When you think about ‘me time,’ you may think about taking a warm bubble bath 🛁 or cozying up with a new book 📚, but there’s a different kind of self-care that also requires your attention—your thoughts.
Your thoughts precede any actions you may take toward your goals, and achieving those goals can positively influence many areas of your life.
Making a vision board is a fun way to organize your thoughts and exercise your imagination. Imagine spending an afternoon exploring your wildest dreams and creating a tangible record of your innermost desires. Well, that sounds like ‘me time’ well spent!
Here’s how to make a vision board that works to improve your life, manifest your desires, and achieve your goals! But first things first...
What is a vision board?
A vision board or dream board is a collage of images, photographs, illustrations, words, inspirational quotes, materials, and textures. It is an affirmation of one's thoughts and desires, designed to serve as a source of inspiration and motivation.
Creating a vision board can help you visualize your goals, and the power of visualization can affect both your conscious and subconscious mind.
Are you ready to take the next step and create a daily reminder to embody your future-self? Keep reading.
Why should I make a vision board?
You should make a vision board if you’re goal-oriented, you believe you can create your future, and/or you envision a future where you gain wealth, love, or whatever it is your heart desires.
Making (and keeping) a vision board is a visualization technique that studies have shown can impact your wellness and outlook toward the future. In fact, study researchers from T.D. Bank surveyed 1,127 individuals and 500 small business owners across the U.S. about their visualization practices.
The study found that people who visualize their goals were less anxious, felt more accomplished, and overall—they were happier.
How do I make a vision board?
Here’s a comprehensive guide and tips to make a vision board that can improve your life:
1. Set the mood
Honing in on your inner self isn’t easy and asking yourself what do I want out of life and more importantly, why do I want it, can lead anyone to an anxious state. So setting the mood can help you relax and get your brain thinking productively.
Here’s what we suggest. Grab a favorite snack, turn on some chill music, take a deep breath, and light a Spoken Flames candle. Once you’re nice and cozy and in the right state of mind, you’re ready for the next step.
2. Gather your supplies (and a great base)
The base of your vision board is like the foundation of a house, everything builds off it. Really, it doesn’t matter what you use for your base as long as what’s on your vision board reflects the future you.
You could use cardboard, poster board, corkboard, whiteboard, a chalkboard—you could even use your bedroom wall. After you’ve found the perfect base, gather an adhesive like tape or glue so you may stick objects to your base. And have a pair of scissors, old magazines, markers or even crayons on hand to craft your vision board.
Here are the basic items to make a vision board:
- Base
- Glue, glue stick, clear tape, or push pins
- Scissors
- Old magazines or newspapers
- Markers, pencils, pens, or crayons
3. Create categories and define your goals
You may be tempted to overthink this part. Don’t. This is your life you’re envisioning and no one knows you better than you! Think across general categories like relationships, home, or material objects you desire, education, jobs, achievements—the options are really endless and it’s all up to you. Consider a short-term and long-term vision for each category.
We recommend dividing your vision board by 3-5 categories at most so you don’t feel too overwhelmed, your board remains organized, and so you can direct greater focus and energy toward your biggest goals.
4. Get creative: find objects of inspiration
You can literally use anything for your vision board and getting creative is part of the fun. Here are some ideas to get you started.
You could cut out images from magazines, find meaningful and inspirational quotes, source interesting textures from your local craft store, or buy a ‘toy’ version of your dream car and sit it next to your vision board.
💸 For finance, you could put a crispy dollar bill on your board or pictures of luxury items.
💕 For relationships, you could find pictures or quotes about love, friends, or family.
🏖️ For travel, think of postcards, photos of your dream destination, or small notes about a location.
This is a fun opportunity to gather together objects like feathers, pressed flower petals or leaves, small seashells, gems, or even beach sand.
The possibilities are endless.
5. Map out your vision board
This part is important! Make sure you organize your board before you glue, pin, or commit to anything permanently.
Not only does this give you a good overview of how your board will end up looking, but it also allows you to make some interesting design choices that you may have not originally thought of.
It’s not uncommon to leave some white space on your board to let things have their own space. You could also most certainly put as many items on your board as you like. The choice is yours.
6. Create your masterpiece
Have fun putting everything together! Get creative and remember it doesn’t have to be perfect or finished in one sitting. You can come back to it the next day or in your spare time.
Where should I place my vision board?
Place your vision board in a private (or public) space where you will see it often. The goal is to have a daily reminder of your goals and be constantly thinking about how to make incremental steps towards those goals.
Here are some suggestions on where to place your vision board:
- On your nightstand
- Near your front door
- In your home office
- Behind your bathroom door
- On the ceiling above your bed
Do vision boards work?
The short answer: yes. We asked award-winning producer and visionary, Jamee Ranta, about her personal story on vision boarding and how it influenced her life:
"When I was attending college, I stayed up late one night and made my first vision board. I was sitting there alone in my one-bedroom apartment thinking about my future, my goals, and I said to myself, what if I moved to L.A.?
What if I could be surrounded by amazing artists and work on creative projects for creative people? So I began crafting these ideas on my vision board.
Whenever I felt uninspired or unmotivated, I stared at my vision board. I used it as a daily reminder and challenged myself to move towards those goals.
Today, I have made those visions come to life, and now I help artists visualize their music with remarkable and sometimes indescribable music videos.
I run projects for Grammy award-winning artists and global brands and make their ideas come to life, and it's great!
But I never stopped dreaming big, and if you took a look at my vision board today, some of you might think my goals are unrealistic.
My vision board, coupled with hard work and dedication, helped me achieve my goals. I hope your vision board can help you."
Jamee Ranta, Producer at Artifact Content
How often should I do a vision board?
As your goals evolve, your vision board may need an update. How often you refresh it and how much you change about it is up to you. A good time to make a new vision board is when you reach one of your long-term goals.
Many people believe it good to change at the beginning of a new year on your birthday, solstice, or quarterly.
As previously mentioned, achieving your goals takes more discipline than simply making a vision board. But with your new-found daily inspiration, you'll be one step closer to strengthening what it is you're looking for.
Visualize, achieve, repeat
Visualizing your dreams can have a huge impact on your life. Your dreams become attainable when you define them, remind yourself of them often, and visualize that you've already achieved them. The people who have made vision boards have found them useful (and powerful). If you focus on achieving your goals and you push yourself to think about them every day, you’re bound to make progress.
Have you ever made a vision board? We’d love to see yours! Tag us @SpokenFlames.
