A Dream Board: Realising the 'vision'?

How’s that for inner circle jargon from someone who’s just been complaining about it? I just came right out with a detestable buzz word. What if I swear never to chime in with vision’s cringe-inducing smug little partner, ‘mission’? Here’s the deal: an hour’s free coaching if the word ever trips off my keyboard.

You only have to write down your goals once to accept that writing them down makes a difference. The written-down goals almost develop a little momentum of their own. And for me, it’s the writing down, the contact of the pen or pencil with the paper, the flick of the wrist, that’s critical. When I type up my goals, sure there are advantages. They look good —neat—they can even be printed out in a tiny font if I care to carry them around with me. But what about those for whom expressing their goals or writing anything down is often an issue?

Jonny Wilkinson has helped me win teenagers round to writing down their goals. I only have to quote his words, “Long before I ever started playing as a professional, I wrote on a piece of paper that winning the World Cup for England was something I wanted to do.” (I do tend to pass on the advisability of indulging in obsessive public rituals, certainly if you’re one of the millions of men and women in the street.)

Then follows the pep talk on the importance of written goals, while underplaying that 1953 ‘research’ carried out on those Yale students. It’s a good story for the materialists amongst them. (What I’d really like to know is, was “Have you written down your goals?” the only question they asked back then? What do we know about any other factors the successful 3% shared? I must find something on that research that isn’t also trying to sell a service.)

Recently I’ve been working with several non-native speakers of English and a couple of adults with ADHD. For various reasons, they can regard the idea of putting any sort of plan down in writing as something of a turn-off.

So it struck me they could benefit from an idea I use in performance coaching which has worked well with teenagers, and with even younger children. I invite them to make a dream board by creating a picture that will help them relax before exams. The idea is to give them something concrete that will help them with visualisation.

For the artistically challenged, the process can be as uncomplicated as paging through glossy magazines and cutting out images that make them feel relaxed. Other materials could be postcards, swatches of fabric, shade cards, tickets… They then create a collage with all these images. ‘dream board’.

Others might paint a picture or put together an audio ‘dream board’ of music that induces feelings of relaxation and reduces tension and stress.

If a collage on the bedroom wall is too public, a mini-collage on an unused page of your diary) would be pretty handy for furtive reminders of where you’re heading.

Wouldn’t this kind of practical ‘activity’ work with goal setting too?

If writing goals can link the hand that writes with the head that acts in an immediate, direct way, won’t you get the same engagement of hand and head with drawing, cutting, pasting? Why shouldn’t this result in an equally effective alternative to a written ‘statement’? And I haven’t gone into the multiple intelligences aspect either.

Why not give this technique a try yourself?

And while you’re about it—just humour me here—anticipate your wildest expectations.