How to tap into the power of what’s next for you.

I am a podcaster, speaker and author in the area of self-leadership: the intentional act of creating your freedom, your life, your way.

December 21, 2022

How to tap into the power of what’s next for you

One of the most common questions that I get when I’m guesting on podcasts is “What do I do if I have no idea where I want to go next?” 

Sometimes all we have is the inkling that there’s something that is either missing or could somehow be better. Don’t despair! You are not alone, and I’ll share in this article a proven activity that you can use to give yourself a jump start!

This is also a great planning tool even if you do have a good feel for what you want next. This activity will help clarify it and it will help you make progress towards it.

What holds us back?

Three of the most common obstacles are:

  • Spending too much time in our head. And, as someone who has been called an over-thinker, I say that without any judgment at all!
  • Allowing “shoulds” to interfere with our true desires.
  • Worrying about the “how” before we’ve defined the “what.”

So here is a surefire way to get out of your head and tune into what energizes you. It’s something that Rick and I have used it in our own lives as well and it’s very effective. It’s to create a vision board.

7 easy steps to creating a vision board:

  1. Pick up magazines that catch your attention for whatever reason. Don’t overthink this. Go with what energizes you.
  2. Go through the magazines and your own photos (and wherever you find inspiring images) and start collecting pictures that energize you or that resonate with you. There are two precautions that I’d offer here: 1) Don’t overthink it; and 2) Don’t allow “shoulds” into this exercise. Be vigilant about noticing them and eliminating them.
  3. Once all the pictures have been cut out, start organizing them into piles of similar categories. It’s okay at this point to discard pictures that don’t make the final cut.
  4. Once you have your piles of pictures, start putting them on a large poster board or cork board. You might find yourself moving some pictures around or even discarding a few more. That’s part of the process. Also now is a good time to ask yourself: does anything feel like it’s missing? If so, go back through your magazines.
  5. Once all the pictures have been attached, step back and tune into the different categories. What are the themes of each? Write that theme at the top of each category.
  6. This might be as far as you take the process for now. That’s fine. Over time, you might notice an over-arching theme. When Rick and I did ours for the first time back in 2009, when we stepped back from it, Rick said, “Wow. You know what this is? This is about creating the life we love to live — every day.” It might take you longer to notice your over-arching theme and again, that’s okay.
  7. Finally, keep the vision board somewhere where you can see it every day. We did that for about a year. We didn’t study it every day, but we glanced at it or looked at it. The power of it is that our brains start to look for ways for us to create and manifest the things that we put on the board. I know that might sound kooky, but the science proves that it works.

Creating a vision board is a powerful exercise. Again, this activity is powerful even if you have good clarity on the direction that you want to go. If you try it, I think you’ll be surprised at how powerful it is. It might just be the perfect holiday gift to yourself and your loved ones.

As you are going through the exercise, if you run into questions, drop me an email at bk@bobbikahler.com and I’ll be happy to clarify.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday and I’ll see you in the new year!

Bobbi

PS: If you found this helpful, and are on LinkedIn, hit the notification bell on my LI profile so that you get notified when I publish new content.

Special announcement:

I am creating a master course. The working title is: Get Unstuck: How to dismantle your barriers in 21 days or less. I need 10 volunteers to be beta-testers for it. If you are interested in helping me out with that, please email me.   (There is no fee for participating and I’ll send you a free copy of my book Travels of the Heart: Developing Your Inner Leader as a thank you.)

For more insights and inspiration, tune into my podcast UnYielded: Thriving No Matter What

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