Set your eyes on 2021

Happy new year!

May you become an even brighter light this year, for yourself, for your loved ones, for our entire community and world.  We all need it!  As you explore what this means for you, we invite you into a journey we take with our Donovan residents every year:  creating our vision board.

I was floored when, in December, I reviewed 2020.  Despite being a year that radically blindsided all of us, I achieved almost every item on my vision board!  This just shows that when it’s meant to happen, it does!  Even if it’s not the way we had originally expected.

Over the past 9 New Year’s Days spent building the annual vision boards, I’ve learned that a successful, actionable vision board sets intentions, not expectations.

Begone expectations and SMART goals!  :-)  These have their place in our lives and businesses.  And vision boards aren’t it.  With expectations, we set our eyes on an outcome, on a rigid definition of success.  Then life presents circumstances than we could not have predicted (hello covid), so we often set ourselves up for disappointment and failure.

When we set intentions, we visualize a future towards which we are called to move, without attachment to the journey or outcome. There is flexibility for the unknown.  It opens us up for creation.  It creates the space for our brilliance to show up in ways we could have never imagined.

Plus, contrary to popular belief, I have stronger results when I set intentions versus expectations. 2020 is yet another perfect demonstration!

Here is the exact document we sent into Donovan in the first days of this year, inviting the residents into our annual process of vision boarding.  Let it be an invitation for you to create yours.

As you set up this new year, be sure you’re setting intentions, not expectations.