Visioning 2010 - Stepping Into It

I’ll be honest – 2009 was a little foggy for me. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I’m one of those eternal optimists always looking for the silver lining, but the year had some tough spots that slowed me down. It did finally begin to shift in October with a wonderful 10-week class I took called “Prosperity Plus, a New Way of Living”. Not only did I have to look at myself and my beliefs under a microscope, I had to commit to listening to audios, doing written exercises in the workbook, and generally changing my approach to things, at least for the length of the class. Four months later, I find myself still incorporating many of these things into my daily activities.

Here’s one of the biggest “take-aways” for me. It had to do with envisioning my future, deciding exactly what I wanted in 4 areas: Financial, Health, Relationships, and Creative Expression (which includes career), writing that out and reading it each day. Like many of you, I’ve done this before – set goals at the beginning of the year, visualized in my mind the desired outcomes, and even created vision boards to place around my office. After awhile, their impact faded and I slipped back into my old ways. Here’s what worked this time: “Stepping Into It”. This added component of pretending my vision was already true and telling someone about it made all the difference. The facilitator had us get with a partner and during our turn, take 4 steps in a clockwise direction as if we were actually stepping into our desired life. When we turned around to face our partner, we acted as if we hadn’t seen them in a year and told them all about our life – what it felt like, what we’ve seen, done, bought, where we’ve been and so on. The energy in the room afterward was incredible! I led a different class in doing this same thing last week and the result was the same. It’s exciting, it’s fun, and it makes one feel that anything is really possible.

Outside of class and without a partner, I now ask myself “how would I solve this/approach that situation/ behave, what would I say/wear/do if I were living that life now? This engages me more than any vision board or the many affirmations on sticky notes around my desk. Where they become just words and pretty pictures after awhile, “stepping into it” changes my mindset and my attitude. I stand up straighter and become more confident. It’s simply pretending I’m the person I want to be, living the life I want and paving the way and trying it out in my mind for that to become reality.

As Albert Einstein said, “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Pretend it’s already happened and step into the life you are imagining.