Boot Camp for the Mind

Before you begin the course I want you to identify and write out your dreams and goals.

You can write them out in a notebook or however you want, but I suggest doing that in addition to a dream board.

If you don’t know what a dream board is, I'll give you a little story of how I heard of them...

My wife and I were walking through a mall in Spokane Washington waiting for our IVF (in vitro fertilization) consultation. We were both infertile so weren't able to have kids without IVF. We were walking out of the mall when a stranger stopped us and asked if we had ever heard of a dream board. We said no so he continued to explain that most people don't accomplish their goals because they don't think about them that often. If you don't think about them, you most likely won't take any action that will help you reach them. He said that you can solve this by putting your goals on some type of poster board in the form of pictures and words. Then put it on a wall where you would walk by and see it every day. We thanked the man for his advice and we went our separate ways. We weren't sure why he stopped us because he wasn't trying to sell us anything, but we were grateful that he had.

After our consultation, we went home and made a dream board. We put on the board to both finish our Bachelor's degree, go on a cruise, have two children, buy a house, and a few other things. To our surprise, within about 1 1/2 years we accomplished everything on that dream board. We couldn't believe it! We crossed everything off. Since we did that we made more dream boards and are constantly crossing goals off all the time.

For this next exercise, I want you to make a dream board. I want you to put your goals and dreams on there. Make sure to include what you want your character to be like in regard to why you started this course. If you are looking to be smoke-free, write that. If you want to be a person that is quick to listen and slow to speak, write that. Whoever you want to become should be on that dream board.

You can buy a poster board and pin up pictures and words of what you want. You can do a whiteboard and write and draw everything out. Or you can just use a big piece of paper to put on the wall. The choice is yours, but the point is to put it in a place where you see it multiple times a day.

If you don't have goals and direction how do you know where you are going? If you were the captain of a ship and took off without having a goal or destination you would just be wandering around the ocean. I want you to figure out what you want and put them on a board so you see them every day. This will make you think of what you want a lot more often which will help you be more proactive about following through with the monotonous in minuscule steps it takes to reach there.