Winter Solstice 2009

Instead of waiting til New Year’s to create resolutions, take advantage of today’s Winter Solstice to plant the seeds of your success.

Get the how-to’s at Create a Vision Board for your Goals!

Since redoing my Vision Board mid-year (not shown), I’ve accomplished a few cherished goals:

* I’ve played more original music gigs this year than I have in the past three years combined!

* I’ve received invitations to perform more gigs in the new year

* My music is being used in a film (and I also made my film acting debut)!

* I’ve signed with a music licensing firm

* I’ve earned money from songwriting

Not bad!!!

Create a Vision Board for Your Music Goals

Create a Vision Board for Your Music Goals
by Carla Lynne Hall

Creating a Vision Board for your and/or your band’s musical goals is a powerful way to set your musical intentions for the next year. As today is the Winter Solstice (the longest night of the year), ancient civilizations believed that it is a powerful day for planting “spiritual seeds” as they waited for the Sun (and Spring) to return, but you can make a Vision Board any day of the year!

If you’ve read or seen The Secret, or you’re into the Law of Attraction, you’ve probably heard about Vision Boards by now. But if you haven’t, I’m happy to share my how-to’s!

What is a Vision Board?

Also known as a Treasure Map, it’s basically a collage of pictures and words that represent your goals. The purpose of a Vision Board is to inspire you, and keep you on track. If you have a band, this can be be a fun project to complete together.

Step One – Set Your Intentions

What do want to accomplish musically in the New Year? Here are some ideas to get you started:

* Get booked at the hottest venue in town
* Tour Europe
* Open for a major label artist
* Sell 500 (or more!) CDs
* Record or complete a CD
* Have 100 paying guests at a gig
* Play a solo gig
* Learn to play a new instrument
* Take vocal lessons
* Start or join a band

Step Two – Find and/or Create Pictures to Represent Your Goals

One way is to get a stack of old magazines, and cut out pictures and captions that represent your goal.

Another way is to go to Google Images and flickr and search to your heart’s content. Print out pictures and sentences that are meaningful to you.

Be sure to include pictures of yourself and your band!

Step Three – Make Your Collage

With a glue stick (probably the cleanest method), or other adhesive, arrange your pictures and captions
on poster board, or a bulletin board. You can also use a sketchbook or scrapbook if you like.

Let your imagination be your guide!

Step Four – Keep Your Vision Board In View

The whole point of a Vision Board is to keep your eye on your vision. If you prefer to keep your Vision
Board in a scrapbook, be sure to review it often. If your band rehearses in someone’s garage, there’s no
better place for a band’s Vision Board to be. I once visited a singer who had her Vision Board framed and hung
on her living room wall, which I thought was a nice touch. The cliche is true: Out of sight, out of mind!

Another idea that I learned from musician Luna Jade is to create a Vision Board on your computer desktop. This is a great way to keep your vision within sight!

Here are some of the pics from my Vision Board. If you’re handy with Photoshop, you can also do cool things like put your band’s photo on the cover of Rolling Stone!

My CD Supernova #1 on Billboard

Me with J.Lo’s body 😉

Thanks to the magic of flickr, I was also able to find pics of other Vision Board examples to give you more ideas:

Obviously, my focus here is music, but you can also create Vision Boards for your personal life, for other goals like taking a great vacation, and meeting your Soulmate. If you have kids (or not), this is also a fun project that you can do as a family.

Be as creative as you want, and have fun with your Vision Board!