Sometimes you come face to face with your limiting beliefs. That requires some serious cloudbusting.

Recently I’ve been plugging away at creating a bigger, stronger, wider, deeper, shinier vision for Jamie Ridler Studios. I wish I could tell you this involved kicking back, looking at the clouds and letting my imagination run wild or sitting in a hip coffee shop, filling a journal with images, drawings and inspiring words but truthfully, it’s been a whole lot grumpier. There’s been angsting. There’s been obsessing. There’s been a whole lot of struggling to see beyond what I know and to imagine more than I have ever imagined of. (Lol, I’m not endorsing this approach. There are much better ways!)

This desire to s–t–r–e–t–c–h my dreaming began in a business class I’m taking with Laura West. We’ve been discussing money and Laura offered an illuminating exercise: create, in great detail, your good budget, your great budget and your heaven budget. Instead of picking a dollar amount and figuring out how to spend it, I began with listing my good-level needs (a roof over my head, food, public transit),  my awesome-level (Nia every week, regular haircuts, yearly travel) and then my heaven-level (monthly spa visits, a kick-ass wardrobe, a home I adore). Then I priced it out. Know what I discovered? My highest heaven budget came out to precisely the most money I’ve ever made! Precisely. That opened my eyes.

The good news: with a proven attainable income, I feel heavenly!

The weirdness: in no uncertain terms, I know where my inner money barometer is set.

It’s like discovering what I thought was a wide open field is actually fenced in! And you know how this freedom-lover feels about fences! Right away I start thinking, how can I bust through? The answer? Create a CRAZY WILD ASS BUDGET. (Even that language is a stretch!)

A crazy wild ass budget is designed to stretch you. It’s full of things that delight, even if they are blatantly outrageous! It’s filled with things that make you gasp, giggle or both! This has nothing to do with practicality and everything to do with freeing your mind through stretching your imagination. I’ve just started mine but I can tell you it includes a personal driver, a masseuse and retreat-worthy properties both in a beach-centered locale and in Europe.

Try it with me. What would be on your crazy wild ass budget? A writer’s garret in the south of France? Studying at the Cordon Bleu? Having Bob and Jillian as your personal trainers? (Does anyone else watch The Biggest Loser?) Going to Cannes? Renting a stadium for your birthday party? Owning a ranch? What delights you?

Put your CRAZY WILD ASS BUDGET in the comments! Let’s inspire each other to s-t-r-e-t-c-h!

PS I know that we’re all delighted by simple pleasures too. As I write this I have a white lilac from my garden sitting in a water glass: heaven. But this stretch helps us go places we’ve never imagined, just like stepping into a movie or a novel or a dream. Come and play.

I love the time between Christmas and New Years. It’s so reflective, a pause in the action, the perfect time for visioning. This is when I always create a series of vision cards to guide me through the coming year and keep me connected to my dreams. (I’ll be sharing more about how to do that in January’s newsletter. You can sign up over there to the right) Here’s what’s stirring in my heart and getting ready to sparkle in 2011.

What are you visioning for next year?

Picture Your Passion: How Vision Boards Can Guide You to the Life and Work of Your Dreams

Creating a vision is one of the most powerful ways to shift the course of your life and move it in the direction of your dreams. And one inspiring way you can build a compelling vision is through dreamboards (aka vision boards).  Join me on this free teleclass hosted by Courtney Parks Coaching and learn how to create and make the most of your dreamboard.

On this 60-minute FREE teleclass, you will learn…

• Why visioning and vision boards are so important when it comes to creating your ultimate life – especially when you’re feeling stuck, frustrated and uninspired
• How living and working without a vision can get in the way of your dreams and your success
• How to get started with vision boards and how they really work
• Why you don’t have to be an artist to enjoy and benefit from the visioning process
• How vision boards can help you to gain clarity, make decisions and put your energy in the right direction
• What to do with your vision board once it’s done – from journaling for insight to getting into action
• And much more!

To register for the call, go to Conversations with the Experts from Courtney Parks Coaching. Once you register, you’ll receive the conference line information for the night of the event. If you can’t make it the night of the event, go ahead and register and you’ll have access to a free mp3 recording of the call.

With your registration, you’ll also receive complimentary subscriptions to the Courtney Parks Coaching and Jamie Ridler Studios’ newsletters with great articles and resources on passion, success and creative living. You may unsubscribe at any time and we will never rent, sell or share your information – promise!

If you’ve been wanting to ask me some questions about visioning and dreamboards, this class would be a great time to do it. I’m looking forward to seeing you there! Here’s to your dreams!

I am honoured to be a regular contributor to the wonderful Wish Studio. Mindy has brought together an amazing group of inspiring women to share their wisdom and stories and enourage you along the way. My monthly column, Creative Compass, is a creative living companion. This is my most recent article. Enjoy!

It seems like such a reasonable thing. When planning a new project, a new career, a new adventure, it only makes sense to start from where you are right?

Wrong.

Well, not wrong, exactly. There’s really never a wrong way to start. But here’s the thing. When you start from where you are, you are limited by the current view. When you look out onto the horizon, imagining what’s possible, you can only see to the next hill. From where you are, you can’t help but take into account life as you know it: the amount of money you have in the bank, the supplies you have in your closet, the people you already know, the skills you’ve already mastered, etc. And starting from there, you can only stretch as far as those resources will take you.

With this approach, when you’re deciding whether to go back to school, you look at your bank account, your bills and your commitments to determine whether it’s possible. And of course your current situation and resources don’t fit the new plan. They weren’t designed to. They grew to support the way things are right now, not the way you want things to be next. Know that when you commit to something new, you will start redesigning and creating a life that supports the new “way things are.”

For example, before you were a mom, you didn’t have lists of babysitters at your fingertips. Before you travelled outside of the country for the first time, you didn’t know how to get a passport. But you learned. You gained knowledge, resources, skills and connections that helped you get beyond the limits of what was present to take you somewhere new. You’ve already done this literally hundreds of times. You will do it hundreds more. So why not do it in support of your wildest dreams?

What if you forgot the how and the now and just imagined what would be thrilling, fulfilling, spectacular, memorable, incomparable? What if you gave yourself space and time for some serious daydreaming, imagining that anything was possible? In a world where you could do anything, what would you dream up for your project, your business, your life? Would you travel farther, reach higher, risk more, take more time, touch more people? Would you pursue the same thing at all or try something entirely different? What do you want to do?

These days there are lots of messages out there reminding us to get present, to be where we are. And I know what I’m saying may seem to be counter to that that but really, it isn’t. It’s just a simple reminder that instead of focusing on the ‘now’ of our situation, we can be present with our spirit and discover what she most wants to do. And if you let your spirit take the lead, instead of your circumstances, imagine the adventures you’ll go on!