If you never heard of a vision (or dream) board or you’ve heard of it but never made one, and want to try, well, you’re in the right place.
Let’s get you started on the basics.
The concept is very easy, fun, and creative.
This is not a post about mambo-jambo of dreams coming true when you display them and stare at them for long enough. This is not about the law of attraction (although it that I do believe). This is simply “Vision Boards for Dummies”, simple and straightforward article about how to create your first vision board, what to do with it.
I often involve my kids in this process and make it a fun family activity.
My business networking group also makes them, so once a year we meet and create Business Vision Boards that are mainly focus on business goals.
I love the concept because as a creative I used to have a hard time setting up and visualizing my goals until I discovered this concept.
And everything changed.
What's a vision / dream board?
A Vision board is a very visual way of setting goals or making some sort of plan for the future. Often it’s made out of magazine cutouts. Single words, quotes, pictures, stickers, scrapbooking materials, etc. This process turns bleh and boring goal setting into colorful activity for the entire family or even your team at work.
create the mood for it
- have enough space, like a big table or empty floor to spread your board and cut out pieces .
- inspiring music,
- candles or essential oils, something that would help you get into inspiring mood.
- turn off other distractions, tv’s, computers, phones
magazines
Use magazines with images and bold text. Sports, crafts, fashion, cooking, design. Magazines with big adds and big letters. Big letters are great resource for creating words, and inspirational sentences.
Local libraries are THE BEST place to get great magazines for absolutely free. Also, ask your neighbours and friends for their old stash.
Printer
If you don’t have access to magazines, a great way is to do google search using some key words for your goals and dreams. Arrange the images in any editing program, like Word or PowerPoint or Canva and print it.
Do the same with inspirational words and quotes.
scissors, glue sticks, scrapbooking paper, decorative tapes, and anything else you can think of
Depending on the size of your board you will need at least one glue stick. You can also use a tape for attaching the images but I recommend sticking with the glue.
If you have any wrapping paper from Christmas or recent bday gifts you can use them as well.
Scrapbooking materials and stickers are great for adding more texture and colors to your vision board.
Again, it all depends on you and the style of your vision board. I’ve seen all black and white vision boards in the past and they were pretty gorgeous.
what DO I glue it onto?
When I first started I went as big as possible with my vision board, trying to fit as many pretty pictures and words on it as possible. However, just like with any other goal setting the more you put on your list the harder is to focus and you get all confused. It all becomes a noise.
From gigantic poster boards I sized down to a small picture frame last year, and it was way more powerful than any of the previous boards I’ve made.
You can make it as small as 4×4 cards that can go into your wallet so you can flip through them daily.
Again, your imagination is the limit. Don’t get stuck on what to glue your pictures and on the size of the whole thing. The point is to make a vision board that you will be able to display in a place where you can see it daily or weekly. You want to be inspired by it. You want that thing to motivate you to achieve your goals and dreams.
We are not making this board to hide it in the closet. Well, if you spend a lot of time in your closet, then maybe…
This year for examples I have decided to create my vision board inside my annual planner. And I am very happy with how it all came out.
I’m a big fan of vision boards that you can hold in hands, with all the mess and creativity involved behind creating it. I mean, I’m not saying that if you use any of these websites you can’t print your creation and hang it or glue it into your journal or planner. Yes, you can. Or you can use it as your desktop / laptop / phone screen backdrop.
I have created digital versions in the past, as well.
Just for this year I have played with a collage made to set an intention for this upcoming year.
I like to come up with a word for the year and set my intentions that way. And this year’s intention is this:
Conclusion
In the many years of running vision board workshops and doing presentations about them I learned that a lot of people make them and after they come home or after the making process is done, the vision boards go out of sight. After that people say, vision boards don’t work.
Well, only 8 % people achieve their goals each year. Less then 3 % Americans write their goals down and less than 1 % review and rewrite their goals on daily / weekly basics.
Do you see the resemblance in those situations. In both cases, the goals are not being revisited, followed through, adjusted, thought about, etc. Well, yeah, maybe people think about them through the year… but what else?
Vision boards are not magic, like some claim. And they shouldn’t be treated like it. Quite the contrary. They should be treated like any other goals written down and regularly revisited throughout the upcoming months.
I used to be the person who doesn’t set any goals. Well, let me rewind that. I was setting up goals, but only in my head. As a creative I felt like writing goals was boring and it felt like just empty words, so why even bother.
Then the vision boards came to my life and things shifted.
Some people claim that vision boards are just mambo-jumbo, or that it is the law of attraction working, but at the end it all comes down to psychology and how human brain works.
Variety of research on human brain confirms “that imagination is a neurological reality that can impact our brain and bodies in ways that matter for our wellbeing” (Tor Wager, director of the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at CU Boulder.) What that means is that surrounding yourself with positive images, and words will have a huge influence on your mood and motivation, and in the long run it will really help you to achieve your goals.
So, if you’ve never made one it’s worth the shot!
Blog you might like:
4 Responses
Great Article. I’m inspired! Ready for 2022!
Thank you, Tressa! To an amazing 2022! Let’s make it a good one!
Ewa is the owner of May The Art Be With You. Ewa has led our 2022 Vision Board business networking meeting that proved to be so helpful in setting my annual Interior Designs goals. I was shocked and truly pleased to see how my goals set through her Vision Board instruction for 2021 manifested into a reality. Thank you Ewa for this encouragement, your creativity, instruction, and leadership.
Shelly Garza, Principal Curator with CURATE Interior Design Studio
Hi Shelly, You are killing it, lady!!! Can’t wait to see what’s in the store for you in 2022!