Imagine living a life you consider ideal and balanced. Sink into the desirable details of your job, your relationships, and the hobbies you pursue. Revel in the fulfillment of your experience. These will form the basis of your vision board ideas.
What are you doing to make this exciting life happen? How is your future self different from you today? Paint a picture of all that you notice—colors, people, actions, places, feelings, etc.
The process you just engaged in above is called visioning. This involves playing with our right brain to invoke creativity and imagination. It’s a process that often helps us get to the heart of what we desire, what holds value for us, and then it prompts us into action from a space of aliveness and alignment.
Visioning can help increase motivation and confidence, as well as set your mind up for success in many areas of your life[1].
A practice for making visioning more tangible is creating vision boards, which are representations of our goals and dreams. At their core, these boards are a collage of images, words, and phrases that capture your vision of the future. The intent of this dream board is to make you feel truly giddy, inspiring you to stay focused and take action.
Vision boards that are created from the space of receptivity to what is to come can be truly enlightening. These visions can be in the form of colors, feelings, words, or sensations. Such vision boards are highly spontaneous and intuitive.
The second kind of vision boards are created from the space of intention, where we look into our deepest longings and actively engage in exploring, expressing, and representing these desires through different means. This is a form of manifestation.
Let’s look at some vision board ideas that can help us capture our dreams.
1. Words
Words are a great place to start when thinking up vision board ideas. Words have a mysterious way of impacting us and helping us feel good when used correctly. Whether the words describe feelings or echo states of being, they all evoke experiences we have had or wish to have[2].
Look at magazines to cut out words that describe how you want to be or what you want to feel. You can even write them in big, bold, colorful letters.
2. Quotes
Quotes are great sources of mindset formation and effectively express an idea or experience in its entirety, making them great vision board ideas. No matter what the context in which the words were originally said, the impact of a good quote is timeless[3].
Choose quotes that give rise to intense and accurate thoughts that match the state or experience you wish to arrive at. These can be from your role models, favorite authors, teachers, or even something out of a song. You can even add poems if they speak to you and your future goals.
3. Self-Affirmations
Self-affirmations are different from quotes since you write these on your own, for yourself. They are aimed at changing one’s worldview and undoing limiting beliefs.
Research suggests that they can minimize anxiety, stress, and defensiveness associated with threats to our sense of self, while having positive neuro-psychological effects and keeping us open to improvement[4].
Create affirmations that start with “I am” and challenge beliefs about money, success, ability, and skill[5]. Write affirmations that go beyond what you think is possible and change the “cannot” to “can.”
Here are some affirmations you might find useful: 10 Positive Affirmations for Success that will Change your Life
4. Art or Doodles
When you’re coming up with vision board ideas, art or doodles are great ways to strengthen your desired states. Since it is you who is representing your vision through imagery, there is no better way of owning it.
You don’t have to be skilled in art to create doodles. You just have to be willing to play!
You can doodle your life map, or just use colors to intuitively express your feelings without form[6]. Draw your future successful self in your dream job or taking your dream vacation. You can also doodle your favorite quote or your own affirmation.
5. Pictures
Pictures are a wonderful alternative to the doodles, since they can snap you out of any hesitancy you might feel towards drawing. You can pin them to a cork board, glue them to a poster board, or simply tuck them into a bulletin board.
Depending on the vision you are working at fulfilling through your vision board ideas, you can put up images of associated people who are successful, and images that evoke feelings you wish to experience (gratitude, joy, love, success, etc.). If you’re inspired to use pictures, you may try creating a digital vision board[7].
You can also find pictures that are similar to those you see in your imagination. If you wish to increase the challenge, you can have pictures representing different actions you will take.
6. Souvenirs
Souvenirs, as sources of inspiration, are highly potent. They can serve as reminders of your strengths, uniqueness, achievements, successful relationships, and positive associations[8].
If there are souvenirs you associate with the birth of a specific vision, those are the ones that must go on the board. You can have anything from name tags, appreciation notes, trinkets, key-chains, dry leaves, buttons, magnets, string lights, etc. The possibilities are endless.
7. Goals and Intentions
Goals and intentions form the basis of our visions.
Put up the goals and intentions attached to your vision in creative ways[9]. You can make an intention tree with the roots being the vision, the bark being your strengths, and the leaves being all the intentions you have to achieve the vision.
You can also create a mixed media sun, with the large goal as the core and all possible actions as the rays.
8. Going Digital with Vision Boards
Making vision boards for different areas of your life might require space and time that you might not have. However, with digital vision boards, you can create as many as you like and access them on the go on your computer and mobile devices.
To create a digital vision board, you can use online tools like Pinterest, Canva, or the tools available on your computer such as Paint to make a collage. To cut and save pictures online, use the Snipping Tool (or Grab if you use Mac).
Once you have made your vision board, you can then set it as your homescreen, screen saver or put it on a slideshow to display when your computer is idle.
5 Steps to Creating a Vision Board
In order to create a vision board that will resonate with your personal dreams and vision and drives you towards their accomplishment, you can take the following steps:
1. Reflect and Write out Your Dreams and Goals
What are the things that are most important to you? What are the big goals of your life? What would you like to accomplish in the next year, three years, or five years? What are those things you wish to accomplish in your lifetime?
Think about these things and write them down.
2. Collect Relevant Images to Your Goals
After writing down your goals, it’s time to visualize them.
Begin to collect relevant images of people, places, objects, texts, quotes, and even your own pictures that represent the images of your mind. You can cut out some sections of a magazine or find images on the internet.
Type a search query on platforms like Pinterest, it will return loads of images that are relevant to your search.
3. Make a Collage from Your Collections
Assemble what you’ve got and then make a collage from them. Arrange them in a way that each of the items can be seen easily. You can place them on plane papers, cardboards, poster boards, etc.
4. Personalize Your Vision Board
Add your own words to your vision board, you can use markers, paints, stickers, quote cards, or your computer, etc. to add words to those images in a way that will inspire you.
5. Display Your Vision Board
Display your vision board where you can get to see it every day. Place it in your bedroom, office space or any other place that is conspicuous.
Final Thoughts
As you’re coming up with your own vision board ideas, don’t forget to let your creativity rule. This isn’t something you’ll be publishing for everyone to see; it’s something that is meant to inspire you each and every day. Use some of the suggestions to help inspire you to create your goal board, and then make it your own.
In addition to creating a vision board, getting the Make It Happen Handbook can help you visualize your progress towards your goals. Get it and learn how you can make your goals happen step by step.
Featured photo credit: Estée Janssens via unsplash.com
Reference
| [1] | ^ | Psychology Today: Seeing Is Believing: The Power of Visualization |
| [2] | ^ | Altered Mind Waves: Law of Attraction and Vision Boards – What’s a Vision Board? |
| [3] | ^ | Who’s Your HR?: 5 Step Vision Board (Visual Goal Setting) Tutorial |
| [4] | ^ | Positive Psychology: Positive Daily Affirmations: Is There Science Behind It? |
| [5] | ^ | Bella Inspired Grace: Affirmations and Vision Boards |
| [6] | ^ | Diary of a Journal Planner: HOW TO CREATE A VISION BOARD IN YOUR BULLET JOURNAL |
| [7] | ^ | Design Wizard: How To Create An Inspiring Online Vision Board |
| [8] | ^ | Brit+Co: 5 Steps to Create a Vision Board for Life, Money, Love and More |
| [9] | ^ | A Mama’s Corner of the World: Achieving Your Goals 2020: How I Create a Weekly Action Board from My Vision Board Goals |
