How Vision Boards Work, And Why You Need One
Are you ready to bring your dreams to life?
You need a vision board.
Why?
Vision Boards are a powerful tool to bring clarity to what you want to experience in life.
A vision board will keep you focused on who you want to be, where you want to go, and how you want to feel.
Instead of being dragged down by daily life experiences that could steer you off course, you’ll have a consistent, powerful reminder of your ideal life with your best self.
Your vision board will keep your dreams top of mind, so you’re always looking for ways (consciously and subconsciously) to move closer to your goals.
Vision Boards inspire you to stay focused on what you want.
Don’t fall into the trap of forgetting that you’re in charge of your own path.
This is your life. Many people settle for an existence that feels “pretty good” or “good enough” without ever realizing that they have the power to create a life that is amazing.
You get to define your own road map. You have agency and the ability to affect change.
But it’s almost impossible to create your ideal life if you don’t have a detailed vision of what it looks like, and if you don’t keep your goals and dreams front and center each day.
Define what you want in your life, and why you want it. Your vision board will help you make it happen.
So how do Vision Boards work?
When you create a vision board with images and words that represent and symbolize the experiences, feelings, and possessions you want to attract into your life, you’ll have created a powerful tool which provides focus, clarity and inspiration as you sort through daily opportunities and challenges.
Your vision board will unconsciously reinforce choices that will bring you closer to your ideal life and further away from things not part of your vision.
Too often in life, it can become easy to dismiss your dreams as impractical or impossible.
You can start to feel weighed down when surrounded with responsibilities, ingrained habits, societal expectations, established relationships and your own assumptions of what is achievable, appropriate or allowed.
And you may even start to focus on what everyone else is doing, and think that you should want that, rather than getting centered on what brings you joy and energy.
Your challenge is to keep focused on what you want, rather than what everyone else is working towards, and to take small and large steps towards your dreams.
A Vision Board will keep your eyes on your prize.
Want a jump start on your Vision Board creation process?
Click the button below to get The Ultimate Vision Board Starter Kit.
It Includes 40 pages of inspirational messages and affirmations.
What do you want?
What messages surround you?
This is your life.
The power of visualization
Vision Boards work because you will have created an effortless and visualization practice and reinforcement of positive beliefs and affirmations that will train your mind, body and spirit to manifest your desires.
And your vision board will make your ultimate dreams feel familiar, reasonable and achievable—both to you and the people who surround you.
What's your someday?
Who are you meant to be?
Here’s how to get started
TAKE SOME TIME TO THINK ABOUT YOUR LIFE IN THE FUTURE.
What’s the BEST POSSIBLE life you can imagine?
Think about all the different areas of your life—your relationships, work, hobbies, and health—what would happen in these areas in your best possible future?
Now, under the heading MY IDEAL LIFE, write down a description of the imaginary scene with you in it…The brighter future with your best self.
Where are you?
What are you doing?
Who else is there?
How do you spend your time?
What do you see around you?
What does your home look like?
What motivates and inspires you?
Include all the little details you can think of, like what you’re wearing, if you have pets, and what sounds are in the background.
This is your life. Make it your most important project.
Take some time to create your vision.
READY TO create your vision board?
Here’s my practical, step-by-step guide.
what to include
Look at what you wrote down when you created the vision of your ideal life. Now bring it into clarity through images.
What does it feel like? Can you find an image that evokes that feeling in you?
What would you do in your ideal life? Is there an image of that activity that inspires you?
What do you see around you? What motivates and inspires you? Find images that bring your vision into detailed focus.
words
To give you a jump start on creating your vision board, Click here to download The Ultimate Vision Board Starter Kit.
The kit includes over 100 of my favorite inspirational quotes and phrases for you to pull from. Print it out, cut it up and get started!
Adding inspirational phrases, words and quotations to your vision board will spark enthusiasm and positive emotions in you. I find that particular quotes on my vision boards become powerful mantras in my life.
The affirmations and beliefs we hold close and repeat to ourselves have the capacity to influence our lives in positive or negatives ways.
Choose your words carefully.
images
For vision boards I love Pinterest and Google Image Search. You can find any image or quote you are looking for—and save that image digitally.
Have you always wanted to travel to Greece? Print out a map of Greece and pin it to your vision board. Decide which Islands you’re going to visit, and in which order. Search for images of the exact views you will see on Santorini as you hike from Fira to Oia. Close your eyes and imagine how you will feel watching the sunset in that part of the world.
Do you dream of moving your family to a new town or a home? Look for photos that inspire the excitement and energy you will feel once you move to your new place. What will it look and feel like? Do you want a modern loft, a farmhouse or a cottage? What will you do in your new home? Will you have a vegetable garden or a city view? Do you want a dog in your life? What breed? What parks or coffee shops might be in your new neighborhood?
The more clarity you get around what you want, in specific detail, the more ability you have to recognize it around you and bring it to life.
your happy list
Think about what makes you happy.
Your ideal life likely includes what you love and makes you joyful now.
Loved ones, kids, pets, favorite places, comfort, and beauty—they are all part of it.
Make sure to include images of things that are IN YOUR LIFE RIGHT NOW that you love—so you can reflect on all you have to be grateful for, and want to enjoy now, in addition to what you’re going to have, do and feel in the future.
the practical stuff
mATERIALS
I like to play around with vision boards and update them as new images, words and ideas speak to me and as I find new inspiration and aspirations.
I also like my vision boards to be symmetrical and visually appealing. Because of this my favorite vision board base materials are a 20” x 15” cork bulletin board and clear push pins.
They are small enough that you can display them anywhere and light enough to move them around easily.
Other people like magnetic dry erase boards or use poster board. Pick what works for you!
Where do you want to go?
What makes you come alive?
Visualize your ideal life. You can make it happen.
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
If you have chosen to use Pinterest to find images and quotes you may have organized your pins in a public or secret board. If you’ve found your images on google search maybe you’ve saved them to an image file, or copied the images from google.
I personally like to copy all of my vision board images and quotes into a PowerPoint file. If you copy and paste the images into PowerPoint you can resize the images to be bigger or smaller, paste a number of different images or quotes on a single slide, and then save the PowerPoint (or word document) as a PDF, or simply print out the file on paper in color.
Once it is printed out you can go old school and get your scissors to cut out your images and quotes to arrange them (and rearrange them) on your vision board(s).
And you can add photographs and items from your current happy list alongside your new inspiration.
Remember: what you focus on expands.
Place your vision board somewhere you will see it a few times a day.
Spend time each morning and evening visualizing, affirming, believing, and internalizing your goals.
Creating your ideal life vision board is one of the most powerful steps you will take to start living the life you’ve imagined.
If you’re also interested in how coaching can help you achieve your dreams, I’d love to talk to you!
Contact me for a Free 30-minute Discovery Call to learn more.