Have you ever created a life vision board? What’s not to love about cutting and pasting the most beautiful photos from magazines and creating a perfect snapshot of the life you want? For me, the act of creating a vision board is exciting and creates a feeling of renewal. Where the work gets hard, though, is implementing your vision across your life. After many failed attempts, stops, and starts, I’ve learned three secrets that will help you turn your vision board into reality. 

Secret One: Live Your Life Vision Now 

Living in your life vision now means acting now as if you are living the exact life you want.  For example, if your life vision includes being married, then start living that way: instead of working late in the office, go home at the end of the workday and eat a home-cooked dinner. Honor (or create) your boundaries with work and home, as you will when you’re married. If it’s a move you envision, start to prepare by downsizing your things. If it’s starting your own business while you’re still at a 9-to-5, then start to talk about your business as your profession and your 9-to-5 as your side hustle.

I knew that part of my vision was to make a big move, although I didn’t know where, let alone how or when; I just knew that a big shift was coming. I knew it would cost me, so I opened a separate savings account and started to squirrel away money. By the time I had decided to move to L.A., I had saved enough to make it happen.

Secret Two: Keep it Simple

If you’re anything like me, you can make extremely complex strategic plans. Give me a few hours and an Excel chart and I can make you the most beautiful plan. But when taking the first steps into your life vision — resist this urge!  Keep it simple!  I suggest starting out with 1 to 3 weekly steps you can take to begin working towards your vision.  If your vision is finding a partner, you could take the step of going through your social media and finding a few pictures for your dating profile. Or maybe it’s deciding to change careers; perhaps you could have coffee with someone you love and trust and ask them what your biggest strengths are. What matters is keeping it simple! 

Secret Three: Get Detached

So here is where a bit of tough love is needed. Get fiercely committed to your vision — but also really detached from how you get there.  Every path is different; rarely do things turn out exactly the way you are expecting.  So let go of how you’re going to step into your vision, and stay focused on the next steps.  

For me, I wanted to become a solopreneur and had a perfect plan for how to leave my 9-to-5. But somehow I  never had time to start making that transition, so  I started to believe it was going to be impossible. Then in 2018, I was laid off, which gave me the gift of time, and bang — I was there. I could have never expected that this was how I would step into this phase of my career. So get detached from how you are reaching your vision. You will know exactly what the right steps are when you get to them.