Some time back, I promised a picture, and then couldn't find the picture. The file finally turned up, and here it is: my Career Success Barbie Doll.
Sorry that the picture is lousy. It's a photo of a photo, with a camera I'm still not used to.
Here's the reason for this little tableau. By accident, I had discovered that VISUALIZATIONS CAN REALLY WORK. And putting before me in physical form an image of what I want works even better.
I learned this when I found that I'd unwittingly reproduced, with real flowers, a floral arrangement that was on a picture near my computer.
If an image could work that easily to get me to produce the real thing, I wanted to apply the principle to something more important.
So I set out to EMBODY MY CAREER GOALS. Here, on the grungy window sill of my office at that time, is the doll I "dolled up" to be a visual symbol of the success I wanted.
This doll has a photo of my face attached, with the hair cut to the length of mine then, and tiny mockups of my books, existing and planned. Four of those are now published, which is one -- or two? -- more than were published then. And another is recently finished.
Note in "my" right hand the pink quill pen, and in my left, the cell phone and the Oscar. I do now have a cell phone. That much of those items has come true.
I haven't exactly come to look like that. But I find in the photo on the bio page of my website, I'm at least wearing the same color.
Perhaps it's time for another version of my icon, to project a few more books down the road. Or one to focus entirely on publication of the just-completed one.
2 comments:
I love the doll!
I have never done such a wonderful "affirmation" exercise, but I do have a lovely blank book in which I write my personal and professional goals as affirmations, in the present tense, as though they are already in existence.
It is remarkable to me, looking back over the past 20 years of doing this, how writing things down has so much power in making them happen.
I take great pleasure in going back and adding notes alongside the affirmations noting the date they occurred. Some happen quickly, others take years.
Aside from the affirmation end of it, I also find it very helpful to think about the fact that generally I am living a life I sought out and chose and created. On days when it feels like nothing is going right, it's very sobering to realize that I'm living things that years ago were my dreams. It's all to easy to forget that what now seems everyday and a given was once a "dream come true" that I wanted badly. Reading back over my affirmations puts me in touch with gratitude and pride and patience and trust.
All that said, I think I need to take a look at the book, as I have been feeling for the past few days slightly less than what I wrote in the last line!
I have a little red Japanese figure that comes with one eye drawn in and you're supposed to draw the other on the face when your dream comes true.
I drew that thing in long ago.
Having that dream come true hasn't assuaged all my hungry ambitions. But it did take a bit of the edge off, still does when I see that little red figure, or think about it.
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