Inspiration Board 2012

Inspiration board posts have been going up like crazy in the blogosphere because, of course, it’s the New Year!

For the past few years I’ve abstained from making any “New Year’s resolutions”, dismissing them as silly because, after all, statistics show us that most people don’t stick with them, so surely setting some would just be setting ourselves up for failure, no?

Well, that’s until I really started to believe in the power of manifestations. And, of course, the importance of setting the RIGHT goals. Realistic, achievable, yes, but also ones that work for who you are – not ones you think you should have. In my experience, goals really only get achieved if you really, truly want them.

Making an inspiration board for the whole year is a great way to give yourself some goals that might not be instant; that might take a while to achieve. After all, you have all year! And the board is also a great tool that I can use to set my monthly goals (I’ll be reviewing December’s and setting January’s tomorrow!) so that I can keep myself on track for the longer term goals on my board.

On New Year’s Eve a friend explained that, every year, she comes up with a word for the coming year. One word to encapsulate what she wants the coming year to mean for her. My word this year is MANIFEST.

My issue has often been that I’m very much a chameleon. Having moved so much growing up, and having had to make friends in all kinds of situations, I’m really good at adapting, and adapting quickly. Often becoming the person that I think my new friends want me to be, or my new boyfriend, or my teacher or pretty much anyone I think is important to impress. That just means that their opinions – of me and of other things in the world – become more important to me than my own. My way of remedying that is to really focus on manifesting what I want in my life, and learning what it is that I want along the way.

Inspiration boards are a great way of setting down on paper (or card!) what I want from my life. Now that I have it set out on card, I can go about working on achieving it!

Here’s a bit of a “board breakdown”:

My 2012 Inspiration Board:

Copyright to The Guiltless Life

Close-up of the right-hand side of the board:

Copyright to The Guiltless Life

• The hand with the word “LOVE” written in different ways and different languages was something I wanted to be front and centre on my board. You can never have too much love!

• The baby on the top is not for me! As I revealed in my 2011 reflection post, I am going to be in an aunt in 2012, so this baby (who is soooo cute!) is my way of envisioning and manifesting a happy, healthy baby for my sister and brother-in-law!

• Don’t you just love the shoe with the dollar bill as a bow? Haha – great double message! But that is a symbol to remind myself to splurge on myself a little but still keep my real estate, financial and other investments in check and to keep on saving that money! Eventually I want to be able to buy my own place and move out but living at home and investing in our new apartment has been a great way to allow myself a little extra time to really build up a good nest egg!

• The natural beauty products, the WTF? toxic-free ad, the chandelier and meadow, the girl drinking water and the cozy sweater girl are all part of my goal to live as toxin-free a lifestyle as possible – a major resolution for myself in 2012 – cleaning out my beauty products to ensure my lifestyle is as holistic and natural as possible. I also love how healthy the model’s skin and hair look – a sure sign of a clean lifestyle!

• The beach scenes in the bottom right are for HOME! I just booked a trip home in March and hope to – in the not too distant future – be spending at least a few months of the year back home (the Cayman Islands, to new readers!). I miss it too much!

Close-up of the centre of my board:

Copyright to The Guiltless Life

• Obviously, we’ve got my word of 2012: manifest

• The book and the “Once Upon a Time” writing page are motivation for me to really give as much of my energy as I can to my writing this year. Truthfully I haven’t done much work on it since the conference in October… :S

• Having bought my new Nikon (it should be here any day!) dSLR, I can’t wait to really invest some time into learning about my new camera (I used to have an Olympus dSLR so there will be some new tricks to learn) and really spend time nurturing photography as a hobby

• The protein powder is to remind me to eat more protein, but I also want to keep my diet as clean as possible in 2012. I haven’t got off to a great start (thanks holidays!) but I will hopefully turn that around this month and set myself on a good nutritional path for the year! Those bikini bodies in my “home” section to the right should serve as some motivation ;).

Close-up of the left-hand side of my board:

Copyright to The Guiltless Life

• This side of the board really focuses on fitness and physical activity – from yoga to dance to Zumba (I just signed up for my first Zumba course!) to snowboarding

• Connecting with friends and continuing to foster the amazing friendships I have is another big goal for this year

QUESTIONS:

• Do you do an inspiration board?
• If you had to have a word for this year, what would it be?