I began my journey of purposeful personal development when I became involved in a direct selling company about 15 years ago. I can distinctly remember being told by my sponsor that I needed to create a dream board. At the time, I thought it was a pretty silly assignment for a grown woman to be cutting things out of a magazine to glue onto a poster board. These pictures were to represent the goals I had for my life that I hoped to achieve through my new home based business. I wanted to listen to this leader in my company as she was doing very well, so I half-heartily complied. I can still remember what that board looked like all these years later.
I remember pasting a picture of a little Italian Café to represent my desire to visit Italy with my husband. I also pasted a picture of a beautifully remodeled kitchen and a home office with a roll top desk and lots of sunshine and windows. I added a picture of the mountains of Alaska and a pristine fishing stream on the board as I really wanted to travel there as well. I enjoyed making the dream board and thinking about getting everything my heart desired. It felt good to have accomplished the exercise as it forced me to think about what I really wanted to work towards. I truly believe that this simple exercise of putting these images onto a poster board representing these desires helped motivate me to work harder towards achieving them.
Now, fast forward just six short years after I made that first Dream Board. I had totally forgotten all about making the board, and in fact had lost it somewhere in the chaos of my life. When I created the board I had toddler twins and was pregnant with our 3rd child. During this next six years, I had two more children. I know I’m an overachiever and tend to do everything in excess! Things had moved forward in my business and I ended up working corporate for a start-up financial education company. I worked with several key leaders in this company that were unhappy with the way things were going. A group of us decided to start our own company. Now it just so happened that two of the owners were from Alaska. We were able to travel to Alaska twice for owners meeting, staying in the Alyeska Hotel at the base of a mountain and we went Salmon fishing in an amazingly beautiful mountain stream. Both of these were trips of a lifetime, like something from a dream. Dream one achieved (though at this point I did not remember the dream board even existed).
Then a year later my husband and I were invited to Italy for a retreat and were able to go. Dream two lived and enjoyed. Approximately 8 years after I made that board, we bought a custom built house that we were able to make the final decisions on paint colors and finishes. I designed an incredible kitchen and my home office was to die for. The house was finally finished and we began the exciting move from the old house. While cleaning up the storage room, I found an old poster board stuffed behind a shelf. I dusted it off and almost fainted. The picture of my home office was as if I had taken a picture of my new office. The paint color was an exact match! The kitchen cabinets were the same mahogany with open glass. I was then reminded of the trips I had wanted to take to Alaska and Italy. It was absolutely crazy as to how much had been manifested from that board into my life!
If you have never completed a dream board I strongly urge you to do this. With today’s social media, this is even simpler. I believe creating a Dream Board on Pinterest would be an incredibly powerful exercise for anyone to complete. Taking this single action will help begin the process in moving towards these goals. Remember goals are simply just dreams with a deadline! For an example of a Dream Board on Pinterest, click here.
Also, if you would like to receive a free copy of an exercise I created called Dare to Dream, visit my blog at http://www.EmpowerNetwork.com/time4life and download it.
Here’s to you achieving all your dreams,
Sandy Scherschligt
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