Saturday, August 6, 2011

Day 5 Create Your Character Board



#30BBM Day 5 – Create Your Character Board
Welcome to Day 5 of Be a Better Me in 30 Days Challenge!
Day 4 – Day of Virtue: Kindness Review


Yesterday’s task was on kindness – embodying the virtue of kindness, and being that beacon of light and love to everyone you see.


How was your experience on Day 4? Many of you have posted amazing acts of kindness and shared beautiful experiences of how you touched others’ lives in your special way yesterday. If you haven’t, be sure to post your results.


Know that no matter how small or big the act is, no matter how your kindness was received, your intention has planted a seed in the person’s heart. This seed will soon bloom into something beautiful, which only time can unveil.


Are you pushing yourself to the next level?
While it’s great that many of you are already doing acts of kindness by default, the whole point of 30BBM is to push your boundaries to the next level.


Which means, rather than saying: “Oh, I already did some kind acts yesterday/today, hence my work for Day 4 is complete”, challenge yourself with: ”In addition to the kind acts I already did/are doing, what more kind acts can I perform to others? How can I be an even kinder person? How can I push my kindness to the next level?”
In the former, you remain the same person as you are; in the latter, you grow and become better. Only by constantly challenging your limits will you become the better you, the ideal you that you seek.


Day 5: Character Board
Today’s task will take about 30 min – 1.5 hours, depending on how much time you wish to spend on it.
Today’s task is about character boards.


What is a character board? It’s a totally new concept I created for 30BBM, referring to a collage of words and/or pictures that represent our ideal self.


If you’re thinking this sounds like the vision board, you’re absolutely right! They are similar in concept – While the vision board relates to our goals and dreams, the character board relates to our highest self (in character traits). Both serve distinct purposes.


The objective of the character board is to embody the essence of who we want to be in 1 spot (be it a corkboard, A4 paper, desktop wallpaper, digital image, etc), such that we are constantly reminded of our highest vision of ourselves. This helps to spur us onto action every day. This is part of using the environment to reinforce our goals.


Not only that, it’s incredibly inspiring to have a character board! We can talk about wanting to cultivate positive traits like patience, compassion, kindness, etc, but having them presented in words and images before us makes it so much easier to visualize. It makes your goal to be a better you more real than it already is, and lets you know that this is who you’re going to be as you continue on this path.
The character board, while seemingly simple in concept, is a powerful tool in helping you become your ideal self. (Just as the vision board is a powerful tool for achieving our goals and dreams.) For today’s task, we’re going to create our character boards!


Your Task: Create Your Character Board!
In the next 30 min to an hour, you’re going to have your very own character board! Are you excited? I sure am!
Identify your 5 core ideal traits.
Refer to what you wrote for Day 3: Discover Your Ideal Self. Pick out 5 most important traits you want to attain as your ideal self. These are the 5 traits you’re going to focus on in your board!
You can have other traitstoo, just that you’ll be placing the biggest attention on the 5 core traits.
Select the format you want for your character board.
Your board can come in any form, really. You can hand write/decorate on A4 paper (easiest), create a digital image (using Photoshop /
GIMP / Powerpoint / Word), use cut-outs from magazines and form a collage on cardboard, get a corkboard specially for this purpose, etc.
Use whatever format that works best for you. As I mentioned above, my past character board(s) was just a simple slide in MS Powerpoint – no images and no jazz. It did what it needed to do for me. Remember this is about creating a board that works for you, and not about doing busy work.


Search for images that reflect your ideal traits.
Search for 2-3 images per trait, for your 5 core traits (Google Images or Flickr works great!). If you have more than 5 traits you want to highlight, feel free to search images for them too.
If you don’t want images, you can just make it a text-based board. It’s perfectly fine!
Print out the images if you’re making a hard copy board.
Create your board!


Write “Ideal ” in the middle of the board. Example, “Ideal Sarah June”.
Then, write your 5 core traits around that.
Supplement each trait with its corresponding set of images.
Now, create your board! Do whatever you deem fit here – let your creative juices flow!
That said, I have some broad suggestions which you can follow if you want:
Share your board when you are done!
You can upload your image(s) here: Photo Bucket Flickr, after which they’ll provide a working link where others can download/view the image.

Tomorrow, Day 6, will be a break day. This way, those who’ve not finished the previous tasks or signed up later can catch up. It’s also a day where those who are up to speed can focus on the discussions and get to know each other better. Stay tuned!
Day 5 Reflection for 30BBM
Is there anything you learned today?
If so, what is it? Write it down.
Photobucket

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