The sound of my Blackberry Z10 vibrating across the room gently brought me out of my sleep at 4:04 this morning. As the contents of what I was dreaming about slowly left my consciousness, one thought remained. I was left with the words, “Begin with the end in mind.”

It’s a phrase I’ve become familiar with, in my work as a coach. It’s an idea that, in some way, I ask my clients to consider. I may ask them this in the form of a question. More often, though, I will take them through a visualization process, in order to know more about the work we will do together. I have to have some idea how my clients see things in the future, and this process helps to accomplish this.

But the catchphrase was shown to me this way: “Begin with the end—in Mind.” I was impressed with the idea that when we start each day, we might give some consideration toward how we like to see the day turn out in that moment; imagining that we have come to the end of that day…How do we feel about it? Do we feel satisfied, fulfilled, happy? Did we accomplish what we set out to do for that day—and if so, what were those things?

That will help us in creating the plan for the day—and possibly the action steps to go with that plan—in our minds.

Being a person who lives and works in New Thought, “Mind” capitalized becomes God-Mind, Divine Mind, Universal Mind, the One Mind. There is an Infinite Intelligence that works with us to create our reality through our every experience—an idea we have popularized as the Law of Attraction (which I often write about on my blog “life of HIMM;” you can check out my latest post on the Law of Attraction there by clicking here).

And since I have brought up the topic of visualization, I mentioned in an earlier post on goals that I would share an exercise in a future post, and I would like to do so now.

Visualize Your Ideal Life

If you haven’t done it before, I’m going to ask you to start visualizing your ideal life.  We’re going to take it way down the road.  We’re going to go 10 years into the future.

Where do you really want to be in 10 years?  It seems at the moment like a long time away, but if you think of 10 years back from now, go back 10 years in your mind and you can see how quickly that time has evolved.

Did you do everything in the past 10 years that you think you wanted to achieve?  Or do you think you left a lot of stuff out because you didn’t plan it effectively, you didn’t make it a priority or you didn’t set it as a goal.

You’ll quickly see, especially as you get older in your life, that 10 years can just fly by and you can miss the boat on a whole bunch of opportunity if you don’t correctly plan it.

So we want to start thinking about where we want to be 10 years from now, and then moving forward, how can we start to plot and write down goals that will lead us to where we ultimately want to be, our best ideal life?

And that brings me back to the phrase I began this post with: “Begin with the end—in Mind.” Hold the vision in your mind, and then create the plan that will bring you from point A (where you are now) to point B (where you see and envision yourself to be).

In my next post in this series focusing on goals, I will present some action steps you could take that might help move you forward in your resolutions and intentions for this year—which is my intention.

Your partner in beginning with the end—in Mind,

 

 

 

P.S.: You may be wondering if I checked my phone, since it was the thing that brought me out of my dreaming state. The answer is yes, but only after writing this entire blog post in my dream journal, in the dark—which I was actually able to read, once the lights were on!

I had received an e-mail message from LinkedIn, letting me know that one of my connections (someone who I went to coach training with, and was in my graduating class) liked my update. What was the update? The blog post on the Law of Attraction I mentioned earlier. I love it when those kinds of things happen! 🙂