catching dreams on boards

Dream Boards

I downloaded a sample chapter of a book called One Year to an Organized Life.   I like the idea of "One Year to..." because it seems to acknowledge that most real changes take some time.   One of the things the book mentioned was dream boards... a visual visualization tool, it seems.    More here.    I am just grabbing links, so I don't vouch for the sites or their contents.

If words are more your medium, then you can use a journal, instead.  I suppose that's what I do here sometimes, in a way... try to make things real to me through words.

My guess is that this dream//vision board or journal is a way of visualizing or affirming success.   The sites say that it's an early part of setting goals.... the "contemplation" stage of the Stages of Change that are used to break unhealthy cycles.   But you could use this just to break out of status quo, rather than overcome dysfunction, I guess.

I doubt if I would ever sit down and create a "dream board".  But I have noticed that lots of times my goals fail because of inadequate visualization.  I can't really picture success, so I don't go for it.   In that way, thinking out what I want to see happen might help me actually get there.    So long as I didn't become overly attached to the outcome, so that I got frustrated and angry if it didn't work out like my vision.

It seems like twice a year I start trying to see my house with new eyes... rather than maintain it, I try to imagine what it could be if I changed this... and that.... I do the same thing with homeschool planning.    So maybe that is the essence of this dream board (I always picture something like the Indian dream catchers -- Sean has one on a sweatshirt since he was a member of the Native American club at his school, and we keep getting dream catchers from St Joseph's Indian School).

And it's helpful to see my life sometimes with new eyes, too -- imagine what I would do if I got dropped into it all of a sudden, which things are working for how I want my role to be, and which things could be tweaked, or dropped, or brought in.

The book says that it takes 21 days to form a new habit and that small habits add up over time, which was the other takeaway point I got from it.  I suppose if the dream board delineates the inspiration, the little habits are like the bricks and mortar of the changes.   I actually had success with this method last year when I determined to become more fit.    The "vision" part helped me clarify what I REALLY wanted and figure out what changes would be required.   So it wasn't so much having wild fantasies as actually bringing a vague aspiration into focus and relating it to my real life.