When I was teaching 8th grade years ago I decided at the end of the year, on one of the last days of school, to give the students a way to focus on their expectations for high school and remember the dreams they had when things got overwhelming.
I hadn’t thought about it for years but after making an art journal it started floating around in my brain again, and when I tried Kirigami I decided arts and crafts would be a good way to get creative and do some forward thinking and planning.
When I began figuring out where I wanted to start I chose to focus on my writing. I love to write but I want to do more with it than just amuse myself. Frankly, I don’t know how far I’ll get but I want to write something that matters to people. So I created a board out of two manilla folders I glued together. I cit a slit in them so that I created a pocket to put things in. If I had folders with pockets it might have been easier but I didn’t so I made do. I filled my writing board with things that helped me make that connection. I inserted my name into interviews about top listed books, wrote a review of my book, wrote the text for the book jacket, etc. Then I added a ‘ticket’ to an event where someone would get to sit down with me and get their questions about my latest work answered. It was not a comfortable process. I was taught not to ask for ‘too much’ or to put too high of a price on myself or my work so I couldn’t imagine these things actually happening but I know that’s the point of a vision board, to clearly, and with detail, imagine your dreams coming true so your mind starts to work towards the goal.
After that I did finances/money, not a hard one to spot because I found duct tape with a variety of bills on it, and wrote myself a ‘check’ from a publishing house, put in a list of charities I would donate to, and used a green sparkly piece of paper to write all the things I could do or fund once I was supporting myself with my writing. Then there was love, also not hard because I had a whole bunch of pink paper and sticky crystals. I kept this one simple, writing the kinds of things I would see, experience, feel from people who loved me on a sparkly pink page, cutting out hearts and just playing around with what fit. Finally I did health. I added recipes, goals, things I could do to make healthier choices, etc. I added magazine cutouts and stickers to emphasize the things I want to achieve in order to make the board more interactive than the other ones.
The end goal includes one more for travel and another one for home but I’m still figuring out what I want those to look like so I’ll keep working on those. All in all I really liked how vision boards forced me to clarify for myself what I want and how I see myself achieving my goals and dreams. I’m not sure where I’ll go from here but I think it might be to create a website to share my writing.
Duct Tape and Dreams 