Unlock your potential with this fun exercise and create the vision for turning your ideas into action.
Fantasizing is thinking. Now, it is time to move to doing: Create a Vision Board: A New Horizons Map will turn your thoughts into your successes.
How is the Fantasizing going?
There is one more step to complete in Fantasizing before we can move on; a process known as Visioning. We are going to create a New Horizon Map.
As always, we will do it in steps:
The Power of Visualization: How to Create a Clear Vision for Success
Creating a New Horizons Map
Steps to Turn Your Dreams into Goals and Achieve Success
Making Your Vision a Reality: The Journey to Achieving Success
If you cannot breathe, how can you help someone else?
Developing a Powerful Mindset for Achieving Success
The Power of Visualization: How to Create a Clear Vision for Success
When you are ready, take a large Blank Piece of Paper (the flip chart sized ones are great).
You are going to create a Vision Board.
There are lots of examples of how to do this in other books and on the internet.
I will just share with you how I teach my students/mentees to do it because it is the way that worked for me.
If you have done this before, and many of you will have, or know of other methods, please do it again by using the method you are most comfortable with.
You need to do it again because I am asking you to create a vision board from your Fantasize exercise related directly to your definition of success and the life you want to see yourself living.
In Madi No Excuses! We call this New Horizons Map.
You can now see your new life on the horizon, and we are going on a journey to reach that destination... And then we will travel beyond to something even more unimaginable.
Creating a New Horizons Map
I start by drawing a picture of me in the middle... It is a stick drawing, and I do not know why, but I draw myself where my hair always has plaits and ribbons as that is how I see myself (it is from my days at school in Delhi... I was seven).
I also have a big smile.
You need to find something that you know identifies you and add it to your image.
There are no words on my New Horizons Map – Even if you cannot draw, as I cannot, present your world now in pictures. Around the image of you, make small drawings of all the things you want to achieve.
As an example: On my New Horizons Map there are aeroplanes representing travel; the world representing I want to be global; my family; there are books highlighting that I want to write books but also representing that I want to educate people and continue learning myself; there are trees representing sustainability; there are lots of people, as I love working with people and changing lives. There is a factory because I adore business.
You will have different images to mine and each will mean something to you.
In the top right-hand corner of my drawing is a bright and smiley sunshine because I want to bring happiness into the world and because I want lots of laughs and smiles in my world.
I haven’t yet found a way to define being a strong feminist, but I am working on it!!
Ok, jokes aside. It will take you around an hour to do this.
The more you look at it, the more things you will find you want to include. Keep adding to it. When you think you have finished, go away and take a break.
Try and reflect on your Fantasizing exercise:
What were the strong points on your mind’s screen? (
What were the defining moments in your movie?
Come back to your New Horizons Map again with fresh eyes.
Do you want to add anything to it?
Is there still something missing?
As I did my New Horizon Map for the second or third time in my life, I realised there was something major missing:
I want to do so much but I am always under-resourced, and it is a recurring problem with me. Then I realised after going back and looking at my New Horizon Map...
I never included money in the picture.
Now it is there, and it has made a difference. I earn more money, which means I can do more things, and make a bigger difference.
Now, if you have someone you really trust ask them to look at your New Horizons Map.
They should be a person who knows you well.
Can they see if something is missing?
Usually, if they know you well, they will identify something you do not see in yourself. You will be surprised at what they can see in you and your ambitions. Their comments should be constructive, not critical! (The critical mentor role comes later in the blog post on Foundation.)
“The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that do.” – Steve Jobs
Steps to Turn Your Dreams into Goals and Achieve Success
Again, in my case it was very strange, it was not even anyone who knew me well who identified one of my unique traits, it was one of my students:
I was describing how I do the New Horizons Map and one student asked if they could add something to my picture. I said of course, and around my body they added bright yellow lines, describing that I had an energy which I should exploit and that this type of energy was very rare in people.
That was the first time I understood what my USP, unique selling point, was. And today, I can see that they were correct. I have used that energy to support me on my journey towards the 7 Billion Ideas to Action – Including YOURS!
I started to turn my vision into reality. It took me on a journey from speaking to small groups of people to very large audiences, at one point a stadium full!!
It was then that one of my team, Eli, branded this energy as the MadiEffect.
It is now something we use in the company to define one of our unique qualities. #MadiEffect
Making Your Vision a Reality: The Journey to Achieving Success
To complete your New Horizons Map you need to create something like a large rainbow across the top of it or even through the whole drawing... This is your overarching objective, how you define your success, the ONE goal you have written on your Blank Piece of Paper.
It should almost pull together all the individual drawings you have on the main map and is a reminder that each of the things you plan to do has a greater purpose and will lead you towards your success. In Madi No Excuses! we call this your Absolute Commitment.
It may be too complex to draw so you can use a short phrase or symbols, or simply the rainbow as a symbol of your Focus.
Having completed your New Horizons Map, you should put it up somewhere you see it regularly - the fridge door, the wall in your office or your bedroom.
Photos are a reminder of where you have been.
Your New Horizons Map is an active map of where you are going. It is the snapshot of your future.
And please remember, it is a working document, an active map, so you can add to it, or amend it, at any point.
Should you ever take down your New Horizon Map, maybe because you move rooms or because you do a new version, please do not throw it away. Put it safe somewhere and on a regular basis take it out and look at it to see how many of your ambitions have already materialised or started to happen.
I know that we can achieve much more than we can ever put on our first New Horizons Map but this exercise shows us how quickly things can start to happen once you start to Focus on them.
The most remarkable thing you will note is that things you put on your New Horizons Map, and could never have imagined possible, never mind understanding how they would happen, have occurred without any real effort from you.
In my case, I don’t know why, I always wanted to build my own home. When I started dating my partner, I had no idea he had land and had started the process of the drawings to build a house on that land. I have since been involved with the construction of the house over the last few years. It is a dream come true because I now live in that house!
“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.” — Earl Nightingale
A Real Example: The Benefits of Setting Goals and Visualizing Your Desired Outcome
Let me give you another example:
How Fantasy, Visualization and New Horizon Maps have worked for me:
I like my cars, luxury cars, so you will not be surprised to know that I had a list of cars I would love to drive, and therefore there is a picture of a car on my New Horizon Map.
I remember driving around in a very cheap Vauxhall (Opel) Nova after I started my business, but I never stopped Fantasizing about the Jaguars, Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, Range Rover, TVR, Rolls Royce and even an Aston Martin. I could never have imagined I would drive any of those cars, never mind 6 of them on the same day... but I did!
The Rolls Royce Turbo R was achieved because a business friend allowed me to drive his car. The Jaguar was achieved, and that’s a story I will share with you fully in another blog post because it was an example of how I acted when others FTI (Fail To Implement).
However, you could not possibly imagine how my life changed to allow me to drive the rest of the list.
My daughter had a baby and at the time we could not afford a pram, so I sold my car and used the money from the sale to buy a pram. It meant when I needed a car, I had to rent one. At the time I was a member of an EU institution and travelling regularly, with flights every week, so it did not make sense to have a car sitting at an airport. So, I started to use the services of AVIS car rental at London Heathrow T5. I always book a medium-sized car.
Being a people person, I always chat with the staff and we laugh and joke. I was seeing them so often that they had become like family. But I loved them most because the customer service was exceptional: My car was always ready and they treated me with great respect. They truly understood customer service and I am always happy to compliment them on that.
I do not consider going anywhere else for car rental - They are my company of choice.
They loved me too and very often gave me a nice upgrade, a car with a nice badge, Audi or Mercedes, and so my grandson loves them too now!
At Christmas several years ago, AVIS had 12 days of Christmas gifts competition. Every day me and my grandson would check the internet and find the boxes of presents needed to enter the competition. It was a great family time every night before his bedtime. We loved it.
We loved it, even more, when I won the Avis Prestige Prize for driving 6 prestigious cars in 1 day - On an open road! A Jaguar, 2 Mercedes, 2 Porsches and a Range Rover.
Here’s the thing, I made it happen, because I thought about it, Fantasized, then acted on it when the opportunity arose. That's as simple as it gets.
The TVR and Aston Martin remain on the New Horizons Map and on the ‘To Do List’ because you must never stop reaching for the stars. Or the cars.
Oh, and if you are wondering, I still don’t have a car because it would just be stuck in the garage, and I prefer to use the money towards Paying It Forward.
Now just coming back to the concept of Fantasizing and checking your New Horizons Map.
Can you understand what is possible when you let go?
When you lift all those restrictions?
When you close your eyes and there is just you and your mind in control of your vision?
And who is at the centre of all this visioning of these Fantasies?
YOU are!
If you cannot breathe, how can you help someone else?
New Horizons: Focusing on What Matters to Achieve Success
It is not possible for you to Fantasize for someone else. Their visions will ALWAYS be different to yours.
Fantasizing puts you at the centre of the Universe! And so, before we end this section, I want to explain the importance of YOU and putting yourself FIRST.
Oops! I can hear you now... "Madi, that is selfish, I cannot do that."
As I said in the Definition of Success blog post: It is important that you recognise, if you are not happy, those around you will not be happy.
You can do everything possible to help others achieve their dreams, goals, objectives, even their Absolute Commitment, but if you are not achieving yours too, then deep down inside you will always harbour regrets and even resentment.
The greatest analogy I have to share with you is this:
The instruction I listen to 2 -3 times every month as I sit on my British Airways or Air France flight:
‘Should the cabin pressure drop, the oxygen mask will fall from the panel above...please
PUT YOUR OWN OXYGEN MASK ON BEFORE HELPING SOMEONE ELSE’.
In other words,
If you cannot breathe, how can you help someone else?
If you are not achieving your vision, how can you support others achieve theirs?
Making Time for Self-Care: A Necessity for Achieving Success
Many of you will have responsibilities, other people you care for, other people that you feel committed to; but these responsibilities are no reason for not achieving your definition of success, your Absolute Commitment.
Try including those you are responsible for in your Fantasy and New Horizons Map, that way they will always be inclusive in your activities and not a responsibility you see as something separate.
However, it is important to allow them to have their own fantasies and their successes, however they define them - They are individuals like you, they have their own objectives.
Small Steps, Big Results: Taking Action to Reach Success
Fantasizing is about YOU and what YOU WANT and now you understand why.
Please... Fantasize... Anything is possible...
The Wright Brothers Fantasized about flying like birds. It took many attempts, but they made it happen. Today, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and no doubt many more are already collecting lists of people who want to go to space as tourists, or who want to live on another planet!
There are many stories, both historical figures and everyday people, who dared to Fantasize and turn their ideas into reality. They all stopped making excuses, defined their Absolute Commitment and then MADE IT HAPPEN.
Developing a Powerful Mindset for Achieving Success
Fantasizing is an amazing gift and a pleasure in life which belongs just to us – No one can take away our fantasies, nor can they interrupt or interfere with them.
So where is your mind taking you in setting the vision for your success, however you define it?
You do not need a safety net in a Fantasy, because you cannot fall, everything is possible.
As Paul McKenna says, “If you could not fail, what would you do?”
I am telling you; you cannot fail and I will prove it in the blog post on Failure.
For now, just know that ‘whatever you can conceive, you can achieve’.
Your Fantasy is Feasible and it is possible for us to make it happen.
“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”
You will become a member of our Paying It Forward Community.
Our website and blog will keep you updated and informed with relevant guidance to support your continued development.
We will also provide you with templates, e-books and downloadables that we have created to add momentum to your quest – Meaning: You will achieve your ambitions faster, overcome any challenges, and be ready to grasp new opportunities as they appear before you.
Gandhi said, “You must be the change YOU want to see”
Madi says, “You must be the change YOU want to see – NO EXCUSES!”
Founder Madi Group www.madisharma.org
Founder Women’s Eco-nomic & Social Think Tank www.westtworld.com
Author Madi No Excuses! www.madinoexcuses.com
Entrepreneur, International Speaker, Freelance Journalist
Listed as 1 of Apolitical’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy in 2018
@MadiSharma1
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