3 Steps to Transform Your Teacher Life Using a Vision Board [episode 102]

Kelsey  0:00

You are listening to Episode 102 of wife teacher mommy the podcast three steps to transform your teacher life using a vision board. Call it crazy or we will but it’s actually science backed. In this episode I’ll share why it works and you’ll walk away with everything you need to know about creating a vision board that will set you up for an intentional life.

Welcome to wife, teacher mommy the podcast. I’m Kelsey Sorensen, a former elementary teacher and current homeschool mom. And even though I’ve been a resource creator since 2014, I’ve realized that printables alone aren’t all you need in order to thrive as a teacher or homeschool parent. That’s why I also created this show and got certified as a life coach to help you finally kick burnout to the curb and feel competent with whatever challenges come your way. With the right mindset strategies and new teaching inspiration, you’re going to be well on your way to your best teacher life. Now let’s go

really quick though, before we begin, I want to remind those of you hop into the wife, teacher, mommy, unite Facebook group and join if you haven’t, and once you’re in, be sure to watch the group. Because next week, we are doing our huge wife, teacher mommy giveaway to celebrate 100 episodes on the podcast, there’ll be tons of prizes, including one of our teacher planners, tons of teaching resources, an adorable backpack, like all kinds of stuff, you’re not going to want to miss it. So make sure that you join the wife, teacher, mommy unite Facebook group to join in on all the fun. And the great thing about this giveaway is it’s really easy. There’s not like a million hoops to jump through. Like, all the entries are just a comment with a fun get to know your question like, What is your favorite color? I mean, that’s probably not one of them. But like, what are your favorite types of pens? Or what do you do about this or whatever they’re really get to know you questions kind of for the group to get everybody get to know each other build community inside the group. I really think finding a teacher community is huge for all of us. So be sure to join in on all of the fun. Okay, now let’s get to the content.

Are you ready to hear all about vision boards? I am so excited for this episode. And I honestly can’t believe that it’s taken over 100 episodes for me to do an episode on this topic, I guess. I mean, it’s something that’s been a real game changer for me. And I didn’t realize that everybody might want to hear about it. I think in the back of my mind, I was worried that people may think is little like woowoo or crazy. But honestly, as I dove into the research, it is a game changer for me. And why would I want to withhold that from you. And I had mentioned it in my very popular session that I’ve done. Lots of conferences on your teacher wins. And I had been asked because it was like just one method I shared of how to track your wins. And I kept getting asked like, have you done a podcast episode about vision boards? Have you shared more about this, and I haven’t. So now I’m really excited to share my methods with you. So you can take them and use them to improve your life as well. Now, you might even be wondering, like what is a vision board. And the real gist of it is it is actually just like, it can be anything, it can be like a cardboard that you hang on your wall. And it just has pictures and quotes. And honestly it is your thing you’re gonna make it whatever you want. I’m going to explain a bit more basically is a visualization of the intentions you want to set in your life. It can be visualizing goals, it can be visualizing things you want to remember, vibes that you want to feel in your life quotes to remind yourself of. And we’re going to dive into this a little bit more. And I’m really excited to just chat about this. So what I’m going to be sharing are just three simple steps to help you transform your teacher life with that vision board. So I’m just gonna dive in now. So step number one is understanding why vision boards work. So the purpose behind them, like I said, is for them to help you create the life that you want to create. Now, vision boards are basically there to help you manifest your goals. And it is kind of like if you’ve heard of like the law of attraction. It’s like you know, what you focus on grows, what you think about what you want, kind of invite into your life comes into it. And it’s kind of like how we talk about your thoughts, create your feelings, drive your actions drive your results, like the model is really built into this as well. It’s what we focus on grows and it’s not just woo it’s not just like oh like If you think about it, it’ll happen or whatever. It’s not just that this is science, but let me tell you why. And there is actually a term for this, and it is called the reticular, activating system, or RAs. And what it is, is, it’s a part of the brain responsible for filtering information, and influencing our focus and perception. Now, it kind of helps us pay attention to certain things while ignoring others based on our goals and priorities. It’s kind of why you probably heard that like, let’s say you’re shopping for a car, or something, and you’re looking for a red Chevy or something, I say that because my husband has a red Chevy check. Or, for example, when my husband, he was actually looking for his old Chevy truck, all of a sudden, he was seeing them way more than he was before it, it’s not that all the sudden, there were more like 50s trucks around, it’s just that he was happening to notice them a lot more, and you probably noticed this sensation in your life. And that is because of the reticular activating system. So the same thing happens with what we focus on. Like if we’re constantly focusing on negative aspects of our lives, or if we’re constantly like, ruminating on things, you know, could be anything that we’re focusing on, we notice more of that in our lives. So if we’re focusing even on a person, like oh, all the negative things about them, then we’re not going to have as good feelings about that person than if we were trying to like, focus on the positive things or whatnot. Now, this is the same thing that makes a vision board work. So when you have a vision board, and you have these intentions up, and you actually use it, and you look at it each day, that is, you know, impacting the reticular activating system. So your brain starts filtering, and searching for evidence of what is happening on your vision board and helps you kind of focus in that direction, which leads you towards those things right, based on your goals and your priorities. So when you create a vision board, you are essentially programming your reticular activating system to focus on those goals and intentions. And when you spend just a few minutes on it each day, you are able to really reap the benefits of doing that of training your RAS to focus on those things. So when you fill your vision board with images and words representing your goals, your reticular activating system starts filtering information around you to match those goals. Now, and this is where the visual stimulant list comes in. When you have a vision board, it’s really effective in activating the reticular activating system, because our brains are wired to respond very strongly to visual input, making the images we put on our vision board and more impactful than if it were just written down in some notebook, especially if you’re not like constantly referring to that. And this visual reinforcement enhances the connection between our conscious desires and the subconscious, reticular activating system. When you consistently expose yourself to the images and representations of your goals and intentions and the vibes you want to bring into your life through your vision board, your reticular activating system works to find opportunities and experiences that align with those goals. So you might notice opportunities, you might find opportunities that will lead you towards those goals. It can also lead to increased motivation, better decision making, and just a heightened awareness of actions that move you closer to your goals. So as you can see, this is really backed by science, that reticular activating system, this is what we’re training. This is what we’re programming when we create a vision board. So step one is really just understanding that and you can probably check that off right now you just listen to this podcast. And if you’re like, you can just take my word for it or if you want to you could Google reticular activating system or vision boards and find more evidence for why this really does work and decide that this is going to work for you. So I guess the first thing is understanding why they work and deciding that you want to do it. Okay, step two is creating your vision board. Now let’s talk about what we do to create that. So first, you want to gather your necessary materials so it can be like a board. Honestly my first one what I did, I grabbed some cardboard and I put tinfoil over it and I started putting the pictures on it and hung it on my wall and actually very quickly my husband who’s you know as some of you might know, if you’ve been following along if it’s your first time here no worries I’m going to explain right now. His name is Brandy we call him handy Randy he has done a lot for our members and for honestly me with this company and everything. If you’ve ever watched any of my videos I’ve got this gorgeous like back wall with our brand colors and everything my husband did that basically every time I go live people ask about that actually working on moving my office and we’re going to do the wall again. But he’s also like done like tumblers and pencil holders and awesome things for our members and everything. But anyways my point with this was he’s very handy and he will just make things like that. So when I had this cardboard with tin foil on the wall, he was like ah I don’t know if I really want carpet tin foil on the wall. And he made me this gorgeous board. Well he got a cork board he painted it gray and this is how handy he is we just had extra What do you call it baseboards from when we we replaced our bass martyrs when we moved into this house because we wanted to just update it a little bit. And we had some extra so he made like the frame using those and then he used our silhouette like vinyl If you are loved on it so cute, so he made me this vision board. So I’ve got a gorgeous one now, but I was completely happy with just like a board with tin foil on it. Um, you can also like, just find like a cork board or you know, whatever you would like, just, you know, pick what your board is going to be, it can be so simple. If anything is getting your weight, literally grab a cardboard box, just use that hang that on your wall. There’s nothing wrong with that. That is how I started. Now the next thing you can do is decide if you’re going to do just one overall vision board or if you want to do like one for like your personal family life one for teaching. Now. So far what I have done is it just one vision board that I have everything and then it kind of like, you know, in one corner I’ll have like, the personal stuff and then the other corner will be kind of work based and then in the other corner will be like very like personal just me based. I’m actually toying with the idea now that we’re kind of moving around my office and everything of having one of my office that is all work related, and one that is just personal and teaching my children, homeschooling them like all those goals and family. But I haven’t decided yet, I will decide on that soon as we get those rooms rearranged. But again, choosing what you want to do. If you are just getting started. Honestly, I would recommend just doing one, unless you’re really gung ho when you want one in your classroom and at home, doing just one for me has worked for years. Like I love that. So if you are like I can’t decide, just let me decide for you, you can just do one, okay. But I just wanted to throw that idea out there that you can do different themed ones if you want. The next would be thinking about what goals what intentions you want on your vision board. And honestly, I sometimes do this as I’m building it as well. Like I start with a list that I want to do. So any goals you have personal or work related, like maybe you want to put together some sort of curriculum for the kids you’re working with, maybe you want to lose a certain amount of weight. Maybe you want to do some of your hobbies more that you haven’t been doing. Just think about what you kind of want there. And then what are your current? Also think about? Like what current feelings? Are you feeling a lot? Or what are you ruminating on? What are you stressing about that seems to consistently come up? And what can you put on your vision board to remind you and kind of rewire your brain each day, that is something I always do as well. Okay, next, you want to find the visual visuals that will represent those things for you. So I want to tell you kind of some examples of things that I’ve put on my vision board, in case that might help you. And the other thing I want to share is, the more specific you can make it the better. Like for my weight loss, I found a picture of a scale, I just googled it and then it actually put the weight on the scale that I wanted to hit. And I put that on there. So it’s like actually like, Okay, here’s my goal weight, and I’m visualizing it each day. I also have it with like the number of podcast downloads, because I want to reach like a certain number of teachers with this podcast. So to have that up there. And the number of members that want to see in wife, teacher mommy club, those are kind of goals, professional goals. For me, I had a picture of my Life Coach School certification, I mocked it up with like, my name on the certificate before I had even done it. So I could visualize Hey, here is that certification, like I am a certified coach. Before I even signed up for certification, I had that up there. So I knew it was something I’m working towards, mocked up an image of the physical planners that we now offer, I just took ones that were like kind of similar in design, and I like put our planner over it like put wife, teacher mommy brand on it. And I like you know, basically made it look like a listing was in our shop of the planners. I also put the self coaching model on my vision board. So if you remember each day like circumstances are neutral. It’s my thoughts that my feelings that drive my actions create my results, I see that every day, I put an image of the gap in the game to remind myself am I in the gap? Or am I in the game if you don’t know what I’m talking about? This is a book by Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan, I highly recommend it. I also refer to it in episode, I’m not sure what number it is actually. But it’s called own your teacher wins. It is a full recording of my session from educating rejuvenate, I highly recommend listening to that if you haven’t yet. And then I put up lots of just visual images of reminders of so it’s not just goals. So some are goals like very specific like this has an end date. This is something that at some point, I’m going to take it off the board and put it in a book to remind myself that once this was a goal now I’ve done it kind of celebrate that the vision board helped me achieve it but and the other things I have is I just put a family picture up there. So I remember that my family is one of my focuses and you can do that for things with like faith or other things as well that you want to make sure in your focus each day. I also put pictures of places I’d like to go on vacation just because I think that’s fun. Like Alright, I just put pictures like of the mountains like vibes I want to feel like oh, I want to feel more relaxed. So you can just put like a picture of like the ocean or the mountains whatever makes you feel relaxed for whoever you just want to try to show up in your life. I put lots of quotes on my vision board, especially like I mentioned for things like you know, if I’m in a lot of scarcity mindset where I’m like, worried about like things or whatever or if I’m whatever, I’m currently kind of trying to overcome thought patterns. I put up quotes that kind of help counteract that. Or like you know if I’m trying to work on my self confidence or my giving myself more grace. For example, one quote I’ve had up there that I leave up there is from Christina Kuzmich, who I love, give yourself more credit and criticism more grace than judgment that’s been up on my vision board. Now a couple that I’m just about to add, as I’m kind of maintaining my vision board, like I mentioned, that says stuff are going well, I haven’t mentioned yet, this is a stepping going to get to. But again, I’m like adding more things. One quote that I just heard in a book I’m listening to the book is called The universe has your back and really enjoying it. But one quote that she said is those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait and wait without anxiety. Now, that is something when that just hit me, I’m like, Okay, if you ever hear a quote that hits, you put it on your vision board, so that you can continue to get reminded of it. So that’s from Gabrielle Bernstein, and I’m putting that one up on my vision board very soon. And then another one that came up and another book I’m listening to, which is called believe it by Jamie Kern, Lina love her. It’s no your why than fly girl fly. So these are quotes that I’m putting up on my vision board to just remind myself each day of those things. Another thing you can do is pictures of your hobby. So like, I’ll put a picture of a book up there, because I want to make sure that I’m taking time to read, it’s something I enjoy. And a lot of times we forget to make time for those things that we enjoy. So I put pictures of those things I enjoy, like and put up a picture of like, Taylor Swift, like, you know, like, hey, let’s make sure you’re like listening to music that you enjoy. Make sure that you are filling your life with those things that bring you joy as well, not just all about your goals and your work or you know, but just the things that you enjoy making sure that those make it into your life as well. So those are just some ideas of things that you can put on your vision board, I just will a lot of times go to Google. And I’m like, I want something for this. And I google and you find images. And this is like completely fair use, because we’re not like, you’re not like distributing it to anyone, you can just grab an image, print it out, put it on your board, like you’re just using it personally. So that’s totally fine. Everything’s fair game, really. But one thing I do want to mention is for those of you who are in wife, teacher, mommy club, I haven’t planned the dates yet, this week, I plan to well, it actually probably is up by the time you’re listening. So check your club dashboard. But as of when I’m recording, I don’t have the date for this workshop yet. But sometime in September, I plan on doing a workshop about vision boards. And I’m going to have a bunch of printables for like common goals or just lots of quotes that I think would be applicable to teachers like a lot of the ones that are in our teacher planner, and everything. So you’re not starting completely from scratch, you can go through and kind of pick those images, and we’ll do a workshop, I’ll share even more about vision boards. And we can even like do them work on them together, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s kind of accountability to get it done. So if you’re in the club, look forward to that. Now the next thing you want to do is when you have all your items, you get to arrange them onto the board creatively, like however you’d like like, like what I mentioned, I what I kind of do, because I have one vision board, I kind of usually put like theme the areas like I kind of have like the four quadrants of the vision board, or it’s not really exact, because I feel like there’s more than four different categories I haven’t been but I tried to put like, you know, I kind of put my hobbies by each other, it kind of put my like professional stuff by each other, I put my personal goals by each other, but family stuff it but like the vibes and vacations and all those are like just places I would love to travel one day, I put all those somewhere. And then I put quotes around another area or whatever. So but you got to do it creatively. Like if your brain likes it mixed up to that is great. The reason why I do the categories is because usually when I’m looking at it each day, I’m kind of like I look at the whole thing. But then I’m like, What am I going to focus on today. And then the next thing, once you create it, you want to put the vision board in a prominent place that you’re going to see it every day. So right now I have mine in my bedroom next to my bed, so I can just look at it, you know, as I’m getting ready in the morning, right when I get up as I’m going to bed, it’s just kind of there for me to see it and notice it. And again, you could put it in your classroom, you could put it in wherever is somewhere that you want to see it. And again, that might also depend on if you choose to do one or multiple for different areas of your life. Okay, so that was step two is to create your vision board. Now step three is to use it and maintain it. So the way you use it is what I do is I want to spend at least three minutes a day looking at it. And like I kind of started to mention, I want to look at the whole thing I kind of like scan through it and remind myself that you should those things are but then I might pick either like one area of the vision board, like whether that’s personal or professional or the quotes, whatever. And I don’t like be like, Okay, on this day, I’m

going to do this on this day, I’m going to do that it’s whatever I feel like Okay, today I’m feeling drawn towards this, I’m going to really focus on that for a few minutes and think about like, and this is where the power is, this is where you’re training that reticular activating system, you kind of think about, Okay, where am I at with this, what are some things I could do this is where you kind of get your brain to work. I really like to do this in the morning because that’s where it sets your intentions for the coming day. And again, it can be just like a few minutes. I really like three minutes though as like kind of the minimum because I mean, we all could take three minutes to set our intentions and train our reticular activating system on what is going to move us forward to where we want to go in our lives. So that is the big part of using it and then maintaining it so keeping it updated and relevant. So if you hit one of the goals, you can you know, take it off the board and you can put what you want up or if something changes like there are times where I take something down just because my you know what that actually no longer is a goal. A mine like I’ve realized and changing directions, I can take it down then, because you don’t want something up there that is no longer one of your intention. So you can also just update it depending on how you feel. Or if like, you know, okay, this quote served its time, I no longer need the reminder that I need the reminder of this, you know, so just keep it updated on what you currently need. reviewing those intentions regularly adjusting them as needed, whether you hit them or whether you’re changing directions, and then celebrating those milestones and successes along the way. So like I mentioned, in my own your teacher wins session and podcast episode, when you hit a goal that was on your vision board, you can then take it off the board, but add it to like a binder or a book or something where you can then go back and think oh, these are all the things that were once up on my vision board, that now I’ve accomplished, you’re now I no longer need this reminder, because I have like, be like, I’ve trained myself in that. And I’m focusing on something else. So you can put those in your book to show that you’ve kind of graduated those things from your vision board. So you can see your progress. And I just love that bill to go back through and see all those things that you’ve accomplished. And then the other important thing is consistency, the effectiveness of your vision board is tied directly to how often you use it. So if you like make it and put it up, but then you never look at it, it’s just kind of there. Obviously, it’s not going to train your reticular activating system to navigate towards those goals and intentions. So regularly reviewing it, like I said daily each morning is a great way to do it. And to stay committed to your goals will reinforce that connection between your conscious intentions and the subconscious programming of your reticular activating system. Okay, so let’s kind of go through again, what we learned from this episode. So it was really three steps. So the first was understanding the why behind vision boards and how they work. So understanding that by creating a vision board, you are training your reticular activating system to focus on those goals and intentions is just like when you’re shopping for a car, or you know, it’s back to school time. And you suddenly notice all of this applies everywhere. I mean, and that actually is that okay, that may not be the best example because there actually are more than, but you might notice things a lot more like based on what you’re focusing on, right? Like we know that that is a phenomenon that we see in our lives. So that is taking that phenomenon and using it to our advantage with a vision board. And we also know that visual stimuli, our brain responds really well to so we are just using this to train our brain into the direction that we want to go. Step two is creating your vision board. So first getting the board wherever it is, whether it’s like I mentioned, like a piece of cardboard, you can put some tinfoil on it or not. Or you make a board or you buy a cork board from the store or you go on Amazon and look for a vision board, whatever it is, just get the board and don’t let that get in the way of you’re doing it because you can always like upgrade it or change it later. Just pick something then deciding if you want one or two and then you’re starting to cut or more or how exactly you want to do it. This is your creative project, let your creativity shine. This is where you get to find those images, those quotes, those reminders, pictures of your hobbies, pictures of all the things that you want to remember each day, you get to put those up on your vision board. And this is all you there’s no right or wrong way to do this. And then finally, is once you create it, don’t let it go to waste. Don’t let that energy and effort you put into your vision board to be in vain. Use it daily, consistently I recommend three minutes per day, focus on like look at all of it focused on a section of it. Wherever you feel drawn, use your that vision board and that is what will train your reticular activating system. They I really do believe that this can really transform your personal life and your professional life help you to feel more balanced, helping to feel more intention in your life help you to not be just a spectator of your life, but actually a physical participant in it creating what you want to see in your life. Now, if you’re listening live in August of 2022, or even into September, if you are a Club member will dive even more into the brain science behind this. And we’ll have accountability to get our stuff together and actually do it. Plus, like I said, I plan on having lots of different visuals that you can add to your vision board. Again, you’re going to also want to make it your own and find some but we will have a lot so you’re not starting from scratch, it’s going to be so much fun is only for members of wife teacher mommy Club, which is our paid memberships. So if you’re in the club, add it to your calendar. If you aren’t in the club yet, wherever you’re listening, go to wife, teacher mommy.com/club. We are like kind of moving things around right now. But that will take you to the info you need to know about joining on whether we’re open or you can request an invite or whatever is going on. But just go to that link or even our website homepage or shownotes and you’ll learn more about joining and again we don’t gate keep any of our replays. So if you’re listening to this like in a year, or two years or wherever, if you join, you’ll be able to watch the replay of that session as well and get all those printables and everything. So thank you again for tuning in. I would love to invite you to share your experiences with me you have your vision boards and intentions we have those discussion threads going on in the wife teacher mommy unite Facebook group, which is our free Facebook group. We even have a little wife teacher mommy credit giveaway every week when you participate in those discussion threads as of right now. And then next week, I’m having Trisha fugle stad who’s the author of Peter ohm meter, which is an amazing book that you can use to teach about social emotional learning or stem in your classroom or homeschool. I’m having her on the podcast we’re gonna be talking about her experience creating the book, we’re going to be talking about how different ways to teach STEM and social emotional learning. So you’re going to want to listen to the episode so we’ll talk then bite

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