With the New Year upon us, it’s time to do some planning for the coming months. For me, I have some books in the wings, and a couple of longer projects ready to go. For bigger projects, I find it helpful to create a vision board of ideas, to capture thoughts and put them into written and visual goals.
One of the projects that has been taking shape is one based around the acronym LIGHT… Legacy, Impact, Goals, Habits and Time. My second fiction book, with a working title of Iron Rebel, has these concepts woven throughout the story. The book has a finished first draft and I’m now working through the revision process with my editor. I’m also working on the next step, planning out a Kindle workbook, and individual Kindle books built around each tenet. The workbook cover looks like this…
Called Light Excursion, it’s based on a Back-to-the-Future idea, where we travel in time to the end of your life and work our way backwards. We start with your Legacy and then take a look at the Impact that you made. We then take a look at the Goals, Habits, and Time Choices that helped you get there. We look at where you currently are and then help you plan action steps to create the Impact and Legacy you truly want to have.
This is where it gets fun. Since these are just in the concept stage, I built some cover ideas in Photoshop around quotes for each tenet. This gives me an idea of the individual concept and how to build a story, workbook, and worksheet templates for each one. These are designed for Pinterest, so I lay them out, each to their own board and build visual ideas, quotes and story references to each one. Pinterest is WONDERFUL for vision boarding.
Vision Board
A vision board helps you see your goals and dreams. You can add all sorts of pictures and written ideas to bring the concept into clearer focus. Once the ideas are in place, you can create action steps to see it through to fruition. Creating an action board or structured outline is the next step. This is where you lay out the process rather than the outcome. (Dr. Neil Farber, the author of The Blame Game, has a couple of very controversial articles in Psychology Today that explain the concept of action boards. He explains the concept of process vs. outcome in articles one and two )
I like to get my ideas down first, and then create a process for achieving them. Pinterest, with it’s movable boards, is ideal for this. Create the vision, then plan the action. Here is what my boards for the LIGHT concept look like…
LIGHT Ideas
Here is one for creating a worthwhile Legacy
This one points out the need for a worldwide impact
This cool graphic, illustrates the idea of setting
goals and reaching milestones to create impact.
Over 40% of our daily actions are the result of
unconscious habits. Change the bad habit into a
good one and you change your destiny.
Finally, this graphic asks the simple question…
What Time Is It? Do we focus on the past, the
future, or today, when we can actually do something.
Overall: While it’s early in the creative process, collecting quotes, ideas, references and visual ideas really helps me to move on to the action step. First comes the workbook, then the individual titles. My true vision is to put this together into a seminar in the not to distant future. I would love your feedback on the concepts, quotes, and graphics. Does this convey a clear idea to you? Is this something you would like to explore? Let me know in the comments below…
Question: What type of Legacy will you leave?
