Your 2017 Vision: If You Can’t Write It, You Can’t Get It

This time of year is a reflective one. We look back on the year that was, celebrating our victories, learning from our missteps, grieving our losses, and appreciating the many experiences we have been blessed to have. It is also the time when we start looking forward to the coming year, deciding how we want the next 365 days to go, both personally and professionally.

Through my studies in mindfulness and manifestation, I have come to the realization that the written word is critical in creating the lives we desire and deserve. Yes, many of us wish for more of some things (sales, money, time, energy, love, health, fun) and less of others (headaches, hassles, heartbreak, heartburn). However, if we cannot clearly articulate what we want EXACTLY, we are opening ourselves up to receiving whatever random adventures that the Universe dishes out to us. Oftentimes those adventures aren’t exactly the ones we had in mind.

As a motivational speaker, I invite my audiences to reflect on their lives both at work and at home, asking them if their daily experiences are what they wish them to be. The vast majority of people tell me that they are definitely not satisfied with their current circumstances, whether it’s physically, emotionally, relationally, or financially. When I ask them what they want instead, I usually get blank stares in return. If you don’t know what you want, how on earth are you expected to get it?

I recently re-read one of my all-time favorite books, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. In it, Hill recommends that we specifically define not only what we want but when do we want it b