Ep. 7: Cast a Vision. Make it Plain.

Welcome to another episode of Black Girl Fly. I'm your girl Tenisha Nicole, and I'm Tashaunda Dixon. And here we talk about demystifying millennial wealth. And today, we're talking about casting a vision and making it plain. Hey, man. Hey, man. Let's so today we want to talk about really the idea of vision boarding, right? Yes. So this was super popular. I want to say the early 2000s sit around. Yeah, not for me in different generations. Even though I'm yeah, halfway. Yeah. Yeah, it was that early. Like we were, we were. Yeah. So so but basically, what we do now to kind of talk to talk to you guys, if you guys aren't familiar, is a lot of times. It's magazine cutouts, its articles, it's images of things that you plan to accomplish or things that you like to go after. Right? Do you describe it any differently at all?

Yeah, I mean, I think there when we get down to the nitty gritty, there are lots of different methodologies to do it lots of different ways to facilitate the experience. But all in all is definitely just like putting your ideas on a board. Visually, you can think of it like Pinterest. Yes. Lightning, like pinning. Yes. So Pinterest is basically a bunch of images and quotes and you can pretty much find anything on there. And you can create your own board by just adding the things that you like, yeah. But I think more more generically, what we're getting at is that if you want to make something happen if you want to do something, you have to make sure you visualize it and see yourself. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of visualization people out there now, but but it's all about identifying what you want, and aiming for it. Yeah, I'm like, we don't even have to get so deep is like the secret and all this manifestation and all that is like the GPS. If you don't lock in your destination, you have no idea how to get where you're going. Yeah, so just having an idea of what you want out of this life, that's what I like this, or like, what do you want out of his way all the time. And then you can figure out how you get there and what things you need to be focused on right now in order to achieve that big. And I'd have to say, I don't think people know how important that is. Do you know how many adults I've talked to? And they cannot tell me what it is they want? never even thought about it. I mean, it's so easy to just be going through the motions. Yeah, like facing every day, the fires of every day to like, get lost in that strike. This actually takes me back to so we did an episode where we talked about the American dream. So I would say it's so ingrained in us that we are We have to accomplish that. And our goals are preset. Yes. Yes. Wow. Yes. And so a lot of us kind of meander through life. And we're like, oh, yeah, of course. I want a house. Of course. I want to get married. Of course I want kids. But outside of that, we don't have other goals beyond that. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So So vision boarding is is all about making it plain, right. And I want to just acknowledge, there's been so many studies, there's been so many things that have told us that writing this thing down makes us successful. I actually found an article in Forbes. It's at Harvard Business study found that of the 3% of graduate from their MBA program, who had their goals written down, ended up earning 10 times as much money as the other 97% 10 times put together puts. And this was just 10 years after graduating. So moral of the story is write it down right now. If you're not using To start, and we just said, I mean, the magnitude of that statement. So first of all, this is Harvard. So everybody goes to Harvard. Right? Right. And second of all 10 times, and that's 3%. So so the accuracy of that statement 3% guys, it's like if you didn't do it, go do it now. Write it down now. Yeah. And so I started vision boarding. I was I think it was about like, five years ago. I didn't know anything about the hair. I didn't know. Yeah, but it has been like more of a trend over the last so is that what got you? It was it was cool. Exactly. So I mean, I think I got invited to a vision boarding party and you know, they're not all created equal. But I take vision boarding now five years later, very theory very serious. I got a whole protocol like I got retreat schedule like is deep but for me When I first did it, I, you know, I just kind of put things on there that I thought were cool, or you know that I kind of liked in the magazine. And it wasn't very intentional. But I will tell you five years later, almost 80% of the stuff on that board has come true. So on the first board on the first so how did the rest of the boards measure up? So as the more I did it, the more intentional I got. So when I was creating the first one ahead, no real goals, no timeframe, no, any of that. It was just like, Oh, these are things I like. And the next year, I was like, I am creating a vision board for the next three to five years. So these are the three in the next three to five years. These are the things that I want to accomplish. So I started thinking about a timeframe even further than that, like now on my vision boards. I do them for one year. Yeah, so it's like my to do list for the basically and Don't just do pictures and words from magazines. Now, I actually think about this stuff in advance. Now I print out. So let me tell you this, I'll tell you this. So I've only been vision boarding for like the last two years, like, you know, in a consistent manner. So I did it a few years before that, but she's serious. And it was funny, though, because in the second here, when I did it, I was kind of jealous because she had pre printed stuff. And I was like, I didn't think about that, or I can't find this in this magazine. You know, you're at the whim of what these magazines tell you. And if you don't have a good collection magazine, listed that is you're rude. Yeah. Okay. No, you know, you got to make sure you're getting magazines that speaks to who you are. Because, I mean, I'm like, you cannot leave your destiny up to chance, you know, to what's in his magazine. Yeah, no, I completely agree. But one thing that you do that we do now that I really like is on the back. We read a statement. Yeah. And so I have always done that, but They started off as bullets, right. So on the back of the vision board, I write the date that it was done. And I also write, like, the main ideas of the vision, you know, of the vision that I have created so that I, you know, just if I don't get it from the pictures, I don't have something. But in this last year, I couldn't do that, for some reason, like, I just kind of formed my brain to do it. So I wrote a little note, like a letter to myself, and it was just kind of more encouragement. My vision board this year was actually very different from, I would say, the past years because of the evolution, but it was more of a note of encouragement, you know, basically reaffirming myself that, you know, I can do it, you know, and don't doubt and all those things like that. No, yeah. No, it's cool. And so I would say in my daily life, though, one is I have it as a reminder, and then two, I had a period this year so I know guys, we've had a rough 2020. But But I had a period When I walked past and I was like, I didn't get to where I expect to be right now we're, we're in the end of June 2020. And, you know, by half of the year, you would expect to have half of your vision board done. But the reality is that, I mean, I'm not there. I'm certainly not there. And I like to tell Tashaunda like, the reason we say a year timeline is for the procrastinator. We're thinking about we're planning in the first night. And then we execute, execute, execute, but but it's been great because when I thought about my years, where I was kind of meandering, yeah, I didn't have that checkpoint. I didn't have anything looking me in the mirror saying Tashaunda you missed it. Yeah. Tashaunda You should have been here. Why? Why didn't you do this? And what happens in real life is five years later, five years later, we wake up Like, Oh crap, I still haven't reached my goal, my exercise an issue. So so I have to tell you, I stopped working out because I got busy. I started dating, right? And honestly, I woke up and it's been 10 years What happened? And that's exactly what happens because you don't have, like, it's easy to forget, I say, like, it's easy to forget where you're going by all the distractions that life has. Yeah. And we know it's gonna happen, right? So we need to put something in place that can remind us, and so that's so if that's the vision board, if that's a list, if that's something that I'm actually my boyfriend, he put his goals as a screensaver on his cell phone. And he's like, I don't want to look at this a billion times in a day. Yeah. It's seeing them as a reminder. Yep. Right. Then another thing that I like to do in a similar vein is I like to retreat. I like to do quarterly retreats, where I am actively looking at My vision board like this this time set aside, it usually involves some type of relaxation. So I like to throw spa. But it is like a it could be a staycation it could be a vacation to a remote, you know, Island place or whatever. But it is quiet time where you don't have your user distractions. If you're a parent, you don't have your kids there. If you're in a relationship, your partner is not there. It's time where you can get away and really, you know, sit in the silence and look at where you are, and be critical. You know, be real about it. If you've made some progress, girls celebrate that. But if you haven't, what do you need to do to get back on track? That's what this time is about. It's not about punishing yourself. That's why I like to incorporate the relaxation because it's just about giving yourself a little bit of grace, but also being proactive. Yeah. So I actually took a course I want to say last year with Kiki Ramsey. And she actually said, she busts her butt from quarter to quarter. So she, she, and I think it's similar. And then the idea is she's like, when I'm home, I'm hitting it hard. I'm doing all my goals. I'm putting it all together. And she has a tree of goals that she does to encompass every aspect of her life. And she says, when I'm there, I'm hitting it hard. And quarterly. So she does a similar thing. Quarterly, she takes a retreat, and she calls it vacation, vacation. Whatever you want to call it, but but the idea though, is that you can keep going, you're in the bustle of life, right? And this is gonna happen and it's gonna be the majority of your life. But you have to intentionally, like you said, intentionally have that time. Where it's just you. It's silence. If you remember fighting yourself also, for the work you've done for the work that Yeah, for the work you've done, even if you haven't been actively working on your goals. You have still been living life and my goodness, sometimes that is working parents paying bills, right? Like my mom say that living life is a full time job that you have to keep up with the doctor's appointment the Mona lot like house, everything like that is already so much. So if you're just doing that, congratulations, right? You're making it. Yeah, you're making it. So now let's figure out at our retreat, how you can weave in a couple more things right until your routine that you can be making progress on. But Lord have mercy. If you can be doing your life stuff plus something else. You definitely deserve a little retreat. Yeah, no thinking about it, though. This is how you live a fulfilled life. This is how you make sure that you are doing the things that are critical to you and not just meandering in life. Right, exactly. And without that you have to acknowledge that you have to drive that GPS need to know what the destination is because you're wandering around right. And if you aren't specific, intentional about where you're going. God knows where you end up. Yeah, I definitely have. I mean, I can definitely say that from personal experience when I haven't had clear set goals, I would do all kinds of crazy stuff. It may have been good things, but not everything is a good thing to spend years I completely so I really relate this to the fact that you guys will know, I am a huge giver. And so I used to give people money and help them out and do those things. Those were all good things. No one would say that China was a bad person, right. But Tashaunda was not putting the money on China's goal. Yeah. And I didn't realize that while I was doing good things, they weren't the things that I should have been doing. And the other crazy part about that is well, you are helping everyone else right. You can't move forward. But what allows you to give even more is you moving forward. So if you can invest in yourself Get yourself further. You can also, you know, serve people better. Yeah, no, that's good. That's good. And I think that some people have said for a long time that you have to get in right now we have the whole self care movement, and all that. And I think it all ties in, people have gotten to that place of acknowledging that they need self care for a reason. Yeah, cuz it's real. It's real life. Life is hard. Yeah. Like, this, like life is really hard. And people underestimate. Yeah. Is it weird? I don't feel like people actually tell people that life is hard. No, I feel like no one has ever told me that. But then, I mean, when I feel like I'm experiencing hard live, I'd be like, I'm the only one. Life is hard for everybody. Yeah. In in its own way. Yeah. And so we have to give ourselves grace for just for life. Every day we protect ourselves from it. And how so how would you do that? Well, I think that this is that it's giving us time to say hey, we No Life is hard. Let me make myself feel a little better. Right? Let me make sure that I can protect my headspace just for a bit of time. So I'm able to move further. Yeah. And when I say retreat, too, I also want to make sure you don't have to spend a lot of money. When I started doing retreats, I didn't have a lot of money. So I was like, I need to create a space that is not my house that nothing that I'm used to. But I also needed to be cost effective. Yeah. And so you can get very creative like, you can go with a friend to help split the cost, right? You can go to Airbnb. Actually, I remember I did one in my apartment, but like, I didn't do anything that I wouldn't normally do. So okay, I do have to share. So I would do like my self care routine at my home. So at times where you know, some of us I have a three year old and five year old at the time, they were probably more like three One, and I would tell my boyfriend like, Look, I'm gonna need a little space. I'm gonna need to not be a mom in this moment, or not to be a spouse in this moment not to be an employee employer in this moment. And I would close my bathroom door, lock it, run some bath water, get my sea salt in there, get my candles, a glass of wine, and that if you go to the Dollar Tree it costs like five bucks. Right, right. I remember used to retreat at the gym. Yes, I did. I did. At one point I had membership at LA Fitness. And I just need to I need my own space. And so they have showers. They have a sauna. I would go in, take showers take my time. I'm washing my hair, deep conditioning, just chillin in the locker room. Getting in the sauna just sitting there reading, listening to music. Just someone woke up and I already paid 25 $50 a month for that membership. So we were good, exact no cost at all. Yeah. And so I mean, I think you can, like however you can fit it in is like exactly what you should do to fit to your lifestyle. If you can do multi day I definitely encouraged the multi day when you can, you know, wake up and not have those responsibilities. And now you have a full day. Yeah, where you can you know, you have started to rest and now you've slept in a bed by yourself. And then you can wake up again refreshed and attack that day with like, 100% energy. Yeah, well, it's good.

Conclusion

Yeah, it's it's so important. I'm so happy that we have a platform where we can talk about because no one has said this to me before you actually and I've had friends you know, people who I thought I would have girl time with and nobody told me Hey, life is hard. Plan your destination. take time for yourself. Reflect Your plan and modify it right in work. I've been taught, hey, plan, reflect, make changes, tweaks go after it again. But no one I've ever applied that to lie exactly life. Yeah. And it's so it's critical. It is critical. Yeah. And I would say that's probably the biggest lesson I learned from school is some reason why they have semesters and quarters and things like that. And that is the period where you need to do some self reflection and see what you're good at all those things. So, we definitely encourage as we're talking about vision boards and destinations, it's not just about having the destination but it's about facilitating your way along the journey. And that includes self care and includes support from your, you know, your friends, your peers, your spouse, whoever is with you along that journey. But yeah, just don't don't shortchange yourself from the hardships of life that are gonna come like prepare for those to cast the vision. make it plain. Amen. All right, until next time, folks, my name is Tenisha Nicole and I'm Tashaunda Dixon and we are Black Girl Fly.