What is a vision board?
A vision board is a collection of text and images that come together to create a collage representing things you want to obtain or goals you want to achieve. They’re meant to motivate, inspire and help you focus visually on what you want.
How is a vision board supposed to help me?
- Vision boards add clarity to what you actually want. For example, you might say to yourself:
“I want a big house.”
But there are a lot of big houses. What style of house is it? Where is it located? What color is it? Placing a picture of the exact style of home you want can help clarify what you really want.
- Vision boards, when put in an area you will see often, keep you motivated. This is useful when you’ve had a bad day or feel discouraged. Don’t forget what you’re fighting for!
- Visualization. Imagine you have your vision board set up in a visible area. Throughout your day, you encounter the images or sayings.
Over time, visualizing your desires can have a cumulative, compounding effect. Eventually, the wheels will start to turn in your subconscious mind and your subconscious mind will set about ways for creating the life you desire.
Athletes use visualization all the time. I’m sure you have too. Before an important meeting, do you imagine how you’d respond if someone were to ask you a specific question? Same idea.
Vision board vs dream board – what’s the difference?
A vision board is supposed to be for more short-term goals that you can achieve in roughly 6 – 12 months.
A dream board is supposed to be a board that’s separate from your vision board. The types of things you’d put on a dream board are bucket list items – things you want to achieve in your life.
Most people don’t have two separate boards and usually put long-term goals (like a Ferrari) on their vision board. There’s nothing wrong with that.
The main take-away about creating a vision board is that there are no rules, but there are good warnings to be aware of.
What NOT to put on your vision board?
Remember, these images are impacting your subconscious mind and setting about creating your world by setting your thoughts into motion. That said, you want to be careful not to put images or sayings that could negatively impact your self:
- Too much clutter – you can’t focus on everything. Keep it clean, clear and concise
- Avoid negative words like don’t, not or can’t
- Lacks action – use images or words that are action-oriented. For example, someone running instead of someone standing there with a nice bod
Should I only put positive things on my vision board?
I would argue that fear of loss and failure can be a huge motivator for certain people with certain personality types.
The fear of not amounting to anything in their lives.
The fear of not achieving.
The fear of living, dying, and never amounting to much.
Not everybody thinks like this but there’s value in humility that might be a stronger motivator than putting a fancy, perfect image on your board.
What does science say about vision boards?
It would be ignorant to think that all you need to do is put images and sayings on a vision board and everything will magically fall into place.
It won’t. A vision board is a tool that might increase your chances of achieving your goals by keeping them visible which, in-turn, can help keep you motivated to achieve them.
There’s an article on the science of vision boards on inc.com but the take-away is this:
Visualize the actions and steps you need to take to achieve success, not the successful outcome.
How do you make a vision board?
You can go to the store and buy poster board. Remember to differentiate between a vision board and a dream board if that’s important to you. Then you need to figure out what to put on your board. This is the step you go online and research to find images and quotes. Better-yet would be to create these yourself. It’s always best to experience the creation process because it’s more personal, intimate and meaningful to you in the end.
It’s not enough to just make the vision board or dream board; the most important step is deciding where to put it. You MUST put it in a place where you spend a good amount of time in and will see it.
Worst-case scenario, you should put your vision board in an area you will see it at least once per day.
Best-case scenario, put it close to where you spend the majority of your time. This will have the most impact.
If you want a vision board that looks professional, consider using our ProSimpli index card sleeve. They hang easily on any wall with just two pushpins. They are clear, and organized to help you create a nice clean vision board using 3×5 index cards.
Just print out your images and saying on photo paper, cut them out, place in our index card sleeves, and hang in a visible area.
We are ProSimpli. Search for our products at Amazon! We specialize in creating innovated index card products that help teachers, self-learners, parents and businesses store notes, recipes, meal ideas, tasks, photos and more! Leave us a comment and tell us how YOU plan to use our products!