Let's Shop!

Let's play a game.  Open up the catalog of your choice and select the items you are most interested in receiving.  Shirt from Eddie Bauer? Work out clothes from Title 9?  Kitchen items from William Sonoma?  Furniture from Pottery Barn?  What's are your items of choice?

Now go one step further and order them.  

Here's a question... once your items are ordered, do you go back and re-order them?  Do you call back or revisit the website making sure it's really on the way and that they are really going to let you you own one?  No, probably not.  Once we place an order from a catalog, most of us probably trust we will receive what we've ordered.

Such is the case with the catalog of life.

When you close your eyes, what do you see?  What do you want?  Of all the things you could "order up" for yourself, what would you pick?  House with a stone fence?  A spot on a sunny beach or in sprawling meadow?  A healthy body crossing the finish line of a half-marathon?  Fame?  Fortune? A relationship?  A published book or other work of art?

Of all the things you could order from the Catalog of Life, what would they be? 

Of course the real trick when ordering from the Catalog of Life is believing, once you've placed your order, that those things will come your way.  You don't need to order twice or call back making sure your dreams and wishes are really on the way.  No, the policy for ordering from the Catalog of Life is really pretty simple.  Place your order and then put yourself in the position of receiving. 

Being in the position to receive requires some serious visualization.  

I want to write a book.

Once I place my order, I have literally visualize every step along the way.  I have to feel myself pressing down on my computer key board.  I have to picture the cover of the book and the title page, meetings with a publisher, seeing the book on a shelf, and signing my very first copy.  It is the strong and persistent visualization that eventually influences my behavior and ultimately draws me towards my goals. 

Vision Boards are a great activity to engage in with your friends, or family.  Collect clippings, photographs, words, sketches, receipts, and any other images you can gather to create a visual reminder of what you want from the Catalog of Life.  Glue, staple, pin, or decoupage them to something as simple as a bulletin board or as elaborate as an ornate picture frame.

Katie was nice enough to fast track her Vision Board, so I'd have something to share with you today.  Hers is mounted on a painter's canvas from Michaels. 

Once done, hang your vision board in a prominent place - a place you will pass multiple times each day.  Remind yourself of the order you've placed in the Catalog of Life, believe, visualize, and then get ready to receive.

Skeptical?

One quick story then I'm done.  In 1988 my good friend Dawn made me a Vision Board.  I had been talking on and on about sailing on Semester at Sea, a ship that travels around the world with college students in a semester.  She presented me with a teal colored piece of card stock.  In the center was a picture of the ship, smaller pictures representing each country on the itinerary, and the phrase, "Fall 1991" (the year I was to finish graduate school).  That simple Vision Board hung on my bathroom mirror from 1989 through my 101-day Semester at Sea voyage in the Fall of 1991. 

It worked for me and it can work for you too!

So tell us, what will you put on your vision board.  And, if you're really motivated send us an photo of your finished board, whenever it's done, and earn a Patchwork patch! 

Signing off until tomorrow....  Song compliments of Katie...  song of the day...