The Vision Board

When I moved into this place, I saw a gorgeous green couch that I wanted for my living room. I love my current couch - it’s just too small for the space it’s sitting in. 

This year - I put the couch on my vision board. Yes, I’m a vision board girlie … I like visuals of all the goals I’m pursuing. 

What’s interesting … As I look at my board, I’ve slowly started building the life I envisioned. 

That’s the fascinating thing … I wanted it, I imagined it, you could even say I wished for it … But I also started building it. 

Not straight lines, not perfectly, not across all the categories … Messy, re-imagined and moving in a direction that matters. 

The clothes I wear … not entirely the look I’m building toward, but moving in that direction. It was slow and didn’t feel like a conscious choice … I woke up one morning and realized I was making different choices, choices I felt good about … Made me feel good, comfortable in my skin again, seen even. 

Choices about how my home looks and feels … Nothing matches - everything belongs. From the pillow on the chair I inherited, to the couch I bought, to the upholstery on the footstool, to the window cling diffusing light, reflecting colour and keeping my plants from getting too much sun.

My original couch - I moved it into the spare room. It belongs there … with the colours on the walls, in the rug, beside the pink inherited chair that brings me endless joy!

The new couch? It belongs where it’s landing. 

While moving furniture in and around - I’m talking to you pink chair … I’m reviewing and refreshing all the things … Throw blankets found new homes, pillow covers were donated and I picked up some “new to me” covers that work better with my current palette. 

Little things are starting to come together … The footstool that ‘goes’ with my rocking chair, it got a face lift … My desk chair will get one in early 2027 … These pieces I was given … They are beautiful, old, well made, interesting and worth investing in their continued life in my home. 

I like pretty, but I also like personality. In my clothes, my home decor … I’m realizing now - my vision board reflects that … Where I travel, the goals I have for the life I’m building … I’m reflected in all of it - as I should be - but the me I am isn’t the same version as the me who created the board, she saw something, something she wanted to build … The breadcrumbs are there, all across my board. Somewhere between then and now I stepped into that life … One small choice, one messy action at a time. 

I see it reflected back at me in the mirror, as I look around my home, as I look at what’s planned for the remainder of the year, the projects I’m working on … It feels like it started with a pink chair, I know it didn’t, the chair was the momentum built on all the small choices that came before it. 

As I look around my life - I’m happy. That in itself isn’t a surprise … But it’s nice to say … To realize. I don’t do that enough. 

My life may not be perfect … I moved the old couch into the spare room on my own. I get these ideas in my head … It was not as difficult as one would think (hilariously - both those statements are very on brand if you look at the women in my family tree). I’m working on a set of principles, one of which states “I am physically capable of carrying something; that doesn’t automatically make it mine to carry” then promptly decided to move the sectional.

So … Not entirely there … Moving in the right direction.

Some things seem to move invisibly, others change your vantage point and sometimes all it takes is a push - out of your comfort zone, to the edge of your limit, or sometimes, right off a cliff … 

Smiles … 

My point? Those moments open me up to new possibilities … Sometimes they change the goal itself.

The vision board I created two years ago - some of those things didn’t make the cut last year - not because I realized them, I didn’t. They didn’t fit anymore … So, I let them go. 

Will all my unrealized goals make the cut for next year? Maybe. Maybe not. Some might - they just might look different … They've been refined and modified slightly over time.

What I’m realizing is - it’s not a checklist of wins and losses … It’s a visual representation of my mind - at a single point in time … Maybe those images stay somewhere in the background, maybe they don’t. When I look at them now - it’s not through the same eyes that chose them. The vision changes because I’m changing … The choices change. The evidence changes. Sometimes, even the destination changes. Because just like me … It’s in progress.