The first time I was asked to do a visioning exercise was in seventh grade computer lab. Did the teacher think we’d be more motivated to practice typing if we thought about the roles of computers in our future career plans? Did she think we would be so excited to free-type that our words per minute would rise?

The prompt was simple: Imagine yourself five years from now and describe your dream life.

That exercise was a disaster. If you can conjure up a meaningful dream life out of thin air than more power to you!

But when I tried to envision and paint that picture, nothing came to mind. I had no idea where to start. I can’t even decide on a favorite subject in school, let alone a five-year vision.

So if you’re at all like me and you benefit from a little prepwork to uncover meaningful goals, I’m hoping that you found yesterday’s exercise helpful. Just by getting a balanced perspective on the varieties of roles, responsibilities and pieces that come together to comprise this crazy thing called life.

Today we’re going to continue in four more area (the last four I promise): Career, finance, community and quality of life.

You know what to do!

Divide a page into quadrants, one for each area, set a timer for two minutes in each area, and answer the following questions:

1. What do I believe?
2. Why do I believe this?
3. What would living out this belief look like?

We are well on our way to the new year!!