As I arrange my personal and professional plans for 2013, it is only right that I would be called to use a VisionBoard. It is a process that I have seen work well in my life.

      My VisionBoard for the New Year includes VisionBoarding in my new home, new community.  After my early experiences in 2008, I began to offer VisionBoard workshops and I saw how much the lives of other people benefited too. I want to continue sharing that benefit.

     2013 is a One personal year for me, with many beginnings and new opportunities. The universal vibration is Six (2+0+1+3=6). Six has major aspects of Humanitarian Service, and I know that sharing the VisionBoard experience will serve people for whom this is a new practice. I very much look forward to playing some small role in helping people to connect to their purpose and spiritual expression.

     In this post I am re-using copy from another part of the site.  It says what I want to say this week, and if the Nova Scotia geography it uses is unfamiliar to you as a reader, please forgive me. I am not yet so entrenched in my new location that I can easily transform it. This is what I wrote:

     Placing pictures on a Vision Board is a little like naming a destination as you settle behind the wheel of your car. Before ever turning the ignition key, it is good to know where you would like to get to.

    Imagine that you get into your car today, with a plan to get to Halifax. Even if you have never driven there before, there is no need to micro-manage the details. There are signs, junctions, choices you can make. It doesn’t really matter, while you are still at home, exactly where you will stop for coffee, or which are your favourite comfort stops. You know that Halifax is accessible by car, and you can set out with confidence.

     It is not unthinkable that once the journey is underway, an obstacle causes a detour. Perhaps a construction site creates a diversion through a small town instead of a long stretch on the highway. Maybe heavy rains have caused a hazard and it makes more sense to head south and approach the city from the west instead of the north.

     You are clear about your destination. It remains unchanged, and perhaps you enjoy the drive more than you might have done otherwise. Maybe this is an unexpected opportunity to visit a shop you have heard about, or enjoy a cup of tea with a rarely-seen friend. When you reach your objective, it is as you intended, and your day may have been enriched by the unexpected aspects of the trip.

     Imagine though, if you had no destination, or only a dreamy idea of where you might like to go.

     What if you got into your car planning to just get through this kilometer?
‘If I can get through this,’ you might think, ‘Then I will worry about what’s next.’

     To get through the next kilometer is a small, easily achievable goal, and yet any obstacle, however small, becomes a huge impediment. A detour might be ten times as big as that initial one kilometer goal. That is disheartening. That is overwhelming. That may even be a reason to give up and go home. Perhaps, eventually, when you reach your objective it comes at the end of a journey fraught with not knowing, difficulty and even fear.

     For many of us, our approach to life is about ‘getting through the day' – or week or pay-period. Some of us just want to make it through until after a stressful committee meeting, or when the grandchildren go home, or until we can’t be in the garden every day. We make a plan to delay any thought of what might be possible a little further along in life. There is no goal, no target, and no vision. We have not looked within to find what we believe our purpose to be.

     Making a VisionBoard is like seeing that Halifax destination. Knowing where you’re heading lets you enjoy the journey. A closed lane on a bridge is just another irritant to cope with, not a Major Life Problem. A detour off the highway is a chance to enjoy the scenic surroundings we so often take for granted. All is well with the world.

     A VisionBoard is a wonderful way to remind ourselves that it is the destination that matters, even when we are not certain how we might get there. It frees us up to be present in whatever is, knowing that the Big Picture remains.

     In the spring of 2009 I put an image of two people on a VisionBoard. It was a wish to spend more happy time with some specific family members, people I love. They lived and worked near Ottawa and I lived in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. I had no idea how “more time with them” could possibly happen, and I did not invest any energy looking at “how”. I simply put out the idea that being with them, enjoying laughter and fun with them, was a place I wanted to reach.

    Within weeks – not months -- I received a phone call. Those very individuals were planning a road trip that would pass near me. They were happy to make the small detour to include me. Would I like to come along?

     Yes. Thank you. Universe, that works just fine.