How to Plan Your Year with Vision Casting - Start Here Before Setting Goals
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Have you ever thought about setting a goal and felt… stumped? Sometimes we know what we want and sometimes we just don’t. Maybe life has become routine or your dreams have all come true (or you’re somewhere in-between) and the thought of setting a goal seems a bit empty. What would that goal even be?
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Ideas, goals, and projects are rooted in vision.
Vision is the most distilled epitomization of intention. When we imagine our intent, on a large scale or within the microcosm, what typically accompanies that intention is a vision.
A vision of a world where children are not starving.
A vision of a family that is happy and healthy.
A vision of an exciting adventure that changes our very nature.
A vision of financial freedom, your own home, your own business, a loving relationship, or an item you desire.
‘Vision’ is often misnomered as “daydreaming,” or “wishful thinking,” when in fact, if you have seen it and you truly believe that vision to be possible, it is.
In this moment, take stock of your vision. Would you say you have a vision for your life? For your career or your business (or a transition from one to the other)? If you’re still feeling fuzzy, take a step back and look at your dreams.
What did or do you want to be when you “grow up?” (when is that anyway??)
What have you seen in movies, television, or in your social network that makes you think, “gee, I’d like to do that!”
Even if your vision is fuzzy, know that you’re on the right track.
Vision Casting precedes goal setting in every instance, though it isn’t always a conscious activity. As you get more comfortable acknowledging and keeping your Visions top-of-mind, goal setting becomes easier with a clear starting point.
Vision casting is the imagination and visualization of a desired outcome:
What
How
Who
Where
Sometimes when
Goal setting solidifies the milestones and individual steps which make your vision a reality.
Without further ado, let’s get started!
Discovery
During the discovery phase, our aim is to clarify your vision and get to the root of what you want to create for the year (and beyond). I use each of these activities during the early stages of my planning process to make sure that I’m setting the right goals.
More often than I care to admit, I’ve set lofty goals based on something I saw on social media that inspired me. I’ve set goals that weren’t aligned with my values, my capabilities, or even my interests simply because they looked really cool or were widely adopted by my peers.
I’d rather set goals that move me closer toward the life I imagine for myself that ones that dump me in the general sandbox.
Journaling Prompts
Grab your notebook and pen (or pencil, if you’re like me!) and freewrite answers to these questions. Don’t overthink, don’t worry about spelling or grammar or formatting, and don’t worry about ever sharing these answers with anyone. This is your Discovery phase.
What necessary changes do I feel compelled to make in your life?
What has been weighing me down?
How can I work with these affected areas of my life?
Where calls to my heart?
Who am I in my wildest daydreams?
Why do I wake up every morning ~ and why would I if there were no restrictions?
What would be possible for me if ___________________ were not impacting or subduing ________________?
How might I express myself such that I am set free?
We’ll come back to these answers later.
Brain Dump - Timed Activity
Set a timer for five minutes and prepare to empty your brain onto the page. Let the words flow free with no worries for how it looks or sounds.
Some prompts to keep you writing til the buzzer:
All that I want
All that I wish were possible
All that I should already be
All that would make my life better
All that would make my dreams possible
Aim for at least 50 ‘line items’ in 5 minutes, though some may write over one hundred or more. Please repeat this activity as often as you need and apply the technique to any area of your life that needs a mental or intellectual reset.
Revisit Collections and Role Models
This one might be my favorite, as I am an avid collector of visuals. I’m constantly saving photos to Instagram, pinning to Pinterest, even saving screenshots to my phone or saving bookmarks for later. Set aside at least thirty minutes for this activity.
Review all of your collections, including:
Bookmarks, ‘Reading List’ (for Apple users)
Instagram Saves, Pinterest, Tumblr
Saved photos
Books (personal library)
Past journal entries
Wish lists (Amazon, Target, etc)
Documents (which may include long-lost travel plans or half-written novels).
And any other collection you’ve curated.
If applicable, review the work and collections of your role models, including:
Favorite artists or performers
Influencers
Writers or bloggers
Friends and family
Businesses or brands
Makers or designers
Organizations
Record the themes you discover woven into your breadth of collections, which may include:
Places to visit
Activities or hobbies to try
Projects to attempt (or complete)
Life changes to make
Skills to learn
Items to acquire
Lifestyle shifts
Health changes or journeys
Financial capabilities
Confidence or self-love amplification
These themes are the shore from which we will cast our vision. Like a wide net, these themes represent a segment of your life that intuitively, you’ve craving to make a change, upgrade, or direct investment into - promptly.
Before moving on, revisit your answers to the journaling prompts and your line-items from the Brain Dump activity and benchmark those against your themes. Do you see similarities or even direct correlation? Are you discovering new themes?
List your themes ~ you might have three, five, ten, or twenty-five (or more).
Ideally, we want to proceed with 5 - 10, depending on the specificity and relevancy of your theme. Here are a few of my themes as an example:
Replacing unhealthy habits with nourishing habits
Getting outside my comfort zone
Traveling abroad and discovering foreign stories
Expressing the hidden parts of myself (especially talents and interests)
Completing or closing the “loose ends” in my journey
Stepping into my true calling
Creating, communicating, and publishing consistently
Discovering and honing my creative style
Creating a healthier relationship with money where it is a tool, not a coping mechanism
I pulled these themes from inspiring images taken by my favorite influencers, press write ups about my favorite actors, saved articles detailing new techniques for my craft, memberships I forgot I had, images I’d curated on Pinterest, and products that spark joy in my wish lists.
Keep your list of themes handy for the next activity.
Curate your Vision Board
For the sake of this planning series, we’re going to narrow our Vision Casting to this year, though you’re welcome to expand your sights to five, ten, or life plans as you see fit. Personally, my loose five year plan is punctuated with major milestones (Visions) which inform my yearly (smaller) milestones, goals, and activities. You’re welcome to go as big or as specific as you like.
In the curation stage, we’re compiling visuals that directly relate to our vision for the year. In this case, we’re working on this year, which - like any period of time - is held to boundaries and limitations unique to each person’s circumstance.
Rather than limiting your vision, we’re going to tailor our vision to what we can feasibly accomplish within a 12-month timeframe (unless you’re Elon Musk, in which case HI! going to Mars probably isn’t on this year’s docket). Before we jump into curation, let’s take stock of our life’s creative parameters:
What are your non-negotiables? Children, pets, bills, job (that you do or don’t want to swap for a different way of making income, your choice!), health, family, relationship, business, or otherwise.
What are your priorities? Happiness, balance, adventure, growth, stability, repair and rebuild, celebration, healing, etc.
For me, my non-negotiables are my pets, my mortgage, my car payment, my debts, my employment, the health of my relationship, and my physical and mental health.
And, my priorities are growth, stability, consistency, and nourishment.
My vision cannot compromise any of those line-items.
With these boundaries in mind, we curate the visual representation of our Vision.
Each year, I make a digital Vision Board on Pinterest. Though there is definitely a thread between them all, each year differs as a grow and clarify what I want for my life. I’ve been Vision Casting and setting goals for nearly ten years, and it gets better every year!
Of course, you can create your vision board IRL (in real life) using similar techniques, I just don’t have the heart to cut-up a good magazine, nor do I have the patience to work a glue stick.
Collect visuals, examples, and inspiration of your vision (pieces and whole) which make tangible your vision.
With your themes and your favorite collections as your source material, begin to curate visuals in a single place which speak to your vision for the year.
My favorite tools: Instagram, Pinterest, Canva
Though my primary tool is Pinterest (for its vast library of visuals and quick curation workflow), I often pull images from Instagram into my pinterest boards then pull my favorite, most-relevant images into Canva to create an image.
Tip: You can also zoom out of your Pinterest board in your desktop and take a screenshot, effectively capturing a grid-organized Vision Board image that you can make your desktop background.
For example, I’m including my Vision Board on Pinterest
This board is influenced specifically by my visions for travel, home renovation and decor, cooking and baking, writing, slow fashion, whole foods, seasonal celebration, and my unabashed love for Harry Potter.
Give yourself at least an hour to go down this rabbit hole. Even if you have to wake up before your family and do this over a steaming cup of coffee alone in the dark, give yourself the gift of visual wandering as you curate the visual map for your year.
Once you’ve created your Vision Board, you have effectively completed this Vision Casting activity!
But, if you know me at all, you know I can’t leave you hanging on just a pretty collection of pictures. Vision Casting (at least in my world), goes one step further than visuals before we get to Goal Setting (coming soon).
Construct your Vision Statement
Now that we have our images, our visual inspiration for a most incredible year, it’s time we make a formal declaration. For this final stage of Vision Casting, I want you to:
construct your vision into a definitive guide whose specificity, detail, and intention make clear the goals to be set.
You don’t have to be a writer to make a declaration for your year. Use the prompts below to construct your vision statement:
This year, I am focusing on [insert themes as a sentence or a list]
because my vision for my life is much clearer than ever before.
To bring this vision to life, I will
[insert activities pictured in your vision board as a sentence or a list]
with respect to [insert life boundaries and priorities].
I have seen these visions and I truly believe in their reality, and therefore they are so.
In the weeks that follow, I will construct goals, milestones, and steps which make possible these visions.
And, I will give myself grace as life inevitably shifts the course of my ship.
With these visions, I know that my life can and will be greater than ever before.
Signed, [your name in your most artist-y signature you can manage]
For example, I’m including my own vision statement.
This year, I am focusing on
Replacing unhealthy habits with nourishing habits
Getting outside my comfort zone
Traveling abroad and discovering foreign stories
Expressing the hidden parts of myself (especially talents and interests)
Completing or closing the “loose ends” in my journey
Stepping into my true calling
Creating, communicating, and publishing consistently
Discovering and honing my creative style
Creating a healthier relationship with money where it is a tool, not a coping mechanism
because my vision for my life is clearer than ever before. To bring this vision to life, I will
Start a daily writing habit and implement a submission plan to get my work published in print journals for the first time.
Bring much-needed elements into my home, such as curtains and blinds, rugs, comfy furniture, and collected artwork for display.
Cook and bake new recipes each month while honing my specialities for ease of application when life gets busy.
Cultivate secondhand and handmade wardrobe pieces which allow me explore my outward femininity more directly through fashion.
Travel to new places with my notebook and pencil ready to stop, sit, and write whenever I discover a story.
Curate my purchases and budget before I make them, eliminating impulse shopping and decreasing my spending over the course of the year.
Plan seasonal celebrations and learn about heirloom seasonal activities which will enrich mine and my loved ones’ experiences throughout the year.
Regularly create and publish my creative works on my blog, social media, and through professional outlets as I hone and develop my creative style.
Knit a Weasley sweater and do whatever nerdy Harry Potter activities my heart desires (and that my budget can handle) because the Wizarding World brings me joy.
I have seen these visions and I truly believe in their reality, and therefore they are so.
In the weeks that follow, I will construct goals, milestones, and steps which make possible these visions.
And, I will give myself grace as life inevitably shifts the course of my ship.
With these visions, I know that my life can and will be greater than ever before.
Signed,
