Sticking To Your Goals With A Vision Board

Now that we're a couple of weeks into the year, how are you doing on your new year's resolutions? Made popular by the book and film "The Secret," vision boards are a great way to map out your dreams and goals through a visual representation, which can help to keep you on track to succeed in your 2021 resolutions.

Your mind responds strongly to visual representations, so seeing your vision board every day can play a positive role in stimulating your emotions and subconscious mind to work towards these goals.

In addition, often we don’t get what we want, as we don’t know exactly what that is! A vision board can bring focus and clarity to the things that you desire. It is a constant reminder of where you intend to be and keeps you on track when things may pull you in other directions.

How to Make One

The simple rule is, there are no rules! This is where you let your creative energy shine. However, if you are new to vision boards, here are the general steps to get you started on your way:

1. Head to the 100 yen shop and grab a poster board (or a piece of cardboard), some glue or thumbtacks, and any other arts and craft materials you want to use (e.g. stickers, markers, colored paper).
2. Take your time. Find and cut out images, words, phrases and photographs that appeal to you and your dreams for the year. Magazines, Instagram, Pinterest, and photo albums are great places to start.
3. Sort through the images, keeping the most relevant ones and discarding any others. Organize the layout of your board in any way you desire. You may want to organize it into themes, such as health, character, career, finances, hobbies, holidays, family and relationships. You may even find you want a separate board for each of these categories!
4. Use your arts and crafts supplies to stick the images onto the board. Display it in a place where you will look at it often, preferably every day.

A Few Extra Tips

Take time to really think about yourself.

Don’t include things that you think you should say or things that others may expect of you. This is your truthful and honest dream board. Also include how you want to feel, rather than only material possessions and outcomes.

Be positive in your focus.

It is best to include things that you want to become rather than say things that you want to stop doing. Otherwise, this can constantly remind yourself of what you believe are your faults. For example, rather than saying, “I want to stop smoking,” which has negative references, an idea is to choose some pictures of healthy athletes or a photo of yourself at a time when you felt fit and healthy and aspire to feel like that again. If this means giving up smoking, then this will be the motivation to do so.

Visualize the process.

When you look at your board each day, visualize the process, rather than just the outcome. This can help you achieve the goals more effectively, as you will have a plan and strategy rather than just “wishing” something will happen. A vision board isn’t magic!

Although it is important to dream and have goals, it is even more important to be grateful for all that you have in your life now. Don’t forget to practice gratitude for all the amazing things that you already have in your life, while also manifesting your dreams.

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