New Year’s Visioning Happy Hour
Hello & welcome! Friends and family near and far!
This document is a collection of my agenda, reflection questions, and thoughts that were shared during my New Year’s Eve Visioning Happy Hour. I decided to publish to make this tool more widely available to anyone that may want to try it. We began with a reflection on 2020 and the lessons it taught us. We toasted to our survival and cheered each other on as we planned for great success, love, joy & abundance in 2021.
Supplies to gather (for physical vision boarding)
You will need crafting supplies like scissors, glue, markers, colored pencils, paper, sources for images/words like newspapers, magazines, junk mail ads lying around your house, insides of envelopes, upcycled images and words from any books, posters, or art that you don’t mind cutting up. You will also need something to hold your images/words like a piece of cardboard taken from any box you have at home, a poster board, an art canvas. You can also use a cork board and push pins if you would like to be able to remove and change your images pretty often.
Feel free to use the prompts below to create your own vision boards or host your own visioning party for 2021. Cheers to you being the best you in 2021!
2020 Reflections
Journal or discuss with your family/friends/group the following questions to reflect on all that we have survived, accomplished, and overcome in 2020. It is easy sometimes to focus on all the negative events or circumstances that happen to us and while it is more challenging to ruminate on all the things that we did well (even in terrible circumstances) it is so powerful to be able to see the ways that we showed up for ourselves and our communities in this extraordinary year. (20 minutes)
- What is one thing you are proud of that you did in 2020?
- What was a challenge you faced in 2020 and what strategies did you use to overcome it?
2021 Visioning
Clearly seeing yourself at your best
- Write down 10 words to describe you at your best. How do you feel, what qualities do you exhibit? Who, what, and where are you? (5 minutes)
- Find or create images to go along with those 10 words. (15 minutes)
- Try to find at least 5 images that represent those words to you, you can also find in newsprint, magazines, print advertisement, journal stickers, the words you choose and add the words themselves instead of or in addition to your images.
- Discuss (or reflect in your journal) what images did you pick and why? (10 minutes)
- Collect and arrange your images, words, decorative bits and bobbles onto your vision board. This can be in a collage, chart, calendar, a bullet journal, or mindmap depending on your preference.
I would also suggest that you pick a vision board medium that makes the most sense for your current life. If you are not likely to hang up a vision board poster on the wall in your home or office, for whatever reason, a virtual vision board might be better for you. You can create an image that can be the background for your computer screen or your phone background or lock screen so that you will still see your vision board on a daily basis. Here are some resources for online programs that will help to create a super polished looking virtual vision board.
You could also use Google slides if you just want something free and simple to use. I did this for my work vision board and my apartment design mood board.
Part of the “magic” of vision boarding is that when you visualize, write down, draw out, and continually look at something that reflects your goals or future vision for your life, it works its way into your subconscious and allows you to seemingly manifest your goals without really trying to. Of course, achieving any new goal or dream requires you making a certain set of decisions and picking some opportunities over others to be able to get to that eventual end goal. But when you make constant reinforcement of your goal as simple, easy and effortless as mindlessly glancing at an image on your wall or computer screen you create a feeling of effortlessness that keeps you focused so that you can reach for the things that are for you and let go of distractions.
New Year’s Resolutions
Firstly, I want to express that it is NOT necessary or even helpful for everyone to make New Year’s Resolutions. Especially, if the New Year’s Resolutions you are choosing just become another excuse for you to beat yourself up for not reaching an impossibly long list of stretch goals or a list of all the things about yourself that you don’t like and want to change. In order for your goal setting to be productive, it needs to come from a place of loving and accepting yourself as you are but being willing and excited for a new challenge that might lead to changes in your life.
For a really helpful background on this topic, I highly recommend listening to this podcast episode on “How to Make and Keep Resolutions” by Kara Loewentheil who is a Master Confidence Coach and popular podcaster. I listened to this several times before figuring out my own 2021 Resolution (yes, singular, just one). This podcast inspired me to write down a list of all the possible things I might try to work on in the new year and then ask why should this be my one and only goal or resolution. With the constraint of choosing only one goal, I was easily able to see which one rose to the top and start to make my plan for “massive action” to get me there.
- Get Inspired: Listen to the podcast or I would also suggest Rowena Tsai on Youtube who has a great series of videos on “How to Reset and Unpotato for 2021 — New Year Challenge” (10–20 minutes)
- Share: Do you have a resolution or goal that you are working towards? (Discuss with friends and family or share with me @ReynaandtheWorld on Instagram or my Medium blog (5 minutes)
- Draw out your plan of attack for your 1 most important goal. Think of Kara’s description of “massive action”. What decisions can you make right now that will make it easier for you later on? (20 minutes)
- Be super specific. For example, if you want to work out more, when and where will you do your workouts? It’s not enough to say, I will work out 2x per week. Instead think about this level of specificity (Tuesday and Thursday at 7am, using this specific virtual platform, in my living room)
- Plan it out and make as many of the hard decisions a head of time so all you have to do is wake up and go implement your plan. (For example, book the class, put it on the calendar, put your clothes out the night before and your shoes right by your bed so it’s even easier to make it happen)
- Find friends to support you in your journey. Who else in your life (or in your virtual world) is also pursuing these goals? Create a text thread or Whatsapp group where you can reach out to each other for support, encouragement and accountability.
- Decide what thoughts you’re going to think that will make you ready to implement your plan. (For the workout example, each day on your calendar that is a workout day you will have a mantra “I am a strong, resilient, and each time I wake up to start my workout I am closer and closer to my goal”) Decide ahead of time what thoughts you will think will help to counteract the negative self-talk that can tear us down and prevent us from reaching our goals.
- Be flexible! And be willing to accept that some parts of your plan may not work and that’s ok, leave behind the parts that don’t work and try something else, but never lose sight of your guiding light. That one goal, dream, or vision that you have in sight on your vision board is still achievable even if the strategy changes. Keep trying a new strategy and refining your plan and reaching towards your goal.
- Be gentle with yourself. Your worth as a person is not determined by whether or not you are able to reach this goal. The internal work that you do while on your journey towards this goal is where the real change, power, magic and growth is. You are amazing and incredible already! You have the ability to make your own dreams come true!
Love and blessings,
Reyna
Important links
Chill music to listen to while vision boarding: Chillhop Wintermix
Black creators of stickers for journaling and/or vision boarding:
- Capitol Chic — is currently on sale at Michaels
- Oh So Paper — website is currently down but here is her Instagram
- Minnie Small — purchase stickers on her website.
Resources for Bullet Journaling
- Sarica Studio — Check out her Youtube channel for journal with me videos.
- https://bulletjournal.com/pages/learn
- https://itsclaudiag.com/2019/09/20-bullet-journal-weekly-spread-ideas/
