Allowing yourself the luxury of dreaming of an ideal future is one of the most exciting aspects of setting goals. For many of us, allowing our imaginations to run wild and dream BIG is difficult and in fact, for some it is downright uncomfortable. 

As children using our imaginations didn’t take a plan or effort, it just happened. As an adult most of us have trained ourselves to be practical, pragmatic and realistic. 

Adult dreams are now called “goals.” Goals are simply your hopes, dreams and plans written out on paper. Each goal begins with a vivid dream of what you want to achieve in the future. 

Here’s my step-by-step plan for turning dreams into reality: 

1. Decide what you want. Sounds simple enough but this may be the most difficult step of all. Dream BIG - stretch out of your comfort zone and go for what you really want to have, be and achieve. Spending the summer in a home on the ocean? Living in the mountains? Getting a college degree? Becoming a millionaire? What do you really want? 

2. Put your dream in writing. I know, it doesn’t sound very childlike to put your dream in writing but this is an important step toward achieving your goal. Make some quiet quality time for this activity. The key is to write your dream in as much vivid detail as possible. Close your eyes and picture your dream goal. Smell the smells, hear the sounds, see the details, feel the emotion and excitement of fully living your dream - make your dream become vibrantly alive on paper. 

3. Write an affirmation. An affirmation is a short present-tense statement stating your dream as if it is already reality. Keep your affirmation near so you can read it often throughout the day. Example: “I, Sharon Michaels, happily spend each June - September in my 1,500 square foot home on Lake Wobegone with family and friends.” As I write and repeat my affirmation, I feel the excitement and pleasure of being at my lake home for the summer.

4. Create a detailed visualization. Now you are making your dream into a mental motion picture. This is where you begin to truly tap into that child-like ability to dream of the future with no limitations on what can and cannot be accomplished. A visualization is about taking the vivid dream you created in activity #1 and making it come vividly to life. You may want to read your vivid description into a recorder - read and record with passion, excitement and enthusiasm. Now, get comfortable and close your eyes. Play back your recording and actually place yourself in the visualization - feel the ground, see the sky, hear the birds. Why is there power in visualizing? You are actually mentally and emotionally living out your dream as if it were already reality. 

5. Create a vision board. It is cut and paste time! A vision board takes steps 1 - 4 and gives them a tangible form. Begin collecting pictures, words, symbols and anything else that represents your dream. Purchase a foam poster board and begin pasting your dream on your vision board. A vision board is a tangible and visible representation of your dream. When it is finished, place it where you’ll see it often. 

Affirmations, visualizations and vision boards work together to ignite your inner motivators - the motivators that will keep you going if/when the going gets rough. 

6. Create a plan. This is where the rubber meets the road - where your realistic side combines with your child-like dream side. You’ll be writing a step-by-step plan for making your dream reality. With you dream on paper, in your visualization and on your vision board, it should be easy to form a plan of action. Start at the beginning and list all the steps it will take day-by-day, week-by-week and month-by-month to keep you going toward your future. A well thought out plan of action will keep you heading forward in positive and consistent ways. 

7. Believe in yourself and your dream! Feeling, believing and knowing that you are worthy and deserving of achieving and living your dream is vital to making your ideal future a reality. Your belief must to unshakeable and unstoppable. When your belief is strong and unwavering, you are emotionally protected from the dream stealers and naysayers. Your mental and emotional strength is extremely important to achieving and enjoying that dream you’ve created in your visualization. 

8. Take positive and consistent action. This last step is vital - without action, a dream is just a hope. Action takes your dream, turns it into a goal and helps it become reality. It’s your unwavering commitment to taking action that can make the difference between wishing for something to happen and making something happen. 

Everyday you’re making choices about your future. What have your choices been like lately? Are you choosing to allow yourself the luxury of dreaming BIG? I’ve learned to go for my dreams and why not, what do I have to lose!

Copyright © 2010 Sharon Michaels - All Rights Reserved

For over twenty years Sharon Michaels has been writing, speaking and empowering women to achieve greater personal and professional success. Sharon mentors/coaches women entrepreneurs about learning to recognize the things they’re doing that may be keeping them from the things they want.

Sign up for Sharon’s free weekly Ezine Unlimited Success For Women and have professional success strategies and personal development how-to’s sent directly to your email inbox.

If you’re ready to recognize what may be holding you back and to seriously build on your strengths and talents, you’re ready to coach with Sharon Michaels. “I believe you have the answers to your success inside of you right now, it is my job to ask the right questions. I ask great questions!” Here are details about Sharon’s coaching programs: http://www.sharonismymentor.com

You know I am a BIG believer in the power of vision boards - they help keep us focused on our inner motivators. It’s those powerful inner motivators that keep us going forward when the going gets tough.

I intereviewed Tess Hutchison recently for my Women Enjoying Success Talk Radio show. Tess conducts Vision Board workshops and has been using vision boards to manifest her goals for many years - enjoy the listen.

Wait for the playbox to appear and then click on the white arrow in the black circle to listen right now. Be sure to turn your speakers up.

Women Enjoying Success radio broadcasts are also available on iTunes.

Here’s a link to the Women Enjoying Success radio site: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Sharon-Michaels

Copyright © 2009 Sharon Michaels - All Rights Reserved

Subscribe to Sharon’s Ezine Unlimited Success For Women

I’m a believer that the bigger your hopes, dreams and goals - the bigger your results. 

Here are 3 reasons for dreaming BIG: 

1. Your inner motivators begin to take hold when you have something exciting and powerful you truly want to make a reality. 

I’ve been working on my new Vision Board (see the videos on this blog) and as I glued the words and pictures on it, I realized that I have some lofty goals.

I also realized I started to get pretty excited seeing my goals in pictures - pictures of things I want to become reality in my life. Now, when I think about sleeping in or watching a dumb program on TV, I go and take a look at my vision board. 

Here’s what I found from personal experience - the bigger and more emotionally charged you can make your emotional “why” - the more likely you’ll achieve your goals.

 2. When you have a purpose, you can powerfully focus your time and energy. 

Have you ever noticed that as you are getting ready to go on an exciting vacation you’re laser-beamed focused on what you want to get finished before you leave? You’re more organized, have well thought-out to-do lists and even seem to have more energy. 

That’s what dreaming BIG and having a goal can do for you. Going for your dreams should keep you laser-beamed focused on doing those useful things that will take you positively forward.

 3. Dreaming BIG helps you to look toward the future, positively. Dreams give you hope - the hope that things can be and will be bigger, brighter and better. 

Every one needs a BIG dream. Why? A BIG dream has the power to get us up in the morning to do those day-to-day things that take us positively toward the future. We have choices - we can choose not to have hope or we can choose to excitedly head toward the future.

My choice - to look at my vision board first thing in the morning and feel the hope for an exciting and BIG future!

Do you dream BIG? Please share your comments, tips and suggestions - we value your insight.

Copyright © 2009 Sharon Michaels - All Rights Reserved

For over twenty years Sharon Michaels has been writing, speaking and empowering women to achieve greater personal and professional success. Sharon mentors/coaches women entrepreneurs about learning to recognize the things they’re doing that may be keeping them from the things they want.

Sign up for Sharon’s free weekly Ezine Unlimited Success For Women and have professional success strategies and personal development how-to’s sent directly to your email inbox.

If you’re ready to recognize what may be holding you back and to seriously build on your strengths and talents, you’re ready to coach with Sharon Michaels. “I believe you have the answers to your success inside of you right now, it is my job to ask the right questions. I ask great questions!” Here are details about Sharon’s coaching programs: http://www.sharonismymentor.com

Thought I’d share one of my favorite Women Enjoying Success broadcasts. This one was recorded “live” on Sunday, May 31, 2009. 

My special guest, Amy Kaminski, has a powerful success story to tell!

Wallace Wattles talked about visualizing in 1910 - Napoleon Hill wrote about it in 1937 and Rhonda Byrne reminded us of its importance in the Secret. Just what is the Law of Attraction and does it really work? Join us as we discuss the Law of Attraction in action. It’s all about Women Enjoying Success!

An icon will appear and you can listen directly from this blog page -

Your Vision Board is a powerful success tool, especially when you can look at it regularly and actually see with your mind’s eye your goals becoming reality.

Watch my video and then take a look at some of the resources I’ve compiled for you - here’s to your success!

Here’s video 4 in our 4 part series on How To Create A Goals Vision Board:

Additional Resources -

** Computer Generated Vision Boards: 

I’d like to recommend a company called Visualize Your Goals/Orange Peel - I’ve used this company to make the vision board on my own computer for a couple of years - you can even add your favorite music. Here’s a direct link: Visualize Your Goals/Orange Peel

**Articles I’ve written about Vision Boards:

Why Create A Vision Board - A Vision Board is a powerful and effective way to formulate, articulate and clarify your goals. Vision Boards help to picture the who, what, where, why and how of setting and achieving your goals. There’s an unstoppable power of purpose that comes from clearly visualizing the future. Click here to read the entire article - http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art15387.asp

Vision Boards - Picturing Success - The human mind thinks in pictures. Everday we visualize the world as it is and how we perceive it to be. Vision Boards direct your mental motion pictures toward the positives in life. Think of a Vision Board as your personal storyboard of the wants and goals for the future. Click here to read the entire article - http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art52735.asp

** Books:

The Vision Board - The Secret To An Extraoridinary Life by Joyce Schwarz - This isn’t just another book about making a vision board; this is a textbook about using vision boards, mission statements, affirmations and visioning to live an extraordinary life.

This book is visually beautiful. Full color illustrations and photographs on every page. It’s also very reader friendly - room for notes, bullet points to help sort through the content, plenty of real-life success stories and well placed side bars of tips and quotations.

It really doesn’t matter if you are a novice or have been creating a vision board for years, this book is a must read. I highly recommend!!! Here’s a direct link to Amazon.com if you’d like to read more or to purchase this book:

Copyright © 2009 Sharon Michaels - All Rights Reserved

For over twenty years Sharon Michaels has been writing, speaking and empowering women to achieve greater personal and professional success. Sharon mentors women on learning to recognize the things they’re doing that may be keeping them from the things they want. Sign up for Sharon’s free weekly Ezine Unlimited Success For Women and have professional success strategies and personal development how-to’s sent directly to your email inbox.

You’ve decided on your goals, gathered your supplies, cut out some meaningful pictures and sayings - now it is time to let the fun begin!

Carve out a block of quiet time for yourself to gather all your vision board supplies in one location and to begin to arrange and assemble your board.

This is your time to bring your mental visualization to life with pctures, sayings, favorite quotations, photographs and whatever else will stir those powerful inner motivators into consistent action.

This is the creative cut and paste part of putting your goal setting and achieving plan into action — have fun and enjoy picturing your successful and dynamic future.

Here is video three in our four part How To Create A Goals Vision Board series:

**I’d like to recommend a company called Visualize Your Goals/Orange Peel - I’ve used this company to make the vision board on my own computer. Here’s a direct link: Visualize Your Goals/Orange Peel

Copyright © 2009 Sharon Michaels - All Rights Reserved

For over twenty years Sharon Michaels has been writing, speaking and empowering women to achieve greater personal and professional success. Sharon mentors women on learning to recognize the things they’re doing that may be keeping them from the things they want. Sign up for Sharon’s free weekly Ezine Unlimited Success For Women and have professional success strategies and personal development how-to’s sent directly to your email inbox.

Personally, I’m a visual. I like to see my goals in front of me as a powerful and motivational visual reminder of what I’m aiming toward. It’s something tangible I can hold in my hand and look at through out the day!

A vision board should contain those pictures, words, symbols that make you happy when you look at them and that also accurately represent your goals for an empowered future.

The attached video will suggest some of the supplies I use for my vision boards and why I use them.

Here is video two in our four part How To Create A Goals Vision Board series:

**I’d also like to recommend a company called Visualize Your Goals/Orange Peel - I’ve used this company to make the digital vision board on my own computer. I not only have a poster vision board but also a digital one. Here’s a direct link: Visualize Your Goals/Orange Peel

Here is a link to Amazon.com to the Pritt tape I recommended in the video - you can find this tape in most office supply stores also:

Copyright (c) 2009 Sharon Michaels - All Rights Reserved

For over twenty years Sharon Michaels has been writing, speaking and empowering women to achieve greater personal and professional success. Sharon mentors women on learning to recognize the things they’re doing that may be keeping them from the things they want. Sign up for Sharon’s free weekly Ezine Unlimited Success For Women and have professional success strategies and personal development how-to’s sent directly to your email inbox.

A Vision Board dedicated to your goals can be an effective tool for encouraging and maintaining your powerful inner motivators - those personal inner motivators that are essential to achieving goals.

Vision Boards are basically visual representations of your goals and future life. It’s a great tool for reinforcing your positive thoughts and goals for the future - your future as you want it to be.

I consider a Vision Board to be an important component of the Law of Attraction. 

• A Vision Board can help prioritize goals
• A Vision Board can help you visualize your goals
• A Vision Board can help you affirm your goals
• A Vision Board can help you deepen your inner belief about achieving your goals.

Creating a goals Vision Board is a powerful goal-achieving tool!

In this first video in my How To Create A Goals Vision Board series, you’ll learn six reasons why a creating a Vision Board can be a powerful goal achieving tool.

 
**I’d like to recommend a company called Visualize Your Goals/Orange Peel - I’ve used this company to make the vision board screen saver on my own computer. I have a poster vision board and also a digital one on my computer as a screen saver. Here’s a direct link: Visualize Your Goals/Orange Peel

Copyright (c) 2009 Sharon Michaels - All rights reserved

For over twenty years Sharon Michaels has been writing, speaking and empowering women to achieve greater personal and professional success. Sharon mentors women on learning to recognize the things they’re doing that may be keeping them from the things they want. Sign up for Sharon’s free weekly Ezine Unlimited Success For Women and have professional success strategies and personal development how-to’s sent directly to your email inbox.