Ahhh, Treat-A-Weekers, it has been too long. Sorry for the quiet last week.. in an effort to keep it real, if I am truly not feeling like spreading good vibes/writing (which is rare) based on something going on my life, I am not going to create a post on that week.  I know you will understand.

Rest assured, though, I feel a renewed positivity this week and want to share something cool/different that my husband and I worked on together that has turned into an unexpected treat.  Cynics stop reading now and singles, please note that this does not have to be done with a partner/spouse — you just need a good friend or “accountability partner” as they are called to do this exercise with in order for it to have maximum impact.  Are you on the edge of your seat with suspense? Well, let me dive in…

As some of you know, my husband has been a senior executive at one company or another since we met and he was working for an energy start-up whose doors he promptly closed and fired himself from 9 months after we married.  He has been responsible, alternatively, for planning, attending and participating wholeheartedly in a multitude of what he calls management team or department “leadership off-sites” and which I jokingly (and/or perhaps jealously?) call “Kumbaya Fests,” in which team members spend time at some dreamy location away from work (eg a SPA in Danbury, CT) understanding their personal and professional goals better and how to better function as a team.  Given that our Boston move is a year out now but remains a huge transition for us, he turned to me one day and said, “you know, we should really evaluate where we are at right now in our lives, individually and as a family and where we want to be in the future.  I have done ‘visioning’ professionally for years, but I can’t believe we’ve never done it personally.”  Now, I had heard of Oprah’s famous “vision board” before, but I never did one myself and felt kind of skeptical about it all.  But, hey, I have always thought of my husband as a smart guy and people think he is a good leader so I figured, heck, let’s give it a try, not really thinking much would come of it…I am happy to say that I was wrong!

Here is what we did and what you can do to find greater clarity in your life and get closer to the wants/needs that you really wish to prioritize in the near future.  I am going to make this as simple as possible, but you can vary it up as you wish. You and a partner will need to set aside two different times to meet, ideally a week or two apart, for about two hours each time.  Here is what to do:

Visioning Meeting #1

1. On a piece of paper or in a notebook/journal reserved for this purpose, spend an hour, using a pencil (so you can erase), drawing out what your happiest life would look like.  This should be in the immediate/near future, not when you retire, when the kids go to college etc. I scoffed at the drawing part of this exercise as I am no artist, but my husband insisted that it had to be a hand-drawn picture.  So, I used lots of stick figures, text bubbles, and made lots of quadrants on my page separating ideas/thoughts/visions.  You should not look at your partner’s picture while he/she is drawing it and no talking. We did this at a Starbucks with music on in the background and it end up being surprisingly easy and fun.
2. After you have drawn the vision of what your happiest life would like, share the picture and explain the various components of your happiest life.  You may be surprised by what you discovered about yourself and I guarantee your visioning partner will be surprised by some of what you share.

Visioning Meeting #2

1. Now that you have drawn your vision out on a page and shared it with your partner, let this information sit and marinate for a week or so, and then bring that picture to your second meeting.  (Ours was spent enjoyably at a Mexican restaurant eating chips and table-side guacamole).  At this meeting, you and your partner should spend about 1/2 an hour teasing out themes from your respective pictures that you want to take accountability for working towards making happen.  Some of my less personal themes included: 1) providing my kids with more tools and opportunities to become more independent; 2) becoming healthier in terms of diet and exercise; 3) enjoying more happy experiences with my family; and 4) keeping up with long distance friends, reconnecting with old friends and making new friends.
2. Once you have identified the major themes of your vision (both my husband and I had about 8 each), you then number them in no particular order and write them down in your journal or on several pieces of paper leaving space to write a few lines after each identified theme.  Then, each of you should take about 30 mins to an hour to generate 1 to 3 steps that you personally will undertake in the next 6 to 12 months to get yourself closer to reaching those themes/goals.  For example, in my “enjoying more happy family experiences category,” I wrote down that, (1) I would plan one “new” field trip in the Boston area for our family every month and that (2) we would play a board game at least once a month (my girls love to play board games, but I don’t — I’d much rather read or watch a movie, surprise, surprise). You also have to set a time limit in which you will accomplish these things, in our case, we chose 6 months and 1 year.  So for example,  in the get healthier theme, I gave myself 6 months to cut my diet coke habit down to just 2 diet cokes a week, and a year to try and stop using plastic/ziploc bags and boxes etc. in our home.  So by January 2019, you shouldn’t see me with a diet coke in hand more than twice in a week and by summer 2019, you should not see anything plastic in our dishwasher or any of our food in ziploc bags.
3. Share the tangible steps you plan to take to get closer to your goals with your partner.  Your partner should be able to help you evaluate whether the goals you have set are realistic or whether they need to be refined. Refine.  Then meet again in six months and a year to discuss the progress you have made with respect to each of the themes and course correct as and where necessary.

So, that’s it friends, the Treat of the Week is to make some time to make a plan for yourself to take small, measurable steps that could allow you or at least get you well on your way to fulfilling your vision for living your happiest life.  Working on this with a partner is particularly helpful because you discover new things about each other or, surprisingly, in our case, things that we share in our happiest vision of our own lives that we had no idea we shared.  Imagine our surprise when we had both drawn pictures of a rectangular wooden dinner table filled with  seated stick figure friends eating something yummy that we’d both prepared together?  Or when we realized that we’d both drawn a picture of me standing in front of an audience giving some sort of inspirational talk?  Weird? Yes. Cool. Yes? Possible? Hopefully.

If you do this exercise, I truly would LOVE to know how it goes for you. Feel free to email me and keep me posted.

Until next week, I remain, very truly yours,

M