How to Make a Back to School Vision Board

YOU CAN GO BACK TO SCHOOL AT ANY AGE...and now with President Obama's encourgement lots of moms are looking at finally getting their degrees. PLUS BABY boomers are looking at school and continuing education as a way to increase their options in the job market.

For most families with children fall and before the start of the new term in January is the time to shop for clothes and to prepare for the new year ahead. But for many kids and even for adults (moms and dads and single people, even the thought of saying goodbye and heading back into the classroom causes jitters and nervousness.

WHAT WILL THE NEW SCHOOL TERM BE LIKE? Will I do well? What will the new classroom be like? Will it be different now that I'm starting high school or college? How will I deal with kids/people in my class?

Statistics on back-to-school students: more than 85 million in almost 100,000 different schools in the US alone:

All those questions are quite common for the approximately 85 million Americans going back to school ranging from nursery school through college this fall (statistics courtesy of the US Census Bureau and the National Retail Federation.
BACK TO SCHOOL ACTUAL NUMBERS:

From data supplied by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Retail Federation, here’s a look at back-to-school 2009, by the numbers.

Approximately 85 million: Children and adults enrolled in school - nursery school through college

19 million: Number of students in colleges and universities this fall

$548.72: Amount the average family with students in kindergarten through high school will spend on school merchandise this season

$47.5 billion: 2009 back-to-school and back-to-college expenditure in the U.S.

shopping

98,793: Number of public schools in the U.S. in 2006-2007

7.2 million: Teachers in the U.S. in 2008

BUT CAN IT BUY SUCCESS?

So with all that money being spent -- $47.5 billion in back-to-school and back-to-college shopping who is looking at how kids and adults can succeed in their upcoming school year? That's why we're encouraging families and the more than 7.2 milliion teachers in the more than 98,000 public schools nationwide to vision their best possible new year by creating a Back-to-School Vision Board.

You can create a 'back-to-school' vision board for those students in your family heading back to the classroom this new term. She says, it works for any age from kindergarten to post-gradute work.

What's a Vision Board? A vision board, is a visual map of what you want to create in your life. With a back-to-school vision board you can actually immerse yourself into the school year and visualize the positive results you will create this semester.

Here are the top 7 steps to take in making a Back to School Vision Board:

1) Get into a quiet space and do some life visioning -- about the WHY of your life and what is your WHY about going back to school. Make some notes of your session.

2) Use your notes to create some POWER WORDS that can guide you to selecting some pictures from magazines or a vision card deck if you have one.

3) These pictures selected then will become your defining images.

4) Put those images on a posterboard if you are making a hand-made vision board along with some of the power words you discovered in your visioning session.

5) Immerse yourself into the next semester even if it is your first going back to school after being out 20 years or so.

6) Take a picture of you in front of your new school and add that to your Vision Board

7) Take a picture of you holding a diploma or a simulated diploma from the school of your choice.

8) Once you know your WHY -- put that into some power words and add those to your vision board

9) Add some embellishments such as pictures of the books you'll be studying, your last report card if you have one or mock up a report card on the computer to show that you are getting all A's and B's.

10) Immerse yourself, body, mind and spirit and all senses into your vision.

11) LIVE YOUR VISION!