While you may already have a number of goal setting strategies, I’d like to share another one with you that I recently incorporated into my day. The seed for this article was sown on October 29, 2008 while attending the Success Blueprint Workshop hosted by ProCoach Success System Master Certified Coach Andrew Barber-Starkey. Andrew stated that one of the best ways to build self-confidence and achieve your goals is to always look for ways to “Impress Yourself.”
awesome screen saver
I consider “Impress Yourself” one of the best motivational quotes I’ve ever heard and wanted to have it somewhere highly visible in my everyday life. I thought the best place to put this tagline was on my computer monitor as a screen saver. With this creative idea, I would be seeing the “Impress Yourself” motivational quote floating across my computer monitor many times throughout the day. My plan was for this visual aid to remind me of my previous goal setting activities, so I could refocus my efforts and move on.
The generation of an idea
While I found the screen saver to be a powerful technique, the following idea struck me as even more powerful! I went to Bob Proctor’s “Create Your Own Economy” weekend seminar in May 2009. Both Bob Proctor and Gerry Robert attended this seminar. I find these two entrepreneurs to be great educators and am inspired and motivated by what they have to say. Fortunately, I was able to get a photo of myself with each of these men at this conference. I planned to use these images as one of my desktop themes. I knew that seeing these images on a daily basis would help me in the area of self-improvement and motivation.
This presented me with a dilemma. Until that point, I had rotated the desktop background image on my computer screen on a semi-regular basis, usually using my children individually or together at different events or phases of their lives. Since I didn’t think my kids would like being pushed off my monitor, I decided to create a simple collage of photos of my kids and educators.
A simple image collage
In my first attempt to produce my own free wallpaper with my children and educators, I used Microsoft Word. I added the images to a page of a Word document, and then added the motivational quote “Be Impressed.” I copied and saved the file in Paint as a .jpg and used it as my computer wallpaper. This simple collage of images inspired me on a daily basis as I would see it every time I was working on the computer.
The Big Picture Collage Idea
Around the same time that I was working on my simple Word collage, my nine-year-old daughter was making a huge photo collage using PowerPoint. She was pasting numerous images onto the same slide and overlapping them. As she watched her create her masterpiece, my mind raced to create one of her own. It immediately became apparent that creating a picture collage in PowerPoint was much faster and easier than using Word. You can easily drag images around the slide, arrange your layout however you like, and overlay the images.
Building my first big photo collage
For my first large picture collage, I added about 75 pictures to a standard PowerPoint slide, but I soon learned that unless your computer monitor is the same length and width as a standard sheet of paper, the photo collage it will be crooked I resized my PowerPoint slide to match the exact size of my computer monitor screen, added more images, a couple of motivational quotes, and saved this image collage as one of my desktop backgrounds.
For a standard 19″ LCD computer monitor, which has a viewing area of about 180 square inches, I estimate I could be looking at 75-150 images instead of just one. My largest image is about nine square inches. , while the smallest is about 1 square inch. You may think that a small 1 square inch image is too small, but I think this is all you need to get an idea. For example, I have a small 1 square inch image. square inch of a multi-family house. in my photo collage. As soon as I look at this photo, I immediately see and visualize a house that I would like to build for low income people. The rooms are small but it is a house that people can afford and with ownership, I hope the development of self-esteem comes in. While you may not be able to fully make out the details in the photo, the purpose of the image is to trigger your mind to remember your goals. I think images of this size address this concept very well.
Personal Goal Setting
I find there are two main advantages to having your goals on your computer’s wallpaper. First, all your past achievements and future goals are in front of you every day. Seeing what you have already achieved ensures that you are capable of creating more of your own. Second, the time it takes to review your targets in image format is quite fast. For example, I have a dream book that contains what I want to achieve in the future. However, since I usually have time constraints, I rarely look at my dream book. However, every day I am reminded of my goals when I am working on my computer through my computer wallpaper photo collage. In essence, my computer wallpaper has become my vision board and dream book.
Personal growth educators generally want you to review your goals as much as possible. By using this photo collage technique, I have my entire dream book and vision board in front of me every day. I think this is great advice for goal setting and good self improvement and technical motivation. This simple idea is not only easy to implement, but also fun to put together. Also, it reminds me very quickly of my daily goals. This gentle reminder tends to keep me from doing things that aren’t moving me forward and focuses me on what needs to be done to achieve my personal goals.
My results
One of my main goals is to become a better stockbroker. Ever since I saw the phrase “Impress Yourself” and looked at my photo collage every day, I have tried very hard to always use extreme discipline when trading stocks. I find that I can do this best by controlling risk, always having limits, and generally limiting the time I am in the stock market. For me, just a slight change in mental attitude has improved my ability to trade stocks.
YourChallenge
What small shift in thinking do you need to drastically change your life? What goals are you looking for? Can you use this self-improvement and motivation technique in your life?
Are you ready to start building your first picture collage and use this simple idea to inspire you daily which will hopefully lead you to a better life? When you build your photo collage, include the images that you think will best motivate you to succeed. You can also include inspirational and motivational quotes to guide you further.
In an image collage, you can place one large image at the bottom, and then place multiple images on top. Just send the large image to the reverse. This way you can increase the number of images on the slide. If you’re not sure how to create a picture collage in PowerPoint or Word, I’ve included the required information on my website.
I hope that looking at this type of photo collage on a daily basis is as inspiring for you as it has been for me.
