#10 Creating Vision Boards & Dreaming BIG

Kelly is a life-long advocate of writing down her dreams and using visual aids to stay focused and hold positive expectation and belief.

In this episode she shares incredible examples to help you to do this for yourself. You may be inspired to begin a Family Vision Board after hearing how beautifully it's worked for all of her family members or to make an annual Vision Board for yourself.

This episode comes with a free PDF of journal prompts, plus fun questions to get kids dreaming big too.

Join Project WE where we work on our dream visions together. New members are warmly welcomed!

Get the free Project Me Life Wheel® to help you check in with your 8 Key Life Areas.

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Read the Transcript for this Episode below:

Episode 10 of the project me podcast.  Hi, I'm Kelly Pietrangeli, and this podcast is designed to be an entertaining and inspiring look at ways to expand your view of the world and yourself, you are capable of amazing things when you put your head and heart to it,  I'm on a mission to help women to step out of autopilot living, wasting time, dealing with whatever's in front of your face and losing sight of the bigger picture.

This podcast will show you what's possible when you open your mind, open your heart, and stay curious.  Each episode ends with an opportunity to reflect on your own life, and you can download the free PDF of journal prompts from myprojectme.  com.

Welcome back. Yes, there's been another gap between episodes as I've been welcoming in the newest group of women into my high vibe journey program. They are just finishing week two. We had our zoom meetup to hear how everyone's individual journeys are going so far this month and it's incredible to hear how their vibes are already soaring higher by weaving in high vibe practices into their days in ways that fit easily around everything else they've got going on.

These are all super busy women with really full lives. And they are learning to bring more ease and flow into all that they do.  This is how I live my life now. Nothing has to feel like hard work. And when it does, that's my signal that I'm paddling upstream. I need to turn my boat around and head downstream.

In this week's episode, I want to share how important it is to have dream visions and to use visualization tools to support you.  Goals themselves get kind of a bad rap these days, and I think that's because of the relentless pursuit of goals and the pressures that people put on themselves to achieve them and the frustrations that can bring.

This creates that energy of upstream paddling, but I believe having dream visions and intentions actually keep us excited and moving forwards towards the life we are being called to live.  Those inner longings and pulls are there to guide us and there are fun and exciting ways to tap into this.  Okay, here we go with episode 10.

My cousin and I were teenagers hanging out at my grandparents farm in Minnesota. Each one of us was kind of one upping each other and how great our lives were gonna be when we grew up. We both had big plans. My dream vision was to live in California with an ocean view, driving a convertible, and working in Hollywood.

I'd never been on an airplane in my life, much less visited California, but I'd seen it in the movies and it was calling me.  My cousin, he was going to start his own business, be his own boss. He didn't want to work for anybody else. And he was going to design and build his dream house with his own two hands by the time he was 25.

Our uncle had been sitting in the other room overhearing all this big talk, and he came in with an idea.  Why don't you two write those down, and we'll see whose comes true.  Well, my cousin and I eagerly wrote down our dreams, and then our uncle taped our predictions to the back of a picture that was hanging above the kitchen table where we were sitting.

Fast forward several years. I'm now in my early 20s, and I've just arrived home from work. I come in the door, and I find a pile of mail, and there's a letter there from my grandmother.  She wrote to tell me that while the farmhouse kitchen was being repainted, They discovered the predictions my cousin and I had written.

I looked up from her letter and gazed out of my living room window.  An enormous orange sunset was dipping into the Pacific Ocean.  I'd just driven home from work in my VW Golf convertible. My job? Working as Johnny Depp's press assistant in Hollywood.  Meanwhile, my cousin, age 24, had just started his own successful heating and refrigeration business and had just designed and built his dream house.

This woke me up to the amazing power of having a dream vision, sharing it out loud, and writing it down like it's really going to happen. What truly convinced me about the power of visualization came along soon after that.  One day Johnny Depp came into the press office and he took me aside to tell me some news he wanted me to hear before it went out publicly.

He was leaving the show. He was going to pursue a movie career.  I thought he was crazy to leave 21 Jump Street, the TV show that had turned him into a teen heartthrob sensation. My whole job was about opening up the sacks and sacks of fan mail that arrived for him every week. He was gonna walk away from this in its prime and risk everything to try to be a film actor?

To his face, I was like, oh, wow, great, fantastic, you'll be amazing. But behind his back, I said, he'll never make it.  Well, I was clearly wrong about that. We won't go into what happened to his career now, but he did indeed make it very big for quite some time.  With Johnny gone, I was now out of work, but my next dream job was just around the corner.

A creative, fun position in the music video department for Capitol Records. I was in the iconic round building shaped like a pile of records. My office view was the same as the postcard I'd had hanging in my bedroom for years of the Hollywood sign.  Research has shown that there is a strong scientific basis for how and why visualization works.

Seeing what you want in your mind and using physical printed visual aids plant them in the brain.  Those postcards and pictures that hung on my bedroom walls became ingrained in me.  I first heard about the concept of creating a vision board many years later from Rhonda Byrne when I read her book The Secret.

I talked about that book in episode 8. Back in 2012, my two boys were 12 and 9. I decided it was a great time to create a family vision board. It was the school holidays and it just felt like a fun thing to keep us all occupied to be honest.  I never imagined what an impact this project would have.  I wanted my kids to know that they're only limited by their own mind and this was a fun way to get them dreaming about their futures.

So I began with a cozy one on one session with each of them. I asked them questions and I wrote down key words in their answers.  Where would you like to travel one day?  What would you do when you got there?  What things would you like to be good at one day? What do you see yourself doing in five, 10, 20 years time?

What will you do for fun?  What kind of jobs might you have?  What will your hobbies be?  Will you play any sports, musical instruments, or have any special talents?  How would you like to feel in the future?  I kept this session very chatty with no right or wrong answers and certainly no judgment over anything that seemed far fetched or not what I had in mind for them.

I was lucky to have grown up without any adults in my life telling me my dreams were far fetched, so I'm careful not to do that to them.  We laughed and dreamed, they asked me questions too, and I wrote down some of my own dream visions. We all had so many ideas that we were going to need a lot of space to create this family vision board and I had a eureka moment.

We had a long blank wall in the corridor leading to our basement playroom. This would be the perfect wall. I went out in search of poster boards thinking that each family member could create their own and we'd hang them all side by side. But the shop didn't have anything like this. We were living in Madrid at the time.

However, I found a big roll of paper tablecloth.  We rolled down the floor and each boy took a separate end and me in the middle. We used a magazine, scissors, and glue and searched for photos of the things that were on our dream list. We used Google Images for anything we couldn't find. I'm going to post some pictures on my Instagram and Facebook of the making of the family vision board.

My boys looked so little back then.  I learned so much about my kids dreams that day. And them about mine.  My husband was away working, and this isn't exactly his cup of tea anyway, so I added some ideas for him as well based on the things I'd heard him say he'd like for the future, so he was included on our family vision board too.

It is incredible to look at all of the things that have come true since the making of this family vision board over eight years ago. My eldest son, who was 12 then, had put a university graduation cap on his side, and he is now in his third year of university. He put a picture of a DJ playing out to a massive crowd at a festival and he has since DJ'd at a big festival in France in front of thousands and in several nightclubs now too.

He also put the sweetest picture of a young couple in love and said that it represented marrying someone he loves. He and his wonderful girlfriend have been together for over four years now, and they're very loved up and so loyal to each other.  My younger son put a picture of someone singing and said he wanted to get good at singing.

And he went on to later join a choir and made the Honor Choir with solos in shows touring in Europe.  He also wanted to go to New York City, and he put a postcard on his vision board of the Big Apple. And we went there a couple of years later when we realized what a big dream this was for him.  Me? Back in 2012, I had this kind of vague dream of writing a book for mothers called Project Me to teach the framework for how I turned my messy life around by creating my own Project Me.

I had no website. No social media platforms, just a working title and a logo.  I printed out this flower logo and I stuck it up there on the vision board. And I also cut out the Times bestseller book chart from the newspaper. And I glued over the top of whatever was in the book chart that week with my own name and book title, and I stuck that on the board too.

I also stuck up a photo of Marie Forleo, someone who I'd just discovered Who had a lot of inspirational videos for female entrepreneurs. And I didn't really have a specific goal in my mind. I just wanted her up there next to a picture of Oprah Winfrey and Tony Robbins.  I do remember looking at my finished vision board and thinking, This is great, but how would I ever get a book publishing deal when I'm just a mother with no online presence whatsoever?

What book publisher is going to even look at any idea I have?  Soon after this, I ended up hearing about Marie Forleo's Online B School for teaching me how to start a website and grow a tribe and get me the presence I'd need to get a book publishing deal.  Myprojectme. com was launched a few months after I did B School.

And I did get a global following within months of launching the website and the Facebook page. And my book publishing deal came after that.  All from putting my dream visions up there on my board. I really believe that this idea might have just stuck around in the back of my mind and died a slow death.

If I hadn't actually physically cut out the picture of that logo I had in my head, cut out that Times bestseller book list and put it up there, it just set the wheels in motion.  I am dying to tell you about something else on that original board that is now about to come true, but my husband isn't ready for me to share it just yet.

So watch this space. It is so exciting. I can't wait to start talking about this.  I now run my annual vision boarding workshop for my project. We members every January, February, and it is so fun to see everyone's finished boards and to hear them present them to the group and share out loud their dream visions.

And to hear throughout the year how those visions are coming true. We've got a community group and in there people will just post something and say, Oh my gosh, this was on my vision board. And look what's happened. And everyone's like, wow. You know, so it's just so fun to just collectively be able to support each other with the dream visions.

It comes back to not just keeping them to yourselves, but sharing them with other people too.  I create an annual vision board for myself, and I now focus more on the emotions I wish to feel more than anything.  I'm going to give you three reasons why I believe vision boards work.  Reason number one, clarity is power.

When your thoughts are a jumbled mess, and you're not even sure of exactly what you want, how are you going to get it?  By taking the time to clarify what you want and why you want it, you're setting the wheels in motion. Every time you look at your vision board, you'll have an instant visual reminder, so you stay focused.

Even when you're feeling down, You'll be able to reconnect with the feeling of positive expectation, hopefulness and belief, which is where reason number two comes in,  the law of vibration.  Gazing at your beautiful vision board and thinking good feeling thoughts creates a positive vibrational energy. You attract back to you whatever you're giving off.

So allow yourself to bask in the feeling of positive expectation.  Everything you want is ultimately about the way it will make you feel. So how will you feel when you're on that holiday, have started your business, or written your book, whatever it is on your vision board? Smile and feel gratitude in advance for everything on your board.

When you do this, you'll be amazed at how signs and opportunities magically present themselves and people show up to help you when you're paying attention.  Don't write off these coincidences as they are gifts to guide you towards your desires.  Reason number three is inspired action. Creating a vision board also inspires you to be proactive.

Now that you can see what you want and feel excited about what's to come, an extra surge of motivation will arise. You'll begin to take small step actions that you may not have thought about or you might have procrastinated on before.  The more juiced up you feel about what's on your board, the more eager you'll be to get moving on it.

This builds momentum and soon you'll create an effortless flow that keeps you going. So those are the three reasons I believe vision boards work. Clarity, actually defining what you want. Then being a vibrational match. Then taking inspired action.  Be sure your vision board includes gratitude for what you already have.

Pictures of you doing something you love, places you've been, or people that mean a lot to you. Being thankful for what you already have opens you up to receiving even more. Have fun creating your vision board. There's no right or wrong way. Whatever works for you. If wall space is limited, create smaller boards.

Make sure they're somewhere where you can see them and keep adding to them. And don't be afraid to dream big.  This, or something better, is my mantra, so that I'm not setting limits on myself based on what I believe may or may not be possible.  Never get impatient or frustrated if it takes a while for your dream visions to become your reality.

I waited about ten years for my California dream to come true, and it was about six or seven years for my son to DJ at that festival.  Trust that all is unfolding for you with divine timing.

Dear listener,  relax your forehead.  Take a nice, long, deep breath in  and let it out with a sigh.  Keep breathing as I ask you some questions to reflect on your own dream vision.  I'll create a PDF of these questions plus more for you in the show notes. For now, simply breathe. And listen,  what's something you would love to manifest into reality?

A big juicy dream for the future. Just choose the first one that pops into your head for now.

Got it?  Okay. Now imagine how you will feel when that becomes your reality.  Allow yourself to be in those emotions. How will you feel?

Alright, why do you want this? Get behind your why. What positive difference will it make to your life or to the life of others?

What will happen if you do nothing and the stream sits on the back burner indefinitely gathering cobwebs?  How will you feel?

Okay. What is a small step action you can take today or this week towards this dream vision? Anything at all that might give it a bit of liftoff.

What photo or image could you find in a magazine or off the internet to visually represent this dream vision?

Now,  take in another long, deep breath  and as you let it out, let go of any voice in your head that might be saying, yeah, but. It might not work, or you haven't got the time, or the money, or other excuses. Just blow those out.  Breathe into your heart space and say to yourself, I am limitless. My dreams will become my reality,

and then breathe out. And breathe out all those excuses.

Thank you for listening to the project. Me podcast, get the full PDF of dream vision prompts in the show notes. So you can begin to get clarity over your dreams and give them liftoff. I'll also give you the questions that you can speak to kids about to help them to create a family vision board.  I would absolutely love to support you with your dream visions on November 23rd.

I'm running a, my dream vision online workshop for all of my project. We members. If you'd like to join in, it's only 15 pounds or 19 US dollars for a month of membership, which gets you this workshop, plus access to a password protected members hub with heaps of inspiration across your eight key life areas.

And you get to join the Project We Power Posse, a women from all over the world who are working on our dreams together. It's such a positive community and I'd love you to be a part of it. If you like your first month and you want to stay on for the rest of December and January, you'll also get the Project Me 2021 Workbook and my Vision Boarding Workshop.

Once you join, the membership price will never go up for you, but you can cancel anytime. So get in now, it is such a super low price for everything that you get. Just give it a whirl.  Go to  myprojectme. com forward slash project we for all of the details.  Thanks for listening. I'm so grateful for your subscribes and reviews and for you sharing about the Project Me podcast with your friends and followers.

Until next time, open your mind,  open your heart, and stay curious.  We all need some space in our lives for the magical and unknown.