Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. If there's anything I've learned in the past decade, it's this for sure. I spent my 30s getting through college (returning adult student) and then sulking about every job I had that didn't make me happy. I kept dreaming of what I wanted my life to look like but didn't do much beyond reading self help books, therapy and a little soul searching. I spent a lot of time analyzing what I should be doing with my life according to what all of those "find your true purpose" quizzes told me I should be doing. And what others told me I should be doing.
Toward the end of my 30s, I started a DIY blog, Little Orange Apron. I loved it so much! It allowed me to put together so many things I truly love doing: photography, writing, baking, DIYing, crafting, etc. I really enjoyed coming up with post ideas and then putting them together. But it was also a ton of work and took up a lot of time. When I turned 40, we purchased an old farmhouse. Really we bought a huge pole barn (for Craig's remodeling business) that happened to come with the house. We didn't have a plan for the house when we bought it. We knew we'd do some remodeling but we didn't know how far we'd go with it. I can't wait to share our rehab with you in upcoming posts.
The first year in the new house, we didn't do much to it. We focused on our daughter who was a junior in high school at the time, getting ready for her senior year. This is a very busy time in a child's life and her parent's. Craig was the technical director for her high school theatre program and we were band parents so we always seemed to have somewhere to be. And I really enjoyed it. I really loved just focusing on her and having all the experiences we got to have with her as she was ending such an important time in her life. Hence Little Orange Apron got pretty dusty sitting in the internet world, not being touched.
However, here we are at it again.
Have you ever heard of a vision board, futureboard or mood board? They're essentially the same thing but the book, #FutureBoards: Learn How to Create a Vision Board to Get Exactly the Life You Want by Sarah Centrella really dives in deep to how she's used them to manifest experiences in her life. She puts up boards with pictures of people she and her family hope to meet, places they want to visit and experiences they want to have.
I picked up the book in the fall and spent a while going through it before actually making my futureboard. And taking your time with it is exactly what Sarah says to do. She makes a new board every January as a way to kick off the new year. I plan to do the same. I started reading the book in October and doing the exercises. It took me some time because 1. I have limited time to read 2. I was working on launching this blog 3. The holidays.
The futureboard book really helped me comb through all of those wondering thoughts in my head of what I really want in life. I have the second part of my life to live now and I'm ready to make it the best part yet. I want to visit Australia and hold a koala bear, Ireland, Hawaii, see the Great Wall of China, Yellowstone National Park, Alaska, and more. I want to spend more time camping, hanging out around a fire with my husband, friends and family. I want to meet inspiring people like Chalene Johnson, Tony Robbins, Mel Robbins and more.
So, where do you begin with creating a futureboard? Well, I'm sure Sarah would want me to say, you begin by buying the book. Then read it. And I do recommend it! Then make that future board! She gives you tips for finding good photos on Pinterest which I found to be helpful but I also used some stock photography sites as well like www.pexels.com or www.pixabay.com. I ended up printing more pictures than would fit on my board so I hung the rest up on a wall in my office at work. Just to remind myself what I'm working toward and the future I'm headed for. I love looking at all of the images and feeling excited for what my future holds.
Oh, and I have to tell you, when I first started pinning these pictures on my Pinterest boards around October 2019, I pinned some images of people drinking butterbeer in Universal Studios Orlando. Back in 2017, on a trip to Disney, we went for one day and it wasn't enough to see everything so we knew we wanted to take the kids back. Well, Black Friday that year, Visit Orlando had a great deal on tickets so we did it. The opportunity presented itself and we said yes!
Though we planned on going in 2020, we all know what happened early in 2020, so we didn't actually go until June 2022, but we made it eventually! With a little self reflection, planning, and manifestation tools like a dream board, you really can make your dreams come true.