Visualizing Goals and Creating Ease: A Journey Through Kiva's 2022 Vision Board

Have you set goals for yourself in the year 2022?

If not, it's time to get started.

Today, I walk you through my vision board and share the why behind my choices.

Here is my 2022 Vision Board 👇

I'm excited to join you to start visualizing all of the possibilities that are out there for you. Let's get excited about how far you're going to go! 🎉🎉🎉

Every good team has a playbook. Does yours? Ready to build out your business playbook to not only take things off of your plate but help your business scale?

Podcast Transcript:

0:01 Kiva Slade

Hello and welcome to collab with Kiva. I'm your host Kiva, Slade. From the marbled halls of the US Congress to my racing themed office chair. I've learned that there is no perfect path to the life of your dreams. My journey over the past 20 years has included being a legislative director for a member of Congress, policy director for a nonprofit, stay at home mom, homeschooling mom, jewelry biz owner, and now the owner of a service based business. Whether your journey has been a straight line, or full of zigs and zags. Join me and my guest as we share insights, hope in lessons learned from our email entrepreneurship journeys. May the collaborative sharing of our stories be the tide that lifts your boat? Let's dive in. Hello, and welcome to another episode of collab with Kiva. I am your host, Kiva, Slade, and I am so excited today to share with you we are in a new year, it is 2022. It has started in a very interesting way for many of us, in terms of either weather storms that have come through rampid, COVID, diagnoses that have happened as well. There's just been a lot it feels like in this world when that has been the start to 2022. He yet in the midst of that for many of us, there's been planning for the year ahead, for your business, for your family for your life, goal setting, vision boards have been created in a whole host of things. So that's actually what I want to talk to you about today. What are your goals for 2022? What are your visions for 2022? Maybe you have, like me built out a vision board in Canva. Maybe you have also started maybe 2022 with some new habits that you are looking to implement in your life. So I'm going to share some of mine. Hopefully, they will resonate with some of you, and you'll be encouraged to share some of yours. So I am a visual person, I'm been a visual learner, I have a high auditory side as well. But I like to see things, show me something and I got it. Okay. And so I started two years ago, I think it was building out my vision board in Canva. And so I kind of have some pictures, I have some words, I have a few different things. So I'm gonna walk you through my vision board for 2022. At the middle, or in the middle of the vision board are two words, which are my words for this year. And that those words are trust your self. I'll say it again, trust yourself. What I learned about myself, I think in 2021 was that I didn't trust myself as much as I should.

3:36

And I've chosen a word for the year for several years. But this year, I knew it needed to be more of this phrase than just a singular word. Because this is what truly encapsulates what I feel I really need to route in, in hold on to as I head into 2022 and continue through this year. So trust yourself is on my vision board. To the left of that is a picture of a black bear. And you may be wondering, why on earth does she have a picture of a black bear? And it's because during a session with a group that I'm in, we were told to pick a number from one to five. Well each number correspond it with an animal in mind, I had chosen the number four, which corresponded with his black bear. And the really interesting part about it is the black bear signified trusting yourself. So it was serendipitous that, of course the black bear would make its way onto my vision board. Okay, so I had to pick Have a black bear. And he's, he's looking at me, he's very intently staring. And it's such a reminder to just trust yourself, focus, focus, and trust yourself. So two other phrases that are on my board are be consistent, be intentional, be consistent and be intentional. Not that those are things that I've struggled with, but I want it to make sure to remind myself of those things as I move through this here. So there's also two pictures on my board. There's another one, but we'll talk about that one separately. And one of them is of the beach front in South Carolina at Myrtle Beach, and the other is an aerial shot of Turks and Caicos. Because they represent travel, one thing I want to do this year COVID Get out the way is I want to travel again. My husband and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary last year, in Turks and Caicos. We were due to go to Jamaica next month. And we've canceled that. But we are looking at a few other places. And I am excited to get on a plane and get away again, to a beautiful beach and enjoy the beautiful water in the warm sunshine. And the other picture of South Carolina. As just of the beachfront. One of the things that we've decided my husband and I for this year is to be more intentional and consistent around splitting our time between our two homes. And I'm excited to do that I'm actually recording this episode in South Carolina. So I love the mobility of my work in my ability to do just those things. So that is another item that's on my vision board. So in addition to that, though, there's two words that are related to business. One is growth. And the second is commitment. Okay, in growth is pretty self explanatory. I think all of us who are in business, we are intent upon growing our businesses in some way, shape, fashion or form. So growth is pretty self explanatory. Commitment, on the other hand, is a little bit different. And it's a bit harder, I think, as our digital world becomes so just much more inundated with all of these options, and choosing to be committed to whether it's your offers, committed to a certain niche committed to a certain type of client. I'm not saying that my commitment is I'm only serving a and will never ever serve B. I'm saying that in order for consistency to be built up, we have to give ourselves time to commit to something. Commit to at least for a year, what it is that you say you're going to sell, or what are you providing as a service, I want you to commit to that. And hold me to committing to my

8:38

let's see here. Also on my vision board is a picture of it's a phone with LinkedIn on it. One of the things that I always love to look at are my website analytics. I love Google Analytics and the information that it provides me. And I shared this before, but I was spending a lot of my time on other social media platforms. Not because I liked to be there. But because I felt I had to be there. Everyone tells you, you have to be there. And so you find yourself there. Yet my analytics was saying, Hmm, you're there. But no one is coming to your site from there or it's not the largest driver of traffic to your site. And that gave me pause. What can I do with my time if I wasn't spending so much of it trying to create content for some other platforms? So LinkedIn is on my vision board because that's where Kiva is going to show up this year, and I am going to be committed, consistent and intentional around that showing up on that platform. That's not to say that I may not occasionally post something on another platform, it's to say that those other platforms are not my main focus. And interestingly enough, at the beginning of December of 2021, I listened to digital minimalism by Cal Newport on Audible. And it was quite the eye opener for me. I think for the last year, I've had a love hate relationship with I think my own level of digital consumption, and trying to figure out what that balance is for me, what does that look like for me in defining it for me, and listening to digital digital minimalism. And obviously, let's just put it out there, we all most of us do not have the luxuries that Cao Newport has as a tenured professor at a tier one university. So while he may take walks for hours, yeah, can't do that maybe we can get in 30 minutes. But I think that some of the concepts that were shared, truly resonated with me on a much deeper level as to how I want to choose to spend my time. And I think it was the listening to that combined with other things that I've read in thoughts that I've been having in wrestling with for myself, that led me to some of my other decisions about where I was going to be intentional about my time, what commitments I was going to be consistent with. And so I've made those decisions around where I will show up, how I will show up, and what my showing up looks like. And I encourage you make those choices also for yourself, instead of feeling like you have to do fill in the blank, because everyone else says to do fill in the blank. So LinkedIn is going to be my platform of choice as to where I show up in the social realm. Okay, also on my vision board, is it's a picture of a calendar with a date circled and it says, Don't think, just do. And for the over thinkers in the crew, raise your hand, if you're one of them. We can get stuck in thinking I can think about something for a very, very, very long time and not move forward on it. Because I'm still thinking, I'm still gathering facts, I'm still gathering information, I'm still wondering what it's going to look like in its final informed stage product. Whatever three ality is,

13:35

we're never really going to know what that final end stage product look is going to be. Unless we start doing with the doing comes the clarity that in most cases is what we're thinking about. So the doing is going to lead to that clarity, which is going to lead to the results that we were hoping for. So it says Don't think just do and I need that reminder for myself in my trusting myself and being consistent and being intentional. I have to not get stuck in overthinking and I have to move forward with action, intentional action, committed action. And knowing that that intentional and committed action is going to feed into my fact finding information gathering part. And yes, I may make some tweaks, some adjustments, some, you know, renegotiating of plans or boundaries, but I can do that much easier. When I've already started the moving. It's kind of like physics and object in motion will stay In motion until acted on by an opposite force, we can't expect clarity if we're not moving forward with motion. Action. Okay, so, science lesson for everyone there, you have to move forward. So don't think just do. Obviously there's well not obviously, because you're not looking at it. But I have an image that says love family and laughter, because my family is a huge, hugely important to me. And so they make my vision board every single year in some way, shape, fashion or form. And we do have a lot of love and a heck of a lot of laughter that takes place in our family. So I am totally grateful for that. And it has, of course made its way onto my vision board. I also though, have a dandelion. And it has some of its little flowers that are blowing off into the wind. And you might be wondering why. And I'm going to tell you, for those that don't know, I'm also a very prolific gardener. So dandelions normally are the bane of my gardening existence. Because if you know anything about a dandelion, if you've ever tried to pull one up, dandelions have long roots. They are not shallow. Okay, they dig deep, and they are firmly rooted in your ground, trust me. And you really have to work in in many cases dig in order to fully get that root out of the ground, and make sure no additional dandelion babies come up. All right, but I don't have the picture there for that reason. I have it there it is signify ease. For many of us, we grew up, not realizing that that fun little white flower that we could blow in the wind. As a child, we didn't realize we were sending off dandelion babies into the world. But for me, it was a time of ease, like going in the backyard and picking honeysuckles and eating them in the sweet aroma that came from them in the summer. But same with the dandelion. And I want ease this year in my life, I'm creating ease in my life, I'm creating ease by how I choose to trust myself be consistent, be intentional, be committed have growth, I am creating ease. Because he's as important to me. So if he is important to you. My question is, how are you creating ease in your life, and your business. In ease looks different for each of us based on where we are in our life, we're all in different seasons. And for me, it's a season of empty nesting. You know, kids are off to school.

18:34

Parenting looks a little different. It takes place via text messages and FaceTime and things of that sort. So ease for me looks maybe different than it does for you. But each of us can create ease in our life. And I encourage you to find the ease. Because, you know, going finding your ease and leaning into that, then truly designing your life around that. Man is it amazing. Which brings me to my final. I am reading the book designing your life. So I look forward to sharing some insights and takeaways from that in the future. Because it's a fascinating read. And I am enjoying it immensely. So there you have it. A look at Kivas vision board for 2022. Again, I am really focused on trusting myself being consistent being intentional travel I'm having growth in my business being committed. And also moving forward with action. Because action is what's going to get us to where we need to go and get us there in a way that feels good for us in a way that has ease. And I'm also looking forward to some travel. So I would love to hear what you were looking forward to in 2022. What's on your vision board? What are you looking to have experience feel see in this new year, so feel free to send me a message on LinkedIn, so that we can talk about what that what that vision board looks like for you. So until the next episode, I will wish you an amazing 2022 And may it be filled with all that your heart desires. Talk soon, bye. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of collab with Kiva. You know my heart, and it wants you to know that you are uniquely made and that your business path is unique to you. I hope that now you have some clear takeaways from this episode that have left you inspired and motivated to keep pressing forward on your unique path. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes. And of course, your reviews on Apple are greatly appreciated. If you are a small business owner, and you are ready to build out your business playbook, and you're ready to document and delegate what takes place in your business so it can grow beyond you. Make sure you visit me on my website, the 516 collaborative.com and let's schedule a time to talk. I'll see everyone next time. Bye.

Meet Kiva Slade - the Founder and CEO of The 516 Collaborative. With a unique background in high-power politics on Capitol Hill and sixteen years as a homeschooling mama, Kiva found her calling in the online business world as a trusted guide for entrepreneurs looking to build the business of their dreams.

Kiva's work began behind the scenes, orchestrating the back end of businesses and managing teams. But her inner data diva couldn't help but notice that small businesses needed help harnessing the power of data for growth. So she and her team set out to uncover and tidy up the data required to enable clients to grow their businesses confidently and easily.