Imagine if you actually achieved what you always wanted. Got that promotion, presented your innovative idea, made time to be you, lived a bigger life – how amazing would that be?

Most people imagine their ideas and dreams are unattainable so what’s the point in even starting! Many women feel they don’t have the skills, the confidence, the resources or the time to make their goals happen.

Conscious goal setting and intuitive visioning practise are essential to planning a successful year. Approximately 80% of New Year resolutions fail. So why not start this year off differently? With INTENT and good HABITS the feminine way.

Conscious goal setting

Conscious goal setting means that you take an analytical look at the past and the future and think about what success means to you, what you have learned and what elements you want to improve upon.

The first step is to reflect on the past year.  What are you proud of? What did you really enjoy doing? What will you let go of? What will you take with you into the new year?  No matter how hard and confusing the year has been it’s important to see all the good things and the successes you have had, no matter how small. Be proud of yourself and celebrate these wins. We do this practise inside the DrivenWoman member community each year in December which helps enormously.

The second step in conscious goal setting is to set your goals for the New Year in writing and with intent. Do this in your journal, get together with a group of like-minded women and create physical vision boards or you may like to create a digital vision board where you actively choose the items and concepts you want to bring into your life. Tools like Canva or Pinterest can help to combine images and words that inspire you.

Conscious goal setting is great, but we believe if you stop there you are missing a valuable piece of the puzzle – the intuitive visioning practise!

Intuitive visioning practise

There’s a reason why at DrivenWoman we have always done our visioning practise the old fashioned way using images from magazines and sticking them on a piece of cardboard.

The intuitive visioning practise is based on your flow and letting the images and words you randomly see in front of you guide you. It is a way to let your soul (rather than your mind) direct you. Creating your vision board this way ensures you are free(er) from your mind’s rational side. Don’t forget, most people live inside their heads all year round, however, their dreams live in their hearts.

Rather than trying to think analytically “what do I want” or “what can I achieve” you should add images to your board that you’re intuitively attracted to. Sometimes things and ideas appear on your board that you are not consciously aware of, yet. Your future will explain these things as they happen later. You are calling for them from a deeper place than what your conscious mind can handle at that time and you are less restricted by your own limiting beliefs.

Limiting beliefs are false beliefs often inherited from family or society that limit us from pursuing our goals and reaching our full potential. You may have concluded in your conscious mind that you will never earn a lot of money or are not worthy of a promotion. When you set your conscious goals these beliefs are present and act like a hand brake.

This is why conscious goal setting has its limits and why we recommend strongly that you create a physical vision board from paper instead of a digital one.

Digital vision board can also become a shopping list of things your conscious mind can bring forth right now. You will analyse what you think you want and then go and find the image or word to represent that thought.

Intuitive visioning practise and creating a physical vision board by-passes your limiting beliefs and offers greater guidance from the subconscious, your intuition. It allows the Universe to get involved in your plans. You see, we are all part of the Universe and thus carry its wisdom. Most of us spend all our waking hours doing our best to silence its messages and let our brain dominate our lives. This is your chance to let go of some of that control that is perhaps keeping you away from your true desires.

Physical vision boards are also more tactile and therefore more REAL. You can hang it in front of your desk, or in your bedroom door and make sure you see it every day and let it guide you.

How to create a physical vision board

Here’s a list of what you need for your practise:

• Magazines of all sorts: fashion, business, boats, travel, food, home, gossip, … anything with great images.  (A pro tip: ask your hairdresser to put old magazines aside for you!)
• Glue stick
• Large piece of craft cardboard (A1 or bigger)
• Scissors
• A big table or clean floor
• 1-2 hours

Take one magazine at a time and leaf through the pages. Rip out any images or words that you are attracted to and set them aside.

Go through all your magazines and when you have a nice pile of images and cut outs you can start compiling them onto the board. Use scissors to cut the images you want and stick them onto your board.

Sharing your vision board with like-minded women makes it more fun, and helps you to get committed to your exciting future. As soon as we announce our intention to the world the Universe starts to conspire to our advantage!