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How do vision boards work?
Have you ever stood in front of a painting and started to weep? Or listened to a concerto and felt shivers run down your spine?
Images (and music!) carry instant, powerful, emotional messages that bypass logic and reasoning. They move so fast that our minds can’t keep up.
“Images track instantly to your brain’s visual centres, bypassing conscious thought, which means the brain’s filtering system can’t edit them out or dismiss them,” explains neuroscientist Tara Swart in her amazing book, The Source.
At this time in the year when we’re making resolutions, setting intentions and goals, we typically spend a lot of time in our thoughts, telling ourselves what’s wrong or missing or in need of improvement with ourselves and our lives. It’s just the way that our brains work (negativity bias—ugh!).
Entering a heads-on battle with our thoughts, especially when we’re trying to decide where we want to focus our creativity and energy for the upcoming year, can be exhausting and futile.
Our brains will tell us the answer is to take on more, be more disciplined, control the outcome. But they rarely show us how we want to feel about ourselves and the world we inhabit in our journey forward.
That’s where images, and more specifically vision boards, can come into play in a really interesting way.
What’s a vision board?
Have you ever stood in front of a painting and started to weep? Or listened to a concerto and felt shivers run down your spine?
Images (and music!) carry instant, powerful, emotional messages that bypass logic and reasoning. They move so fast that our minds can’t keep up.
“Images track instantly to your brain’s visual centres, bypassing conscious thought, which means the brain’s filtering system can’t edit them out or dismiss them,” explains neuroscientist Tara Swart in her amazing book, The Source.
At this time in the year when we’re making resolutions, setting intentions and goals, we typically spend a lot of time in our thoughts, telling ourselves what’s wrong or missing or in need of improvement with ourselves and our lives. It’s just the way that our brains work (negativity bias—ugh!).
Entering a heads-on battle with our thoughts, especially when we’re trying to decide where we want to focus our creativity and energy for the upcoming year, can be exhausting and futile.
Our brains will tell us the answer is to take on more, be more disciplined, control the outcome. But they rarely show us how we want to feel about ourselves and the world we inhabit in our journey forward.
That’s where images, and more specifically vision boards, can come into play in a really interesting way.
What’s a vision board?
A vision board is like a mood board, but for your life. It’s an assemblage of cut-out images that speak to you on some deeper level by tapping into your hidden dreams, aspirations and goals.
What’s the purpose of a vision board?
Vision boards help you sidestep the whole mental goal-setting showdown by using visual metaphors that speak the language of your heart rather than the logic of your mind. Because images can circle around your policing mind, they make for amazing tools when deciding what you deeply desire at critical junctures in your life. Like when you’re shifting careers. Ending a long relationship. Moving countries. Saying goodbye to a familiar way of living (aka 2020). Or welcoming in another trip around the sun (aka 2021)!
How do vision boards work?
Your vision board is like a dressing room for your future. You try on the "future you" outfit, let your brain get comfortable with it so it green lights the vision, allotting energy and resources towards bringing it to life. This is the law of attraction at work. You’re putting a highlighter around your deeper goals so that your conscious and unconscious minds can team up to help you achieve them. The vision board acts like an intermediary between your heart and your mind—kind of like a couples' therapist for your dreams.
How can I make a vision board?
I’m so happy you asked,! I’ve got a couple of ideas for you:
You can go back to the free Guide to Great Goal Setting I have on my site and follow the instructions.
If you speak French and want to have a collaborative, energy-lifting experience, I’d be thrilled to see you on January 24th with my dear friend, author and kundalini yoga teacher, Lili Barbery-Coulon for our Atelier Kunda & Creative Flow for 2021. During the two-and-a-half hour webinar Lili will lead us in a communal mediation to help us tap into our intuitive, creative cores before creating our vision boards. To sign up click the link here.
PS. Vision boards help sidestep the whole mental showdown going on in your brain, making them amazing tools for 2021 intention-setting! If you speak French and want to have a collaborative, energy-lifting vision board experience, come join me on January 24th with my dear friend, author and kundalini yoga teacher, Lili Barbery-Coulon for our Atelier Kunda & Creative Flow for 2021 webinar. Lili will be leading us in a mediation to tap into our intuitive, creative flow before creating our vision boards. To sign up click the link here.
Desperately seeking validation
Last week I bought myself one of those Sesame Street, muppet-like sweaters from Unliqlo that looks and feels like a fuzzy stuffed animal.
And it was a good thing I bought that warm comfort mop. All weekend I used it to soak up my tears after getting passed over for a prestigious part-time mentor position that I really thought I'd be perfect at.
My face buried in Snuffleupagus’s arms, I thought a lot about why this rejection stung so much.
It wasn't because I didn’t get the job, it’s because I didn’t get the validation I was secretly seeking.
To my insecure mind, being chosen for the role would have been proof of my value. Proof that I could play with the big kids. Proof that I was stepping up my game.
I essentially handed my agency and sense of self-worth over to the recruiters, and after examining me, they decided there were better fish to fry.
My friend Ajiri coached me with this honesty bomb: “Zeva, you don’t need their validation, even though you feel like you do.”
Working for yourself has a million merits, but one thing it doesn’t have is a solid self-validation system.
Last week I bought myself one of those Sesame Street, muppet-like sweaters from Unliqlo that looks and feels like a fuzzy stuffed animal.
And it was a good thing I bought that warm comfort mop. All weekend I used it to soak up my tears after getting passed over for a prestigious part-time mentor position that I really thought I'd be perfect at.
My face buried in Snuffleupagus’s arms, I thought a lot about why this rejection stung so much.
It wasn't because I didn’t get the job, it’s because I didn’t get the validation I was secretly seeking.
To my insecure mind, being chosen for the role would have been proof of my value. Proof that I could play with the big kids. Proof that I was stepping up my game.
I essentially handed my agency and sense of self-worth over to the recruiters, and after examining me, they decided there were better fish to fry.
My friend Ajiri coached me with this honesty bomb: “Zeva, you don’t need their validation, even though you feel like you do.”
Working for yourself has a million merits, but one thing it doesn’t have is a solid self-validation system.
It’s hard to give yourself objective praise. We’re not really taught how to do that. What we are taught is how to seek validation outside of ourselves through degrees, promotions, prestigious titles and projects.
So, since I didn’t get the position, I decided to take a scalpel to the experience in search of some self-empowering lessons:
Here’s what I’ve come up with:
Every time I decide to pursue, or am invited to participate in a project, I'm going to be really freaking honest with myself about WHY I want it. How much of it is a need for external validation? How much of it is because I really want to spend my time and energy and focus on that pursuit? If I didn’t feel the need for validation, would I still want to do that project?
What in me needs nurturing in order to feel more self-validation? What struggles, doubts, insecurities and fears need some sweet love and attention?
What would I allow myself to do or create if I had all of the self-validation I ever needed already within me?
As we approach the end to this crazy year and think about what’s on the horizon, the goals and pursuits we’d like to work towards, I invite you to join me in exploring these questions.
What would it be like to have a year where you stopped chasing external validation and instead sought ways to create a deeper relationship with your internal compass, your own self-satisfaction and creative stimulation?
What would a year like that look like?
PS. I don't have all of the details yet but mark your calendars for a special 2021 Road Mapping Vision Board workshop that I'm doing on January 12th with a pretty phenomenal co-host. More info in my next newsletter, so stay tuned.
Find me in le club
There’s nothing more exciting than the birth of a dream project. Especially when you know how freaking awesome it’s going to be!
Which is why you must check out the Business O Féminin Club coming to Paris next month and read my interview below with its founder, Véronique Forge-Karibian.
I met Veronique for coffee a few months ago at the suggestion of my good friend Ajiri and we hit it off immediately. Véronique and I chatted about our past careers in marketing and journalism and how we’re both passionate about helping women express their full potential professionally.
Six years ago Véronique launched businessofeminin.com, a dynamic media hub devoted to women in business, and it’s been her dream ever since to bring her platform to life.
Apollonia Poilâne fell in love with the idea and decided to lend Véronique a gorgeous space down the road from her family's famed Parisian bakery in order to test the concept from October 1st-18th.
The pop-up will consist of a café serving Poilâne treats, a shop stocked with innovative women-owned brands, a library of empowering reads, a lovely lounge to chill and chit-chat and an inspiring events series of workshops and conferences to accelerate women’s personal and professional development.
I’ll be participating in the project by hosting two vision board workshops on October 11th and 18th.
There’s nothing more exciting than the birth of a dream project. Especially when you know how freaking awesome it’s going to be!
Which is why you must check out the Business O Féminin Club coming to Paris next month and read my interview below with its founder, Véronique Forge-Karibian.
I met Veronique for coffee a few months ago at the suggestion of my good friend Ajiri and we hit it off immediately. Véronique and I chatted about our past careers in marketing and journalism and how we’re both passionate about helping women express their full potential professionally.
Six years ago Véronique launched businessofeminin.com, a dynamic media hub devoted to women in business, and it’s been her dream ever since to bring her platform to life.
Apollonia Poilâne fell in love with the idea and decided to lend Véronique a gorgeous space down the road from her family's famed Parisian bakery in order to test the concept from October 1st-18th.
The pop-up will consist of a café serving Poilâne treats, a shop stocked with innovative women-owned brands, a library of empowering reads, a lovely lounge to chill and chit-chat and an inspiring events series of workshops and conferences to accelerate women’s personal and professional development.
I’ll be participating in the project by hosting two vision board workshops on October 11th and 18th.
If you’re in Paris and interested in coming to any of the events use the special -20% promo code. (BFLOVERS)
photo by: Ajiri @Madame de la Maison
Read my Q&A with Business O Féminin Club founder Véronique Forge-Karibian
What inspired you to create the Business O Féminin Club? How long has the idea been brewing? What made you decide to finally go for it?
I organised a couple of events in Paris and London for the Business O Féminin community, including a sold-out breakfast with Arianna Huffington that over one hundred women attended. I realized then the need to go beyond one-off talks and instead offer a program that could accelerate women’s professional development and help them acquire new skills and develop their talents. I also think we need places where women can learn, share and connect with women outside their professional networks in order to create more diversity and inspiration.
What was the hardest part of pulling this project together? What challenges seemed insurmountable and how did you overcome them?
The hardest thing is always to convince people to embark in your adventure, sponsors for example. Apollonia Poilâne, CEO of Poilâne, was the first to believe in this project and support me with a space to host this club. I am grateful for her support so early on to bring this project to life. We were fortunate to also have ENGIE’s enthusiastic support within days! It’s rare for such big organisations to lend their support so quickly. With the coaches and experts, they were also very positive and saw the value in bringing all the different skill trainings in one place.Finally, the women professionals I encounter on a daily basis are excited and find this format to be innovative but also much in demand.
Six months from now, looking back, what do you hope people will say about how their experience at the Club affected them and changed their lives?
I hear so many women questioning their professional and personal lives yet they don’t know where to start. I hope that our workshops and meet-ups will give them the knowledge, skills and confidence to make the right decisions and empower them to make positive changes in their lives. We have had women contact us for courses for all kinds of reasons from wanting to change careers (e.g. banking to start up) to just learning a new topic such as personal branding. I hope all these women will look back and talk about their experience and how profound a change we were able to make in their lives, whether through learning a new skill, gaining confidence, meeting new people and so on.
What do you personally hope to learn from this project?
I want to how learn to create the right environment for our audience. This includes the venue, decorations, themes, content, communications and the economics behind it all. Through my work at Business O Féminin, I was fortunate to have a wide network of exceptional women who could be partners: Valérie Gerbi, artistic director at Merci concept store was just the person we needed to decorate and theme our space with Ajiri Aki from Madame de la Maison adding a touch of beautiful vintage and Amanda de Montal bringing her exceptional scented candles to the club.
Where will people find you during these next few weeks? What events and experiences are you looking forward to the most?
I am looking forward to spending my next three weeks at the club meetings, participating and learning as much as possible about what we can improve for next time. We have decided to cover a wide range of topics from personal branding and public speaking to learning how to code and how to go about starting a new business. Our coaches have varied backgrounds such Olivia Penichou who previously was Communication Director for Christine Lagarde. We will also host special evenings such as the one organised for La Maison des Femmes de Saint Denis, an organisation that helps sexually harassed women and FGM (female genital mutilation) victims to rebuild their lives. We hope to be able to raise money for the founder Ghada Hatem as we are very inspired by their work. The other important meeting will be end of November “Pitch night” which enable start-ups who want to raise funds to pitch in front of business angels and VC’s.
What’s next?
Business O Féminin Club will last three weeks in October but we plan to take all our learnings and create something bigger and more permanent in the very near future.
Hope to see you at the Club!
