Two years ago, I wrote about how instead of making resolutions I put up images of my goals with my face attached. In that post I included a photoshopped image of me talking to Hillary Clinton as a television host. That was my vision in 2017, to one day interview influential people on or off camera. It didn't have to be Hillary specifically, and to be honest I chose the photo because the person whose body I pasted my head onto was brown like me.
Then, this past October, I met and spoke with Hillary Clinton, not even in my home country but while I was working and living abroad. And sure, it wasn't on my own talk show or in a lengthy interview, but it happened. My goal, my dream, my vision (accidentally) came true.
"Pick a goal, any goal, and put it on the wall," I wrote two years ago. "Put a name and a face to it. Better yet, put your name and your face to it. You don't need to be skillful in Photoshop or anything. A simple cut and paste will suffice. Have a dream home in mind? Post a photo of yourself in the place you'd love to call your address. Want to publish a book? Make your screensaver a pic of you at your book signing. Want to get into grad school? Put your headshot on someone holding that degree. Seeing is believing--no matter how outlandish or silly the vision looks."
Top right: photoshopped image from 2017 of me talking to Hillary Clinton. Bottom photos of me actually talking to Clinton at Oxford University as a Journalist Fellow with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in October 2018.
Now, what's even more wild about that image of me and Hillary Clinton and the others I made, is that I pictured myself talking to politicians. But before becoming a politics reporter, I never saw myself reporting on politics. Yet here I am.
It's interesting how we see things for ourselves before they happen. Deep down we know what we're capable of and what we're meant to be and do. We just need faith. Even if that faith looks a little crazy—like cutting and pasting your face onto someone else's body.
Not all goals and dreams will play out exactly as we imagine. And sometimes they will take much longer than we hope. But seeing is more than believing. It's setting things into motion. It's your future self holding your present self accountable. So write your goals down or put up a photo, make them personal and real. If you believe in them and yourself, they will happen.
(Now that's one goal down, two to go!)
