How To Create A Living Vision Board

What is a vision board?

In the simplest terms, a vision board is a collection of images that represent a goal from your bucket list. The aim of this tool is to focus your energy on a particular goal/dream/desire you have. As you find and display the images, you hone your sense of what you want to achieve, making your goals increasingly more concrete.

Vision boards are unique to the person, making them, you can use them to represent any part of your life. There are no rules to size or how you do them. I have a mini-board which is cork one side and a blackboard on the other, and I have a bigger one, which is cork one side and a magnetic whiteboard on the other side.

How does vision boarding work?

Vision boarding is straightforward, and it works because you are focusing your attention on what you want. For example, suppose you want to manifest love with a specific person. In this case, your vision board might show fictional or famous couples you’d like to emulate, pictures of places you’d like to go, rings, words of love and anything that means true love to you.

Alternatively, imagine that your dream is to own a successful business. Your vision board might include images of other successful business owners who are role models to you, along with some motivational quotes and affirmations.

The power of vision boards for manifesting

Now that you have a better sense of what a vision board looks like, how you make one and how it is used to facilitate particular life goals, let’s take a closer look at how and why this technique is so powerful.

Firstly, remember that the Law of Attraction tells us to focus on abundance rather than lack. In other words, it’s only when we focus on positivity, gratitude and on what we already have that we’re able to attract more goodness into our lives.

Secondly, vision boards can help you overcome limiting beliefs you have about yourself. Each time you choose an image that shows what you want to attract, you challenge that critical inner voice that says I don’t deserve that! or I could never have that. When you create a vision board, you commit to your limitless potential and nurture your sense of self-worth.

In addition, consider that having a vision board around helps to keep your mind constantly aware of the things that you want that are on your bucket list. Even when you’re not looking directly at your board, your subconscious mind will be tuned in to its presence. And the more you focus on the things you want to attract, the more likely you are to manifest them at a faster rate. Also, reviewing your vision board can reframe your mood and help you to see the things that you want in your life.

The secret to boards

First, here’s the secret to creating an effective vision board, that to attract what you truly want, you must see it, you must feel it, and you must embody it. Just having just one of these, lessens its effectiveness. In other words, pictures alone aren’t going to move the needle.

So what does? To help you create the best vision board for getting clear on what you want and making stuff happen for the year ahead, here are the essential steps:

Make a list of the areas of your life that are most important to you

Maybe you’ve been daydreaming about the perfect partner, new career, writing a novel or a far-flung holiday. Light a candle and take some space for you to tune in and clarify what you really want-including all of the juicy details. You may want to start with a stream of consciousness writing just to get your initial thoughts out, and then identify the stuff that really lights you up. What about writing out the bucket list for your soul — have you done that? And when was the last time your *really* identified what you wanted?

Define your goals

Before you start creating your vision board, it’s vital that you get a clear sense of what you want so that you can create the right overall theme for the board. To get started ask these questions

Who do you want to be?

• What kind of person do you want to be?
• How do you want others to see you?
• Which words do you want to be used to describe your future self?

Where do you want to be in life?

Where can mean location, environment or where you want to be in life?

What experiences do you want to have?

Next, consider the kinds of experiences that you want to have specifically related to your goal(s). What do you imagine doing, and what will it feel like? The perfect day exercise helps with this.

What vision board (life areas) categories do you want to have?

You can have vision board categories on the one board, representing a range of goals.

These may be interrelated, or they may represent different parts of your life. Remember, too, that you also have the option to create more than one vision board, so you needn’t break one board up into categories if you’d prefer to keep each one thematically tight. I have my mini one for my top goals.

Grab some magazines you love, head over to Pinterest or Canva

Look at your bucket list and scan it closely for any themes that are showing up. For example, if you want to be a spiritual coach, select photos of inspiring people and things. If you want to be a speaker, grab images of people speaking. Or if you want to call in more abundance, photos of entrepreneurial or successful people and money might work for you. The key is to not overthink it, just go with your gut and have fun. Remember you are spending time on your intention, and giving it energy.

Map out your images on your board

Do this before pining anything. Your vision board can either be completely filled up or have lots of empty space. Either way is totally fine. You can allow that empty space to inspire you, knowing that as you go about your days and weeks, you’ll uncover more parts of your dreams and goals to add to your board.

Note: use pins so that you can move your images around.

Hang your board where you’ll see it often

Some people like to make their vision board small to keep it at work. Others have it next to the mirror in the bathroom, so they see it when they brush their teeth. For me, seeing it on my wall in front of my desk. Walk towards your vision often.

Feel it and be it

Now that you’ve tapped into what you really want and can see it every day, allow yourself to meditate on these visions by consistently imagining them as real. The more excited you get about what you want to create, the more likely you’ll be to attract it into your life.

The power of visualization

The power of consistent visualization comes from creating good habits that keep your vision alive. If you keep doing creative visualization exercises and keep building up your vision board, you train yourself to think about what you want in a positive way. You can think of your vision board as a constantly evolving image of your desires, rather than a static image of one day’s interpretation of those desires.

Keep moving things around

The key to a living vision board is that you will keep moving things around. What happens when you stick things down is that they stay there and you lose focus. Make sure you review it each week and move things that require focusing on that week.

Write your to-do’s down

If you have a vision board that is half cork and half black or whiteboard, then make sure you write your to do’s down and tick them off.

Record your successes

You can take snapshots of your board and put these in a folder and reflect on what happened and record your successes. This is a great reminder that the things that you have focused on are working.

That’s it, simple as….

Originally published at https://daledarley.com on December 1, 2020.