Vision boards have been used in some way for many centuries. Great achievers have either had a natural or learned ability to envision their success before it happens. I would imagine even cave people used sketches of dreams to make them play-out in real life.

As vision boards have expanded from stone, to scroll, to black and white images, color photography, digital audio and video – grabbing the full emotion of a future goal we want to achieve has become easier. Combining many of these into one tool multiplies your chance for success.

Key Elements of Vision Boards:

1.) Powerful statements in the present-tense. I, personally, use “I Am” statements for this – such as, “I am driving my brand new Lexus.” These statements can be as bold as you wish. The only trick is to phrase them as if you are actually doing and living the phrase today. You may think this is lieing to yourself, but it’s not. It’s a type of dreaming where you actually FEEL and SEE everything around you happening exactly how you wish it to be. This is what puts the law of attraction into action.

2.) Emotionally-moving images. These images, when you see them, physically take you into the mindset of achieving something specific. It could be a picture of a physical thing (like a car or house) – or it could be something with a strong emotional connection for you – like your family on vacation conveying your desire for freedom.

3.) Being honest with yourself. In order to use vision boards effectively, you may have to back off of your “I have 10 million dollars in the bank” vision at first. Not that you can’t get there, but MOST people will have too difficult a time believing this statement in their gut. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it’s something to keep in mind when you’re developing your statements.

4.) Regular use of your completed board. All of your effort putting together a vision board will be pretty useless if you’re not looking at it daily – preferably many times per day. It helps to have a portable version of your vision board – if you’ve made a physical board with pictures and quotes, maybe take a picture and put it on your phone.

5.) Updating your vision board images and statements regularly. You’ll be surprised after even a few months of how quickly your life starts to change. You’ll find yourself reaching goals in your visions and wondering why you set your sights so low! This is a great feeling, and there is no where to go but up. Keep revising and adding to your vision list, removing ones you feel are no longer important (ones that don’t emotionally move you), or adding some words to your visions to make them more emotionally compelling.

The Future of Vision Boards

There is some average vision board software out there today. There are programs you probably already have on your computer that can be used to make your very own vision board (both Mac and PC have video edition software you can use to make photo slideshows with text-overlays). However, nothing out there solves the single problem I have always had with vision boards:

MAINTAINING A ROUTINE

Yes, I’m at a computer most days, yes I have a laptop and could take that to watch my vision board. Yes, I could carry around a poster board in my car or fold up a piece of notebook paper. Yes, I could write all my visions down on index cards and read them daily… But none of those things fit into my routine to look at something multiple times per day – WITHOUT FAIL.

My solution was to create something myself. Good Plum is in the process of developing vision board software for the Apple iPhone so you can create, edit, and view your vision list whenever and wherever you are.

But I need your help! The programming is just getting underway and I need suggestions on a few things so that the end product is exactly what you feel it should be.

Have you used vision boards in the past? What was the greatest and worst thing about using them? If you were to buy a vision board application for your phone, what would it HAVE to include?

We don’t need to deal with price right now, because the price will be very small in comparison to the value you’ll get from the software – also because I’m not doing this to get rich, but to share a tool that I, myself, am extremely excited to use and share with others.

Get in touch with me or leave a comment below if you have suggestions or opinions on the direction of our vision board program for the iPhone.

There are a lot of internet marketers that read Good Plum on a regular basis. Whether you’re marketing e-books, software, affiliate programs or homemade products – custom built mini-sites are extremely important to your business.

When I came across this new WordPress theme that was designed for affiliate and internet marketers, I had to share. I knew this would change the game for a lot of people. Not just those of you that have experience with WordPress and installing themes, but also for internet marketers who are less technically inclined and need to be able to easily setup a custom theme themselves.

This internet marketer’s WordPress theme allows you to do a mass amount of customization without ever touching a single line of code. Change colors, fonts, layout, images, and almost anything else you can imagine – all from a admin page instead of hacking the template code.

Some of the Powerful Features

- Choose from 6 different layouts, and then tweak each of them to improve conversion. “Say goodbye to the days of wasting time re-creating variations of the same landing page, review site, or blog. Save time (and money).”

- A Photoshop-like color picker to make customizing every part of your layout. “You can change the color of everything from post headlines to button rollovers and site background.”

- Change absolutely everything. I love this: “Want to try a larger call-to-action button? How about changing the size of the product image? Button color? Font-size? Keywords in the title? Don’t worry about going back to Photoshop or hacking code to change any of that – Affiliate Theme allows you to change all of this and more! We wanted to make it as easy as possible for you to build dynamic sites that require no skill to modify.”

- PPC and SEO optimized. This internet marketer’s dream theme is custom coded to maximize SEO value for each of your pages. Stop wasting your time optimizing each page you design – let this theme do it for you!

- For those who love to dig into the code you’ll find clean and fully commented XHTML, CSS and PHP.

Update! New Video for the Internet Marketing Theme

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Bottom Line: Save time and money.

I look at this theme as a perfect way for technically inclined – or declined – to get a perfect site up in a short amount of time. Whether it’s a blog, a single sales page, or a review-style site – this internet marketer’s WordPress theme is something you at least need to look at.

Ready? Click here to look over all the features, take a video tour and more!

Good luck!

With all the questions around the web right now involving “how should I use Twitter for my business,” I’m glad that a panel of experts put together from different areas of business has come together to help.  Put together by Eric Glazer of The MarketingStudio, the panel members are impressive – including Aaron Strout of Powered, Inc.

I was slated to be on this panel too, but due to time conflicts, have replaced myself with B2C social media expert and writer, Monica Valentinelli.

Anyone who is interested in what Twitter has to offer them, how to use it for their business, you should consider attending.  They’ll be tackling all angles – from B2B, B2C, networking and more.  The webinar is completely free to everyone and takes place on March 11, 2009 at noon Eastern.  See all the details and sign up right here!

Welcome to this week’s Good Plum articles from across the web.  Each week we feature a handful of blog posts and articles from across the web that are relevant to personal development, productivity and success.  Enjoy!

Personal Development

John Wolfe presents Granting Yourself Permission posted at Wind of the Soul.

Robert Hazlewood presents So How Does One Become Fufilled posted at Ways to Survive Life.

Naren Ghimire presents A Simple Secret to a Fulfilling Life | Spiritual Pub posted at Spiritual Pub.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents What Price Are You Paying To Have It All? The Supermom Myth posted at The Digerati Life.

John Adams presents Public Speaking – Part 1: Introduction posted at Review the Facts.

Productivity

The Smarter Wallet presents Organize Your Home With These Space Saving Ideas posted at The Smarter Wallet.

Success & The Law of Attraction

Paul Benavides presents 4 Setbacks in Making Profits Online (and how to handle them) posted at Profits 4 Idiots.

What a week!  Welcome to this weeks’ collection of Good Plums. Each Monday morning, we compile a handful of great posts from around the web to share with you. Our hope is it will make your week more productive and success-filled!

Personal Development

Naren Ghimire presents 5 Ways to Stop Complaining and Criticizing Unnecessarily | Spiritual Pub posted at Spiritual Pub.

Wally Bock presents Getting Real about Deliberate Practice and Leadership Development posted at Three Star Leadership Blog.

axel presents Rediscover The Beauty Of Life posted at axel g.

The Smarter Wallet presents Stop Procrastination By Knowing How Much It Can Cost You posted at The Smarter Wallet.

Productivity

Fiona King presents 101 Time-Saving Google Tricks for Work, Play and Learning posted at Best University.

Success

Ralph Jean-Paul presents How To Make Important Decisions Quickly posted at Potential 2 Success.

brian terry presents My 42 Best Profitable Website Ideas For 2009 posted at Big Selling Website Design.

Welcome to this weeks collection of Good Plums. Each Monday morning, we compile a handful of great posts from around the web to share with you. Our hope is it will make your week more productive and success-filled!

Personal Development

Heather Johnson presents 50 Free Online Tools to Discover Your Strengths, Weaknesses, and Hidden Talents posted at Best Universities.

Rena Williams presents Common Warning Signs Of Failure posted at Balanced Success.

Shawn M. Driscoll presents What’s Your Compelling Vision? posted at Shawn Driscoll.

Naren Ghimire presents The Joy of Being Yourself | How to be Yourself? posted at Spiritual Pub.

Isaac Yassar presents How To Realize Happiness posted at Isaac Yassar.

Productivity

Melissa Goerke presents How to Stop “One of Those Days” in its Tracks! posted at Melissa Thinks Out Loud.

Social Media

Sarah Scrafford presents 50+ Free Open Courseware Classes for Social Media Mavens posted at Best Online Colleges.

Tech

Fiona King presents 100 Free iPhone Apps That Will Make You Smarter posted at Online Best Colleges.com.

I hope everyone had a great week!  This is my first installment of the Good Plums Carnival.  Each Monday morning, Good Plum will feature a list of links from around the web containing great content in the areas of productivity, personal development, success and more.  Without further a due:

Productivity

Silicon Valley Blogger presents A Simple System To Keep Financial Records posted at The Digerati Life.

The Smarter Wallet presents 5 Free Online Calendars and Personal Planners To Organize Your Life posted at The Smarter Wallet.

Personal Development

John Wolfe presents 8 Tips for Achieving a More Secure, Peaceful State of Mind | Wind of the Soul posted at Wind of the Soul.

Fiona King presents 101 Ways to Live More Spiritually and Purposefully, Everyday posted at Christian Colleges.

Success

Greg Group presents How to Increase Sales in a Down Economy – Associated Content posted at Associated Content.

Social Media

Patricia Turner presents Digg vs. Reddit vs. StumbleUpon – Social Media Sites Compared (for Beginners) posted at The Tip’d Blog.

Whether you celebrate Christmas or another holiday this time of year, it’s a time for reflection and appreciation… a time for family, food, and relaxation.  I hope all of you find a little bit of all of that this week!

2008 was a year of doubt for America.  People are losing jobs, losing money, and losing hope in the future.  This situation puts all of us in an important position to act… to act with positivity and encouragement – with quickness and precision.  2009 marks a time of unprecedented opportunity for anyone willing to step up and take the reigns.  Will you be one of those people?

Good news!  Thanks to the Facebook Connect platform, and with help from Sociable, I’m happy to say that you can now be a member of Good Plum – just by logging in with Facebook!

On the right hand side of every page (under “Be a Good Plum”), you’ll see a new box that asks you to login or join using Facebook.  Just click the button – and as long as you already have a Facebook account – simply log in so you can connect with other Good Plum readers!  I think it’ll be a great way to more easily bring like-minded individuals together.

Another benefit of using the Facebook Connect platform is that all of the comments you write on Good Plum will use your Facebook information – so there’s no need to fill out your name and email every time you write a comment!  Just login with Facebook, and you’re all set.

There are still some bugs we’re working out while we start this, but for the most part everything works.  Just shoot us a comment on this post and let us know if you find anything funky.  Depending on your operating system and/or browser, funny things can happen that can’t always be tested for!

Enjoy the new ways to connect on Good Plum, and make sure you become a fan of our Facebook application right over here.

Till next time!

Let’s get something out of the way right off the bat: I’m not a master linguist… I don’t properly format all of my posts… and I certainly don’t always say what everyone wants to hear.  So if you’re one of those people who needs to always leave a comment about a misspelling or how I use “…” or “-” instead of a comma – you probably won’t want to read this blog.

I type how I speak.  A lot of people say after meeting me that I speak like I write – when in fact, my speaking definitely came first.  You’re going to see all of me on Becomng.  Partly because I need a place to vent it, work it out in my own head, etc.  And partly because I feel like doing so will help someone.  I know for a fact that there are a lot of people stuck in some part of their life.  Whether they want to get out of their job, are overwhelmed with things to do, have serious goals they never seem to get around to… I’ve either been that guy, or am that guy.

This isn’t going to be another productivity or personal development blog.  Although some articles may be nice, pleasant, and helpful – they’ll be written with honesty. Sometimes that honesty may make you defensive, or it may even make me uncomfortable – by telling something that I went through or am going through… but I’ll say it anyway.

My point of view will be completely nude.

What’s The Point?
Becomng.com is here to talk about everything from setting and achieving goals, pushing through procrastination, web tools that make things easier (or more difficult), starting and building a business, building relationships, and so much more.  Everything though, in one way or another, will relate to personal development – which today involves much more than it did even just a few years ago.

There are many personal development blogs out there – almost every one is written and focused around the psychological elements.  Which is fine – they’re timeless topics and I read as much of it as I can get my hands on.  But people who read Becomng are looking to transform their lives – not just by reading, but by using tools available to them today.  Take productivity as an example… you can’t tell me an article about productivity that doesn’t mention possible to-do list tools like Remember The Milk and others is up to modern standards.  Classic examples are good… and many times going farther than that will just convolute the entire deal… but when it’s relevant, you’ll hear about it here.

What Now?
Well take a look at our about page and read a little more.  You should also subscribe to our RSS Feed so that you can see when we post new articles.  Also, at the bottom of this page you’ll see a newsletter subscription.  We send this out once a month and will be full of tips and tricks and topics covered over the previous month.

I will NEVER turn comments off on posts – I don’t care how many there ends up being.  I’d rather upgrade my server than not have conversations about each post.  I will also make every effort to respond to as many comments as I can.  Always.

One more thing – if you’re a writer (or just have good ideas) – go over to our contact page and let me know.  If you’d like some promotion and can send us an article per week or month, I’d be glad to help someone out.