus. 

As humans, we oftentimes tend to focus on our strengths, and neglect areas that we know we aren’t as great at. This can be fine with some things in life (aka- working with a team where all members are focused on their strengths but other team members are strong in areas we are not), but this can leave your basic human needs unbalanced. 

For example, you may be a family woman/man! You prioritize the needs of your friends and family and make sure they are happy, healthy and thriving (all part of the relationships category). However, you will drop any plans you have for yourself to work out, or sit down to eat a nutritious meal, or take time to read or do your favorite craft (all part of the personal development category), all to make sure your families needs are being met first. 

Creating your own personal Wheel of Life and honestly answering each category independent of the others can really help shine some light on imbalances in your life's basic human needs. Once you can visually see this, these areas can be brought into the conscious mind and a plan can be created on making some changes. Take the time to create 2-3 action items that you can do for each category to find better balance. If you are ready to take this to the next level, find images in magazines, online, or in catalogs that depict these action items and put them onto a vision board. 

It is VERY COMMON to have certain areas of our life be more dominant at certain times, so don’t get discouraged if your Wheel of Life is not currently balanced. I personally had a major shift when the gyms closed and the shelter in place was put into effect. My primary focus on health and fitness shifted. This allowed me the opportunity to revisit my Wheel of Life and see what areas had been pushed to the background and spend a little more time on those. You can do the same thing! 

The Wheel of Life can and should be revisited regularly. By doing so, you give yourself a chance to explore whether or not you are living in alignment with your values and beliefs.  It also gives you the opportunity to be kind to yourself when different seasons of life cause you to shift focus unexpectedly!

So what are some areas of your life that could use a little TLC right now? Or, what areas of your life do you want to give more attention to that you have been neglecting?

If you don’t already have a Wheel of Life to work off of, you can download one HERE for free. Once you complete it, if you feel stuck with your action items on how to spend your time to be most effective in each area, reach out to me! Many times creative ideas can be developed in a short, free discovery call!