#GoalSetting | Valentina Expressions

The Dream I Am Still Dreaming | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

They say if you don’t put your dreams out there in the Universe, and shout out clearly what you want, it will not happen. I know for experience that a dream without action it’s only a daydream. In my life, I have realized all of my dreams just because of the actions I took, except for one dream. It hasn’t come true yet, it is still hanging in my head and I see it with my eye open.

The dream is about my desire to open an art school community where teachers can rent a space to teach their arts, whatever it might be, a community where experts, teachers, speakers, and inspirational people unleash their knowledge, train new minds and leave their legacy. It is a community of people young and young at heart who want to create and live in beauty. I envision theatre art, visual art, painting, music, fabric art, glasses, sculpting, modeling, writing, fashion design, interior, robotic, flowers design, design with new and old material, the list is infinite. The building I need to host all the activities is a large antique home or an industrial building, with many floors, a courtyard with fountains for relaxation, for thinking in seclusion, or for meeting people in the fresh air surrounded by odorous plants and flowers. I want a space to have wines, food, and music always available.

I found a similar image of how the building in my head should look like. The street is colorful, surrounding buildings are old or historical, they are mostly made of stones and a lot of trees line the streets. I would like it to lead to the Sea because it is easy for me to think of opening the windows and smell the salty Sea.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

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I see a pristine interior of the old house in my head, tastefully decorated and peaceful for all the artists who will be creating their art there.

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In my head, I see a lot happening in my art community building: fashion shows, photo shooting, filming, art exhibitions, theatre representations, musicals, I see artists growing and only happy people. I see no restrictions in learning and teaching (everything will be permissible within the legality), my art community is a free world.
The bottom area at the street level is a selling point, where artists can sell all they produce and the very last top of the building is my home with a breathtaking view. I will sit on the throne of the arts and feel as if I am the “Grand Pubah of the Universe”.

I know exactly how to make a profit and turn my art community into a super desirable business, a bit like the “Montessori” of the arts. I will not discuss the business terms now. My intention is to write and express out loud what I want for my future. Yes, it is an ambitious dream! Are you listening Universe?

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Below, my byline says I am a storyteller and I am, but this piece I wrote is my burning desire. What is your biggest dream and is it achievable? Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is a storyteller by nature. Stories are very important to her design career to convey ideas because making someone’s home or personal images is not only about building around shapes, lines, forms, and colors. It is about the story one can create around their spaces and how they want to appear to others. She is the author of four books, all available on
Amazon – http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
The latest book just published is The Road To Top Of The World – https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8

The Small Steps | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

In my life I had many things to achieve and many spaces to fill. It is true that in order to be successful, we must be balanced in five areas of our life, love, family, financial, health and work. But most people forget that the Roman Empire was not made in one day.
God took even seven days to create the Universe and on the seventh day he rested.

The thing about making it big in this life and doing it fast, is that, invariably the first steps will be small and slow. Which oddly, for many, is the same reason they don’t take those small steps.

Picture you taking a trip in-car for 3,000 miles. You get in the car, but you don’t see all the 3,000 miles in front of you, you barely see 500 yards and a night you see even less, you see only as far as the car beams show you the way. So what does it mean? It means you are taking your 3,000 miles trip in small steps. Now picture your life. We all have been instructed to do resolution at the beginning of the year, but most of the time life gets in the way and after a month or two we have completely forgotten about the new year resolutions.

My vacation is my first resolution at the beginning of the year and the first thing I put on the calendar. By doing that, I know not to schedule anything around that time and I know I will tone my brain and regenerate my energy during that resting time, which will allow me to come back to my work strong as ever. Then I take my baby steps with my formula of the four 10’s: 10 days, 10 weeks, 10 months, 10 years. My goals of the first 10 days will take me to my goals of 10 weeks; my goals of 10 weeks will take me to my 10 months and to the 10 years goals. I am a person who lives in the present, I am not good in seeing ten years in front of me, but by taking the small steps I have reached all the goals, I have done everything I said I was going to do in life and I am continuing planning more this same way.

I love my profession, before I became an interior designer, I was a fashion designer and owned my fashion company: Atelier Valentina.
Two of the things I wanted to do and did them. At the beginning of this conversation I said I had many spaces to fill in my life.
In 2008 the economy suddenly changed and so did client’s thinking, all of a sudden I was surrounded by negativity. I didn’t want to be part of any negativity and I said to myself it was time to create my economy. The moment to publish that book I had in mind had arrived, the time was right and I was ready.

At the end of 2008, about November I started to organize my thoughts, photographs, drawings and I started writing the text. Once I had the title of the book in my head, I also had the full book plans. I decided the book was going to be about my grandmother simple and healthy way of cooking. I wrote every day, a couple of hours a day for 5 months. I thought that if I wrote one chapter a day I would have had 365 chapter by the end of the year. I didn’t want an encyclopedia, but a smaller manageable book was a doable goal. Once I choose the publisher, I sent text and graphics to them and went on vacations. The next six months were spent communicating with the editors, editing, formatting and printing the book. In Nov. 2009 my first book of 152 pages was published; a year later in Dec. 2010 my second book was published. I am working on the third book on the subject of colors and it might be published at the end of 2011.

As you see my formula of the four 10s and baby steps has helped me becoming a published author.
In the meantime, I am working with my clients and doing what I love: designing and remodeling their homes.

Making baby steps and taking action means you must believe in your abilities, you must be sure everything in your mind is doable and attainable in real-time and you must put an end date to all your goals. At one point in my life, I must have dreamt of becoming a princess, that’s right it was just a dream and not an attainable goal. Instead I became the Queen of my book, Sins Of A Queen , that was a real and attainable goal!

You might ask where do I take all this energy? I take it from my good food. Good food will produce good energy, junk food will produce junk energy, it cannot get any simpler than this! In my book I say “the red on the cheeks come from the mouth” for a reason. If you have the right elements in your body, you will function like a Swiss clock work. Good food is fuel to my brain, so I eat everything in moderation and everyday I can lit the whole city with the energy I get from it. Ciao,
Valentina
www.Valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer with a passion for kitchens and cooking. She operates in the USA and Europe. She loves to remodel homes and loves to turn ugly spaces into castles, but especially loves to design kitchens and wine grottos. Author of two Italian cultural regional books:
Come Mia Nonna–A Return to Simplicity
Sins Of A Queen – Italian Appetizers and Desserts