Dream big, and long term

Do you dream of becoming a feng shui practitioner/consultant? Or adding feng shui to your current work?  Dream big and take your first step by starting your training on March 5.

I recently had the opportunity to play an abbreviated version of The Decade Game. The idea behind The Decade Game is for you to create a life by design, not by default. The rule is to think in terms of a decade as you are designing your life. Dream big and long-term, (10 years!) then start with initial steps. Playing the game reminded me of myself, ten years ago.

Are you having fun?

In the game, you are asked this foundational question:  if you are not currently having fun in the life that you’re living, then you’re playing someone else’s game.

In other words, the purpose of the game (and your life!) is to start playing – and having a blast – in your own game/life. Start by asking yourself what you want and take your first steps.

A little less than 10 years ago, I left the job that was not fulfilling me and took my part-time, weekends-only, feng shui “gig” to a full-fledged consulting practice with my own hours. What a joy it has been and continues to be! My life and work as a feng shui practitioner, consultant, teacher, and writer is exactly what I want to be doing. And, yes, I’m having fun!

Begin your feng shui training March 5!

Is working in feng shui or bringing feng shui into your current work something you’ve wanted to do?

You can begin as early as March 5^th by getting your feng shui certification training through the Western School of Feng Shui. I am going to be coaching and facilitating the fourteen-day, Fast-Track Essential Feng Shui® (EFS) certification training program from March 5 – 18, 2023. Join me, and other students, in this on-line training program with Zoom coaching calls.  I’ll be with you twice daily on Zoom throughout your training and will use examples from my fourteen years of experience as a feng shui consultant to enrich the training. Learn more here.

Here’s what one student from the October 2022 training had to say:

I hope you took some time to take a breath and enjoy the beautiful weekend after a fantastic two weeks full of Feng Shui. I wanted to send you a quick note to congratulate you on a very successful course and also thank you for sharing your knowledge with others. I really appreciated your teaching style and hope you feel great about the course as well! I learned so much and I know there is so much more to learn.

Many thanks again! Ryan

What do you want to be doing in a decade?  If feng shui is in your big picture, join me in March.

What do you want to be when you “grow up”?

Remember when you were a little kid and knew exactly what you wanted to be when you grew up? You could always answer this question with confidence whenever asked. I’m going to be a doctor, a teacher, a veterinarian, you might have said. Then as you got older, the question got harder to answer because the world had opened up possibilities you hadn’t considered. Now maybe when asked, you just didn’t know the answer or hedged your bets. This happened to me. I changed my major three times in college. Just sayin’.

Making a vision board is one way of being able to answer that question today because hey, aren’t we all – at whatever age — still trying to figure out what we want to be when we “grow up?”  The question sounds different when asked in adult-speak and usually goes like this: What are your goals and plans for next year? Where are you going and what are you going to do? Making a vision board is a way of answering those questions for the upcoming year.

Before I tell you why I do a vision board every year, let’s start with a definition:

A vision board is a poster board or other visual tableau (bulletin board, canvas, website, photo gallery) where you place images that represent something you want to accomplish, experience, have, attain and/or places you want to visit, move to, live in and/or people you want to meet, emulate, inspire and love. The images can be literal or symbolic. You are the artist of your vision board and your life, and you create the symbolism.

Sound fun? It is. It’s all about what you want, your vision for yourself – not anybody else’s vision of you or for you.

Vision boards are about expressing your dreams in images, feeling good, being hopeful and experiencing more than you thought possible. The process of creating the board is as intentional and fun as having the finished product on your wall, your phone, or your computer screen for you to soak in all year by looking at it lovingly, joyfully, gratefully and daily. It’s a daily reminder of your life’s direction.

Why do a vision board?

Why do a vision board? Because it is an act of self discovery. I create a vision board every year because:

*          I want to know myself better.

*          I want to be surprised and delighted by my own life.

*          As much as I think I know what I want in my head, my heart actually knows me best and creating a vision board is way to discover what I really want.

I create a vision board every year to discover my dreams and my heart’s desires. Our desires and our dreams speak to us in images. (Think of your actual dreams upon waking. Do you remember them in words or pictures?) Pictures express a feeling to us immediately and often instill action. The process of selecting and placing images on a poster board is a way for me to discover what is going to make me happy. When I finish my board I’m looking at a new version of myself. It is a “getting to know me” experience that I enjoy every year and look forward to the surprises awaiting me.

Find images that inspire and thrill you, or make you curious.

Certainly every year I have plans and I place those intentional plans on my board – for example, images that represent visits to my son who lives in a different city, work events that are scheduled, a continued commitment to healthy living, or a vacation. But often there are images I find in magazines or on a photo site that inspire, thrill me, make me smile or wonder; they call out to me so I put them on the board even though I’m not sure what they represent. I know I’ll find out why they are there at some point. This process of creation reminds me that while there are many things out of my control, I am in control of my thoughts and can express my feelings, beliefs, attitudes, dreams and desires by placing images that represent them on my vision board.

I can answer the “what do you want to be when you grow up” question by pointing to my completed vision board and saying, “Next year, I’m going to be her.”

So the question for anyone wondering “why do a vision board” is better asked like this: “why not create the life you want to live next year by doing a vision board?”