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Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Happiness and Dreams Come True When You Use a Vision Board
Vision Boards are collages also known as Dream Boards, Treasure Maps and Goal Sheets. They are tools that display pictures and affirmations of the goals and things you want or desire in life. They help you focus your energy on your specific goals and attract that same energy back to you. They require you to use your senses thinking about your goals, seeing the pictures which engage your subconscious mind to “go after” them, and remind you of actions to take to accomplish the goals.
Whether you want a new career, a healthy investment account, a vacation in Italy, a new Mercedes SL550, a trim and fit body weighing 130 pounds, a better relationship, or peace of mind, your vision board can help initiate the results.
Using a Vision Board requires you to take action!
1. Dream and Decide Your Goals.
Dream, visualize, imagine, and think about your goals. What do you want your life to look like 1 year from now, or 5 or 10? Your vision board can be about one area of life or all. It can represent one goal or many. Decide what you want in one or several domains of life:
- Health
- Career or work
- Love relationship or marriage
- Family
- Friends
- Interests, hobbies, fun
- Spiritual life
- Learning and personal growth
- Financial
- Service
2. Collect Pictures and Words.
After you have made decisions about the time period and goals, cut out pictures from magazines that represent the specific goals you want to accomplish. You can also find sites on line that will help you create a virtual vision board.
Be very careful to put the exact messages of what you want - the exact pictures that represent your goals. If you want a red car, do not put a picture of a blue car or paste over a blue car. I had a client who got the blue car! Just include a picture of the exact make, model and color of your desired car. If you want to have a certain amount of money, be sure to represent it in the full amount. Show a picture of a bank account or perhaps put real money on your board. Look for the kind of house you want, with the right kind of yard for you. Include a picture of the book you plan to write; show a picture of your happy family having summer vacation fun. Be sure to include a picture or photo of yourself in the collage.
Be sure your desires fit with your values. Spend time thinking about this before you spontaneously add pictures. Represent your spiritual self in the Treasure Map so you are recognizing your desire to have and be what is in your best interest and the best interest of all others.
You also want to cut out words, phrases or make affirmations - positive statements about your dreams and goals. Include things like, I am a global speaker teaching the secrets of how to flourish in life, be happy and fulfilled. Perhaps simple words representing powerful concepts are for you: Empowered, Millionaire, Earning a seven-figure income, Love and peace at home, Olympic Gold, Ph.D. (after your name), Winner, The Best, Successful children, No more hunger, etc.
Paste your pictures and words on poster paper, construction paper, display boards, presentation boards or something you might put inside a frame. If you are doing a themed vision board - on your wedding, promotion, or losing weight - you might use a smaller size. If you are showing your goals for 5 years, you will want a substantial size to display your major goals. Some people have been very creative and did decoupage on a chest, table or trunk to show their dreams and goals.
3. Display Your Vision Board and Use It Daily.
Put your vision board in a prominent place to see it every day. Some people like to put it in the bathroom to look at while getting ready in the beginning of their day. Others on the kitchen table to look at while having coffee. Others hang it in the family room. Still others take it to the office and some make it the wallpaper on their computer and phone.
- Look at it for about 5 minutes at least twice a day.
- Think about the scenes and results.
- See yourself in the results.
- Feel the emotions of your results. Feel yourself with the top down in your new convertible. Feel the joy of writing a check to your favorite charity. Feel the excitement getting on the cruise ship.
- Experience the results of your goals and stay positive.
4. Share Your Dreams and Goals with Others.
Get social support by sharing your dreams and goals with family, friends, and colleagues. Let them see your vision board and talk about it with them. You might even help them do one of their own. If you really want to go for it in a BIG way, create a mastermind group to help all of you accomplish your goals. I’ve been in one for 9 years and we’ve manifested books, major consulting contracts, public speaking gigs, lots of money, grandchildren, vacations, second homes, relationships, retirement, meaning, and much success. By sharing your goals you will get direct and indirect support from those around you.
Caution: DO NOT let people try to talk you out of it or tell you it’s too big a dream. If they are toxic people, don’t bother to share with them. But do talk with all the others in your life who want you to be the best you can be.
5. Take Daily Actions to Bring Your Vision Board to Life.
Use your vision board to remind you of what you want. Be sure you have actions in each day that are steps towards making the pictures manifest in your life. Write steps in your daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly, To Do Lists. When I wanted to add a different service to my business, I simply put it on new business cards and in two weeks I received 4 requests, all leading to paid gigs - and NONE of the people had even seen my new business cards. But the big eye in the sky did…
Declare your intentions, tell others about them, take action, and watch them manifest.
6. Celebrate Your Successes.
Savor your progress and small successes. Savor in advance, during the process and after the accomplishment.
Celebrate the accomplishments of your goals. Some people need to celebrate the process and not the completion. Invite some friends and reward yourself with the celebration and well-deserved regard.
You can use the vision board right along with your 5 Year Plan. (If you don’t have one, turn the pictures into outcome goals, benchmark steps backwards and write your next steps.) Today, begin to make your dreams a reality.
Copyright 1987, 2002, 2010, 2011 D’Arcy Vanderpool
WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEBSITE? You are welcomed to share this article. When you do, please include this entire blurb with it: “Are you a talented entrepreneur who is ready to flourish and take yourself and your business to a new level? If you would like to learn how happiness can produce better results in your personal and professional life, you have come to the right place. It’s time to leave a good life and business and, instead, create a personal life and business services that will allow more happiness and fulfillment in positivity, time, wealth and the lifestyle you deserve. I invite you to visit my website at http://www.DrHappiness.com where you will find resources and enrollment for our current coaching, trainings and retreats.”
Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 04/12 at 10:42 PM
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Saturday, December 25, 2010
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
This is the time of year we all celebrate. We have loving times with family and friends, sometimes traveling many miles to bask in and share the love. It’s the time to play games, set the card table up for a bigger (or smaller) puzzle than last year. Its time to get the cards out for a few games of hand and foot. And the video games and Wii. Get out the sleds, snow shoes, snow boards, skis and rev up the snow mobiles.
We enjoy the Nutcracker, the beautiful voices of carolers, the Christmas bells, gorgeous decorations, and parties of the season. We sing song, bake Grandma’s favorite goodies, stuff the turkey, rub the prime rib, enjoy the Ethel M’s and Bisinger’s after the Christmas pudding and pies. Stollen for breakfast, leftover ham sandwiches for lunch and too many appetizers…
Angels, nativity scenes, the gift of God’s Son, and prayer add special feelings of the holidays. But the glee of children stirs the deepest joy in all of us. The days of play, the laughter shared by all, the dogs in their bows, the nuts and cider, and peppermint hot chocolate brings the savoring of past Christmases and ones to come.
Experience the joy, feel the peace, share the love and take these into the next year with the best flourishing of your souls.
Merry Christmas,
D’Arcy,
Bentley and Beau
Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 12/25 at 01:26 PM
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Monday, December 06, 2010
Embrace the Life you Have
Clearly you are living right now where your decisions and life circumstances have taken you. If you want life to be easy, your job is to accept this and blossom. That doesn’t mean you have to just stay where you are forever. It does mean that you have the opportunity to be the best you can be where you are right now. When you do that, things will change and evolve.
You may be learning and preparing for something else that requires you to be where you are now. So you are learning something now that will help you in the future. Maybe you are where you are to help someone else. By staying there you may help another and, of course, that comes right back to you. There is a reason for you to be your best right now and blossom with the life you have.
While you are in your blossoming life, take the high road. Be kind and thoughtful. Stay out of the drama and gossip and be the best you can – blossom with the type of person you are – be your best right now in all areas of life.
Enjoy your job. Find new ways to be creative, to be giving or to learn something new in your job. If you have coworkers you don’t seem to have much in common with, try being curious and getting to know their strengths. If you are unhappy in your marriage, find positive things on which to focus. Think about some good memories or something truly wonderful and special about your spouse
Bloom within the challenge or situation. You might find by accepting it and making yourself happy within the situation, you might really like it. It is never about changing the other person – boss, co-worker, spouse – it is always about you changing. . The main thing to put your attention on is yourself. Whether you have relationship, job, financial, or friendship issues and dislikes, find the goodness in these areas and others. Make yourself focus on positivity and gratitude.
Blossom and be the best you can be. Embrace the life you now have and see where it leads you. Probably to something even better that will allow you to bloom even bigger and brighter.
Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 12/06 at 11:27 AM
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Monday, June 15, 2009
When You Want to Improve Your Life, Where do You Start?
When you want to improve your life, where do you start? How do you go about it? Many clients have come to my office wanting to be out of the pain they are in and desiring to experience more happiness. They arrive with many different presenting problems and we always look at the superficial solutions to those symptoms. But there is always something underneath that we can discover which dictates their sabotage or repeated failures in life. It’s usually about their excuses. So, whether they come in for help with depression, anxiety, trauma or a relationship, we look at the underlying causes, the excuses, and the patterns that began in childhood which do not work so well in adulthood. So often we learn beliefs and behaviors when we are two, three, four or five years old that do not work quite the same when we are 30 or 40. This is the stuff of therapy.
For those of you who are reading this who are not in therapy and who do not wish at this time to begin such an adventure, I’d like to offer you some things which you can do on your own which will give you insight into your core beliefs and help you clear unfinished business of childhood and early adulthood. I also want to help you stop your excuses and start being successful in the areas you have avoided. I also want to help you forgive yourself and others and get onto the business of loving – loving yourself and loving others.
If you are in therapy, this will help you in working with your therapist. It may give you an outline for self-help work or you may pick and choose what you and your therapist think will help you with your particular issues and patterns. If you are in coaching, it will also help you to work with your coach on what you do to excuse and sabotage your success.
Where to start?
What makes you mad? What can’t you stand? What drains you or zaps your energy? What causes you pain? What are your guilty about? What would you like to change in your life? These questions about negative influences in your life or negative reactions should shed some light on where you can begin. Start journaling about these questions. You might separate them into items or issues or people or situations. When you are writing about them, just let your thoughts flow and your feelings get expressed. Be sure to indicate what happened, who did what (including yourself), who had less than respectable behavior? What did you do that was a mistake or wrong in some way? What did others do that was a mistake or wrong in your opinion? How did you feel or how were you affected by what happened? How do you think the other people involved may have felt? What good came from this? What good could come from this if you determined that it would? What action do you have to take to compost this experience and make it a learning experience in your life rather than a drain because of negative emotions? How will you take this action? When will you do it? Who will know about it? Who can give you recognition or praise about correcting this lesson in life?
Whenever you have a negative experience or something that has affected you in a negative way, try to identify your errors, the others’ errors and what you can do to correct it. Also identify the lesson in it for you. Find a way to become grateful for the experience and feel and express your gratitude. It might take you a couple months to get over the anger or hurt. It is important to get over it. It’s important for you to move past this place to a place of acceptance, understanding and even gratitude for having an opportunity to learn and grow.
Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 06/15 at 12:58 PM
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Thursday, June 11, 2009
Forgiveness Is Urgent
It is important to forgive yourself the mistakes you have made and the things you have done that have been most hurtful to others. By writing them you give yourself the gift of making your load lighter as you attempt to experience more happiness.
It is a good thing to forgive people who have done things that have been hurtful to you. It allows you to move on past that incident or wrong and be in present time without bitterness or anger in your heart. Forgiveness is for you, not the other person.
This is a simple exercise. Either take out your journal or sit at your computer and start writing:
1. These are things I have thought, said or done for which I want forgiveness or for which I want to forgive myself.
2. These are things others have said or done that I want to forgive, clearing me of all negative feelings.
After writing the items, say aloud you forgive yourself and you forgive others. Ask for forgiveness and imagine being your perfect spiritual or higher self, understanding, accepting and loving yourself. Imagine your parents doing the same. And sense the forgiveness of God or the creative force of the universe. Then again say aloud your forgive yourself and you forgive others who harmed you.
Sometimes it is important to share these things with your clergy, a therapist or a trusted friend. Receiving acceptance and feeling the caring or love of another makes it easier to move into forgiveness and let go of the negative feelings.
Life gets better and well being is strengthened when you regularly clear and forgive these actions of yours and others. Feeling gratitude after forgiveness helps solidify the release of negative emotions.
Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 06/11 at 06:15 AM
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Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Compliments
Expressing positive things about another person is like giving them a gift. It says you recognize something special, unique or even just ordinary about them. By bringing it to their attention you are encouraging them to continue doing or being that positive way.
It is also important to tell them how it affects you. An example could go like this: “You called to tell me what you would like to do this evening. You are sensitive to my need to plan a little in advance and I appreciate that you are considering my preferences.”
Please give 3 compliments a day to anyone with whom you are living or spending a lot of time (spouse, children, co-workers, or friends).
Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 06/09 at 10:05 AM
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Saturday, June 06, 2009
Acts of kindness
Doing an act of kindness is one of the best things you can do for yourself and others. When you do something thoughtful or nice for another, the regard comes back to you in multiples. You help make a better world when you pick up trash that blows around your neighborhood. Your vacationing neighbor appreciates putting the newspapers and trash can out of site. The elderly woman at the doctor’s office is thankful for your holding the door and the elevator.
Your magnitude of loving and sense of happiness can grow exponentially if you do some acts of kindness as secrets. The secret act of giving can be enormously fun and fulfilling.
During the holidays we sometimes play “Secret Santa” to someone in the office and leave them small gifts like a special coffee from Starbucks or perform a small task without them knowing who is doing it. Why not be a Secret Pal all year long? I know a creative and big-hearted woman who secretly goes to a friend’s home and decorates the outside of it for every major holiday. She does it in the middle of the night so her friend never knows who the Secret Decorator is.
Take this challenge: do one act of kindness each work day this week, Monday through Friday.
If you are wanting to try another challenge, here it is: Select three things to do in the next month that are secrets from the receiver. Be a “Secret Pal” and do something for three different people where they cannot discover who you are. Good luck! Please share your stories with us if you’d like. We’d love to hear from you!
Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 06/06 at 04:42 PM
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Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Take Vacation Time
I’m being very nice to myself and going on vacation. If you need help doing this for yourself, call me at 702-242-4222 and leave a message. Please note I will not return the call until I am back. Enjoy life!
Love,
D’Arcy
Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 05/12 at 10:35 AM
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Institute for Happiness Studies
and
Center for Relationship Happiness
8440 W. Lake Mead Blvd., Suite 206
Las Vegas, Nevada 89128-7648
Office: (702) 242-4222
Toll Free: (800) 834-7616
Fax: (702) 242-4429