How to make a vision board? [Step-by-step plan with tips]

A vision board is a tool used to clarify a specific life purpose and maintain focus on it. A vision board is a board on which you display images that represent your goals. In addition to the pictures, you can also add words, quotes, and affirmations that support your goals.

Whereas in the past, vision boards were mainly used by designers to, for example, create a corporate identity for a customer, the power of this kind of visualization was quickly taken over by individuals who use it to achieve their goals.

Why a vision board?

Every successful person, be it an actor, a successful industrialist, or a software developer, all started with an idea. Since it is arranged in the human mind that we directly link an image to it, they immediately visualize their idea. They can cultivate this neurological connection very effectively by creating a vision board to “formulate” your goals.

By consciously viewing the collection of images and supporting words and quotes daily, you will make a connection with your goals, and these start ‘to live.’ You “let yourself get used to” your goals as if they already occurred.

By already experiencing the accompanying emotions that you will experience when you have reached your goals while looking at your vision board, you create the infrastructure of your future self in your brain. The body cannot distinguish between an imagined emotion and a real emotion.

How do you make a vision board?

It takes several essential steps to make an effective vision board that works for you. There are many different online instructions, but you often forget those critical details to make the board work for you.

Use the steps below to make a vision board that works.

1. Find out what you want. What is/are your specific goal(s)?

Once you have established your goal (s), make an inventory of what you need to get there. Besides: what do you get when you have achieved your goals? And most importantly. How do you feel then?

This last question is the most important because the emotions and feelings you experience when you have reached your goal are also the starting point that you process on your vision board. Think of feelings of joy, relaxation, satisfaction, appreciation or love, etc.

If you want a vision board that works, you must be specific in what you want. So do you want to get “rich,” or do you want a million-dollar balance? Do you want a “sports car” or a “black Porsche Macan GTS”? A “new job” or a “nice job where you can travel a lot”?

It’s important to be specific and to indicate on the storyboard what is essential to you.

2. Gather what you need for your vision board

Depending on the type of vision board you are making, the exact requirements may vary, but in general, you will need the following:

• A canvas or whiteboard, but you can also opt for a photo book (my favorite is a whiteboard)
• Something to attach your photos and quotes with (glue, magnets, double-sided tape)
• Blank (colored) paper on which you can write or draw
• Markers, pens, paint
• Magazines/books in which you can cut (I prefer the internet and a good printer. I print the images and cut them to size for my vision boards)
• Scissors

3. Create a place where you only work on your vision board

Make sure you create a place in the house, especially to work on your vision board, your “dream place”. Walt Disney also had three places in his house: a place for the dreamer, where he created his characters and where everything was possible, a place for the realist, where he thought about how he was going to breathe life into his characters and a place for the critic, where he looked critically at his characters and took the ‘sharp edges’ off.

It is important to you that you have a place where you feel comfortable and where you can “dream” freely. Make it cozy for yourself, but make sure you have all your materials within reach. A large table or desk is often best suited.

Do not opt ​​for bright light above your table, but make it cozy with a twilight lamp, a candle or burn an incense stick. Put on some inspiring music in the background. Basically, anything that makes you feel comfortable can be added to your place and atmosphere to cultivate your creativity.

4. Collect all your images and inspiration

In this step, you will find all the images, inspiring quotes, and affirmations you will use to fill your vision board. They should all resonate with your intention. Find these pictures together in the magazines and cut them out.

I myself choose to collect all images and quotes digitally. You come across this a lot on social media, especially if you follow nice inspiring pages. I always save and print these images for my own vision boards.

5. Choose the images that best represent your goals

In this step, you will go through the images and quotes you have cut out and make a selection of the snips that best represent your purpose. Ask yourself, “Does this collection of images and quotes represent how I want to feel when I achieved my goal?”

For example, let’s say your intention is to be more confident. What does that self-confidence symbolize for you? Dwayne the Rock Johnson walking confidently in front of thousands of fans? Oprah Winfrey, who is entirely in her element inspiring a huge audience? You choose what motivates you!

6. Fill your vision board with images and spells

The way you fill your board is significant. While the details are, of course, freely interpretable, it’s crucial to stick/pin your primary goal in the center of your board. Suppose you choose a new job, then you place the characteristics that your goal must meet immediately to the left of your goal, so for example:

• Part-time job
• Nice short business trips
• 80K/year

On the right side, you write down the feelings that the goal will give you, so for example:

• Satisfaction
• Relaxation
• Appreciation

These feelings are important, so you are reminded of them during the moments you take to let your vision board work on you.

7. Place your vision board where you often see it

Once your vision board is complete, don’t forget to recall the feelings you had while making it every time you see the vision board. I personally prefer to hang my vision board at the end of the bed. I watch it for 15 minutes every night before I go to sleep, and every morning when I wake up, the first thing I see is the dream board.

And this is the essential part of the instruction for an effective vision board.

Especially during the sleep-wake state, the brain is most accessible to suggestions. In this state, you have direct access to your subconscious. When you look at your vision board, you evoke the emotions of the feeling you will have when you have achieved your goals.

These emotions are the most important because this is the way you wire those networks in your brain, so you can get used to how it feels. Keep in mind that the universe reflects what you feel, not what you want. So make sure you experience feelings of gratitude, appreciation, love, and satisfaction.

8. Start at the end, at your goal

Step 7 is the most essential of all. This is the step that is missing from most instructions for an effective vision board. Make a list of things you can do on the way to achieving your goal so that you can start living in accordance with your intention NOW. Do not wait to experience your positive feelings. Start now with your goal.

It is wonderful to know how the human mind works, and you can benefit from that. We can fully empathize with a situation that has not yet happened. With the help of NLP techniques such as submodalities and modeling, we can bring our future selves a whole lot closer.

So this means you can choose to be successful NOW! Give your images an emotion. Make powerful connections between thoughts, words, images, emotions, and feelings.

This allows you to condition yourself and rewire your brain for success. And the more you do this, the more powerful your body reacts and the stronger those neurological connections in your brain become.

Final tips

An effective vision board and the foregoing instructions will, for the most part, help you on your way to achieving your goals. Yet, we all remain human and sometimes have to deal with self-limiting beliefs, deep-rooted behavioral patterns that must be broken, or people in our environment who do not support our intentions.

My tip: don’t let anyone fool you! You know what you want. The universe knows how you are going to achieve that goal, so keep your focus!

Even when dealing with cognitive dissonance, it’s important to realize that you can deceive yourself in both a positive and a negative sense. As soon as you allow a doubting thought, the Law of Attraction will allow one doubt after another. Do not question your abilities, as these thoughts are based on the past. Do not keep yourself trapped, because just like with the financial advertisements on TV: “achieved results in the past are no guarantee for the future.”

If you are dealing with deep-seated behavioral patterns, it can help to know a little more about modeling. How does someone who has achieved their success look back on this? What was his or her train of thought? How is he/she in life? By reframing your views on situations and circumstances, you can eliminate any obstacles. It is simply the power of your thoughts.

Ultimately, creating a vision board is about clarifying what you really want. You take the steps that are necessary to achieve your goal. In conjunction with the above instruction, you also set the universe and the Law of Attraction to work for you, so you get closer to your goal, and your goal gets closer to you!

Mind Movies: digital vision board

If you want to experience the most powerful visualization I came across, I’d give Mind Movies a try. Mind Movies is a digital vision board creation tool. Find the most beautiful images on the internet that symbolize success for you and put them together in the online Mindmovies platform. Don’t forget to add the positive affirmations that support your way to success. Make sure to finish your Mind Movie with empowering music that gives you strength, a positive feeling to pursue your goals.