Create Your New Year 2025
I’m not sure when or where it started, but it feels like I’ve always made a collage around New Year. An ex-boyfriend tells me that I introduced him to my New Year collages back in the late 1990s so I must have been doing it for at least twenty years. Way before I became a coach, I was already interested in being the architect of my own life and saw that there was a value in spending time reflecting on what I wanted. And what better time to reflect on that than at New Year? So I began using words and images to create a vision for how I wanted my future to look. For the last few years I’ve shared the experience as a workshop and, at the start of 2023, I’m looking forward to presenting the workshop again.
So, what is it all about?
These days, especially in the States, so-called ‘Vision Board Workshops’ are big business amongst people who believe that they can ‘manifest’ the future simply by harnessing the power of their imaginations. The idea has its roots in the best-selling book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne which was published in 2006 and which gave birth to the Law of Attraction movement. Put simply, the Law of Attraction suggests that our thoughts create our reality and that what we put out into the world, we get back. So, imagine yourself a handsome, loving boyfriend and, bingo, you get one. Want a big house? No problem. Just dream it and it’s yours, right? Nothing could be simpler. I’m now thinking I should have copyrighted my idea back in the nineties or at least found a way to manifest more profit from it. But maybe I just didn’t dream big enough?
You may be starting to get the impression that I don’t entirely buy this concept and that I’m not the right person to run a visioning workshop. That’s probably because I don’t and because my workshop doesn’t really have anything to do with the Law of Attraction. Sure, I’m a writer as well as a coach and, as such, I’m a big fan of the power of the imagination. I’m a firm believer in magic and mystery. Serendipity is my favourite word. I’m also a big fan of mindfulness and believe that, to some extent, we have control over where we put our attention and on the thoughts that we entertain. But I also believe that no individual is all-powerful and that the universe is not always benign. I can use words to conjure the most beautiful unicorn imaginable but can I make her fly off the page and whisk me away to a magical land over the rainbow? No. I can be the most positive, loving person in the world but does that guarantee me a life of love and positivity? No. In fact, I am a pretty positive and loving person but I’ve experienced so many difficult and heartbreaking experiences that if I believed in karma, I would have to consider that I had done something really awful in a previous existence. Which I don’t. Aside from the times when I’ve chosen to bestow my love on people who were unworthy and unable to repay it, most of the things that have happened to me have been random bad luck and out of my control. Not everything happens for a reason and, sadly, a beautiful life cannot be constructed simply from pretty pictures stuck on a board with glue.
So, what’s the point of it?
Though I don’t believe in the Law of Attraction, I do believe that each of us has the power to set our intention in a positive direction at the beginning of the year and that time spent reflecting on what you want out of life, is time well spent. Creating a collage of inspiring words and images can’t instantaneously deliver you a dream life but it will still have positive repercussions:
Spending an afternoon focusing on what you want to achieve in the year ahead is time well-spent. If you don’t know what you want from life, it’s much harder to make it happen.
It will be a little bit of dreamtime and blue sky thinking and we all need that in the dreary days of January.
Cutting and sticking is fun and something that we don’t do enough as adults! It’s a mindful and therapeutic activity in of itself.
Creating a visual representation of what you want from your year can help to keep you on track through the months ahead.
Unlike punishing New Year’s resolutions, you won’t feel bad when, come February, you’ve already failed.
Making a collage of your vision for the year is a starting point for further action. The collage is the big picture but, as a life coach, I know that the big picture needs to be broken down into smaller, achievable goals and actions. If you want to be a published author, it’s no good just daydreaming about your book deal; you have to start by writing a book. And, if you want a handsome, loving boyfriend and you’re in your forties like me, you’re probably going to have to go on a dating site! You have to give the universe a hand.
So, what will we actually do?
It’s simple. I’ll lead you through a few guided writing exercises to help to awaken the dreamer in you and then we’ll spend time with magazines and any other materials that you choose to bring along, selecting images and words to collate together into a collage to represent how you’d like 2023 to look. You don’t need to be a writer or an artist in order to take part and you can share as much or as little as you like within the group. At the end of the afternoon, you’ll get to take your artwork home to hang on your wall to inspire you throughout the year. (If this isn’t enough, there’ll be opportunities for tea and cake too!)
In short (or long!) the evening will be an enjoyable way to gently set out your hopes for 2023 alongside what will undoubtedly be lovely people. Dreamers, rationalists, magical thinkers and unicorns all welcome.
You can book your ticket for the in-person or online version of the event here.