9 steps to make an effective vision board

Maybe you are asking right now what is a vision board, so let’s that answer first. A dream board is a collage of images, pictures, symbols and ideas that will inspire you to pursue your goals and dreams. Vision boards are also called dream boards because they give you the chance of dreaming of your future. But a vision board serves much more purposes than just dreaming about the future, as you will find out in this article.

As said, a vision board is an inspirational collage. The dream board you make will be a visual representation of your future. A tangible representation or idea of where you are going. Vision boards represent your ideal life, your dreams, and your goals. Making a dream board is a fun way to work on establishing a vision for your future. This vision may be about a particular event in your near future or a more general direction you want to take the next few years. A vision board will give you the clarity about where your life is heading to. Instead of living day by day you now have a point on the horizon which will be your beacon.

You know what they say about pictures, don’t you? A picture can say more than a thousand words. That’s why your brain loves pictures. In fact, pictures are the language of your unconscious mind. And your unconscious mind, if you like it or not, is steering your life. Did you know that most decisions are based on emotions rather than logic? So, if you can steer your unconscious mind in the right direction then you automatically will take decisions which will bring you nearer your goals.

Furthermore, you automatically will help all your unconscious powers to be aligned with the right direction. How often have you experienced that you said to work out more or eat healthier but then very quickly gave up? This inconsistent behavior is caused by the fact that a variety of your unconscious powers had other plans with you. All to protect you of course. But what if your unconscious mind will be set for 100% driving you towards your goals? That would make you extremely successful! Your vision board will help you. Creating a dream board and using your dream board consistently will program your unconscious mind in the right way.

Most people use a vision board in a place where they will often see it.

A vision board consists mainly of pictures, but you can also add some keywords that represent your dreams and goals. By placing your dream board in a place where you will often see it, you will be able to start visualizing on it better and better. Frequently visualizing your goals and dreams is a requirement for your unconscious mind to be reprogrammed towards your goals.

A vision board is easy to share with the important people around you.

For every goal you have you need support. And the best way to organize and get that support is to involve your important people in your dreams, goals, and plans as early as possible.

Use your vision board for goal-setting

To be successful and achieve your goals you must at least have your goals top of mind. One way is to write your goals down at least once every day, but another way is to create a visual representation of your goals by making a vision board. This will inspire you to seek ways to get closer to your goals continuously. If you picture your ideal life on a dream board and hang your dream board on a prominent place in your house, then you will consciously and unconsciously see your ideal life a couple of times each day.

This is one of the ways you can use visualization to train your brain to get accustomed to your new situation. Visualization is the language of your unconscious mind so to activate your unconscious mind you have to visualize. It is not enough to say “I want to lose ten pounds.” That’s not something your unconscious mind can process. But if you see an image of yourself being ten pounds slimmer then your unconscious mind will understand the message. Your unconscious mind will let you see new opportunities you have never seen before, and it will ignore distractions which will withhold you from getting slimmer.

So, practice visualization each day. Make it a daily habit. You will become much more motivated to work on your goals. You will see that your vision board will fire up your internal motivation and notice that you will unexpectedly do something different than you are accustomed to. Suddenly you find yourself speaking out at meetings, taking more responsibility, taking more risks and experiencing bigger pay-offs.

Every goal has a multitude of factors which are important to understand and notice. But we as human beings have an insufficient thinking capacity. I don’t say that you are dumb, I only say that we can only focus on seven plus or minus two things at the same time. That’s why a dream board works perfectly for goal-setting because it gives you a chance to work on your goals and vision multiple times. Each time your vision will improve, and your goal-setting will improve.

Furthermore, a vision board will give you the chance to get feedback from people around you which often will lead to new insights with which you can refine your vision and goal-setting.

How to make a vision board that is compelling and motivating?

One of the big questions you should ask yourself is how you want to feel. If you had a magic wand and you could choose everything, answer this question:

How do I want to feel in my ideal life?

Now find pictures, images, symbols that represent that feeling. Of course, this might also be multiple feelings. When working on your vision board, you will soon find out that it is impossible to represent “I want not to feel anxious anymore” with an image. This is important to understand. Your unconscious mind cannot process negatives. So, as soon as you start to think about not being anxious then your unconscious mind will immediately create an image of anxiety.

You don’t want this!

So, focus only on positive feelings that you really want! And then find similar pictures, photos, images, symbols and colors for your dream board. To fill your vision board you can use images from magazines or print pictures you find online, or you can draw pictures yourself. It is up to you! There is no right or wrong in making a dream board. As long as it represents your vision of your future, then it doesn’t matter how you do it.

A vision board is an excellent way to work together with multiple people in forming a joint vision of a project for the near future. This might be with your family to plan your next big holiday. Or you can make a vision board together with your colleagues at work to develop a joint vision of where the department should evolve to the next year.

Types of Vision Boards

Now here is something important. Let’s say that you make a vision board with your spouse and kids to visualize your next holiday trip. You all have done a great job, and the result is astonishing! A very compelling dream board has been created! But hey, what do I see? On the vision board are two images with regards to your ideal career. Also compelling but out of context. What does this do with the overall power of your holiday vision board you think? Exactly! The power of your dream board diminishes when it gets mixed with other not relevant images.

So, decide before you start what the context of your vision board will be.

What type of vision board are you going to make?

• A Project Vision Board for a well-defined project like your next holiday or a professional project you are working on?
• A Long-term Life Design Vision Board picturing your ideal future life in 5-10 years time?
• A Life-area Vision Board picturing your ideal life in a particular area like your health or your education?

A picture may say more than a thousand words, but only if it is the right image.

So, when selecting the images for your dream board, first define as concrete as possible how you want to feel. Then start looking for similar pictures. After having selected twenty or thirty pictures, ask yourself which best represent your ideal feeling. Then only select a few pictures. Fewer is better in this case especially when you selected the best pictures.

Vision Board recipe (9 steps) for an exciting life

Here is my recipe for making a vision board that will empower and motivate you. Nine steps in three phases:

• Preparation phase
• Creation phase
• Manifestation phase

Vision Board examples

To give you a feeling of how vision boards can look like I give you two vision board examples of my personal life.

You can use this as a template to create your inspiration board.

The first vision board example I made 15 years ago in what now seems like another life:

As you can see, I collected pictures from magazines and some of my photographs.

Here is another example I made for a project I was working on, but this time I made the vision board on my computer and printed it out later:

Conclusion

As you have seen in this article vision boards are a powerful tool for you to gain focus and motivation to work on your short-term and long-term goals. Your vision board will help you stay focused and motivated even when distractions and setbacks arise on your way to your goal (which is a fact of life). You have learned the 9 steps for making a vision board that gives you the best results. So, start making your vision board right now and use it every day until you have achieved your goals!