July Spark
A road trip to Awesomeville
Starting down the road to a more colorful life.
Hop in the car with me. I’ll drive and you choose the music. We are going to your dream life in Awesomeville!
All you have to do is describe it to me. What do you do there, how does it feel, what is the weather there? Where will you stay, what are you wearing, who will meet you there?
You start describing this place you want to be and I will drive toward it. Every time your mind starts to doubt if you can have that life in Awesomeville I veer off course. This detour is down roads filled with towns where you can’t have what you want, towns with shiny new dreams to distract you.
Give it a couple weeks and you’d be really ticked at me for randomly driving you around to nowhere. You might even ditch me at a gas station and hitch back to where you started.
This is how working on goals can start to look. You are excited at first, know what you want, then you start to doubt that you can. You aren’t there yet at your dream because you’ve slowed down on your actions because of that doubt, so you start to dream up something new or just give up on ever achieving anything. To really create your life you have to decide what you want and how you want it to look, otherwise you just allow the detours to decide what you get.
You can get back on the road to that amazing life you keep craving by choosing to focus on it and driving toward it.
So how do we get back to that focus, how do we build that belief in our destination?
We use the power we have in our conscious mind to visualize. We create something to focus on, to glance at and snap back to that place of belief and dreams and hope. We CHOOSE to stop our doubts and look at where we want to go.
This month we are going to get back to that dream, refocus and start driving again. In months past I gave you worksheets to discover and decide what you want and areas you need to stop getting distracted. (check out April)
Once you know what you want we will create an art piece to remind you of your dreams when you get lost in a detour.
Write your vision of how your life would be if you already achieved your goal. Write how you would feel knowing you accomplished what you set out to do.
Creative Art Challenge:
Step 1.
Create a symbol that would represents the big goal. (I just picked a simple image that came to mind quickly.) Don’t fuss over what it is. The faster it pops in your head the easier it will be to picture that symbol and the underlying meaning when you are feeling lost and not sure what you are working towards. Mine was a crown. It summed up how I’d feel and also how rare it felt to achieve this goal. (something to work on for me… more about working on these thoughts that come up in newsletters to come)
Step 2.
Write the feelings, the benefits, the good stuff in words. The symbol should start to encompass these words and feelings for you. Spend enough time with it that it really gets ingrained in your head. (ie. my crown = confidence, success, fulfillment)
My crown needed a head, I added a misspelled word (oops) so I turned it into doodles and lines.
Step 3.
Write a specific vision of what that goal looks like for you. The feeling words can end up being part of many different dreams and goals. Decide on what you are working towards. My three words could perfectly fit someones dream of being an athlete but in my vision it is teaching others how to believe in themselves. So write out what that feeling looks like for you. When you know what the vision is you get a better idea of the steps to take to get there.
Step 4. On a new piece of paper (or on the back like I did) create a piece of art that incorporates your symbol. It can be just a giant painting of your symbol, or a vision of you with your symbol in your dream life. Do what you feel confident creating. The purpose is to give you something to look at that snaps you back on the road to Awesomeville.
The art itself doesn’t have to be beautiful, we aren’t trying to get into MOMA with this piece. Let go of perfection over your tools. Do you polish your hammer or frame your rulers? No, you use them to get the real work done.
Leave it sitting out.
Look at it. Let it be your motivation to get back to work.
I love creating “tools” in this way because they do a job for me, but others don’t need to know what I’m building with it until I”m ready to tell them. It is ok to keep your map to Awesome-ville a secret until you have a well worn road.
My Tips:
Start by answering these questions in your art and see where it takes you.
1. What object is associated with my goal?
2. If my art can be ugly what would I draw right now?
3. What do I need to see to keep me focused?
4. If I trusted that any doodle, pattern or idea would lead to more insight what do I feel like painting right now?
I’d love to see what you make. Send me an email and let me know what you tried and what it revealed for you.
Finished for now. I could always add to it as a way to refocus on my goals and give it attention.
Just a reminder.
Looking for more? I've put the overall process I use with clients into a do-it-yourself workbook. You can download a PDF or get a nicely printed version from this link.
