Posts Tagged ‘vision board’

By Sherry Lowry with Jane Ross

The first Your Vision on Hotwheels workshop we gave in July ‘09 grew out of a special request. Some of our participants had already done the vision board workshop with us and wanted to take one element of their vision board and get a plan for some next steps. How were they were going to bring that vision to life, personally or professionally?

A hotwheels visioneer in the process of mapping her vision

We also had clients who were a little intimidated by the vision board process. They had a purpose statement or a life intention that they had documented or they had a whole list of values and they weren’t quite sure what to do with that. So they wanted to work with Anna, Honoria and me in a group format to get legs under that purpose statement. They wanted help to put some of their ideas into action.

Your Vision on Hotwheels is a half a day workshop. At our July workshop, every participant created a visual path or map. Many of them incorporated art into that. Whether they came in with a vision board or not, they each ended up with a separate hotwheels roadmap that they took away.

Your Vision on Hotwheels: next workshop, Saturday November 21, 2009

Registration information will be posted on EventBrite soon.

Or register by calling Anna 512-431-6619

By Sherry Lowry with Jane Ross

We adored the photo from the September 26 Vision Board workshop of participant Bernard Brown’s feet standing in paper cuttings—delightful. He was so engrossed. As he was cutting he was standing up and the paper was falling at his feet.

In the flow at the Vision Board workshop

It was a perfect example of somebody going into a flow experience. It had every element of how do you get in flow with the process? That is when time vanishes, not thinking of any physical needs or anything. You are just very engrossed and engaged in the process. It’s a very creative moment.

Here’s what Bernard had to say about the vision boarding process from his own perspective.

“I knew I was coming in with this being my first vision board that there would be a fair amount of questions for me: things I would be processing and working through. I didn’t come in with a fixed set of things I was exploring. I took it on like, this is my chance to familiarize myself with the process, engage in it, and see what the subconscious would say and see what would show up in the community.

“We were helping each other locate different pictures and images based on what we had shared earlier about our aspirations. I was taking a chance to get ideas. I also believe that sometimes things come through, through others. I may not be conscious of something, but somebody else may be in tune with it. Through dialogue or conversation it may show up. That is what has been going on for me.

“I think one of the gifts of this workshop is to create a process or method which could be continually renewing. I don’t see this board as a static thing. It is going to pulse. As I achieve or I clear some of the items I have put on my board I will be creating room for new opportunities.

“I am a great proponent of the concept of the hot wheels or focusing or having groups. I don’t know what form it will take. But the conversation is not a one time deal. It evolves into a more focused effort. It starts from the broad, you identify a goal then you go for it. Then you come back and you have community through workshops or we continually re-design our vision boards becoming more and more successful in terms of achievement.”

One of the Bridging Futures team’s goals is to have a voluntary community we stay connected with of people who have been through a process like this who want to know others who are going through it and learn from each other.

(Bridging Futures founder Sherry Lowry explains all in this continuation of her interview with Jane Ross)

After our learning-social open house last month, we realized it would be very useful for people to get a better sense of what we’re doing. Anna and I were talking about the different offerings that we extend and realized people aren’t aware of all the things we offer and how they are related. All of a sudden, Anna picked up a napkin and started sketching out this path that captured what we do at Bridging Futures as VPM: vision, productivity, and message. Honoria took Anna’s sketch and turned it into this beautiful graphic that’s now on our home page.

The anchor point of the graphic is V for Vision. We offer a series of workshops that are all related to some stage of vision, whether it’s creating vision, documenting the vision, planning the strategy of the vision, or executing into the vision.

So far we’ve hosted two vision board full-day workshops and we have another one coming up on September 26, 2009. Participants have included small business owners who are conceptualizing a new direction. We’re also talking fairly young people who are just out of school and are in the workforce or aspiring to be in the workforce. We’ve also had people who are in transition. They are recreating their vision or they’ve had a vision that they haven’t been able to get started on and they wanted to get more definition on it.

We’ve had owners of very large companies. We’ve had attorneys who have been practicing for 20-30 years. We’ve had aeronautical engineers. They all came for different reasons. Some of them were very surprising reasons.

A lot of people came for professional purposes but they end up realizing, behind closed doors, it’s all quite personal anyway. Even though they may have planned to do a professional transition board, they ended up adding personal aspects to their board. Because we all take the whole person to work.