How to create a vision board

Goal setting is a natural part of our lives, giving us focus, direction and forward momentum. Most of us set goals daily, even if it isn’t in a formal way. We decide to empty the dishwasher before a song ends, we aim to finish couch to 5k, we set New Year resolutions, although if you do I recommend you don’t, read here for why.

When I’m working with clients, I describe the anatomy of a goal as having 4 parts: the ending, the tasks, the journey, and reflection. Planning a goal based on the different elements might make the difference between success and failure. So, what do the elements mean?

1.     The ending – strangely this is where we start! We can only achieve a goal when you know what that goal looks like. Gaining the clarity of what your end point looks like in detail is essential to being successful.

2.     The tasks – these are the steps that move you forward, your goal to-do list. The tasks that you complete daily, weekly, or monthly that take you small step at a time towards your goal.

3.     The journey – whilst reaching your goal is the ultimate success the journey presents lots of opportunities to celebrate wins. Your journey needs to be marked out by milestones that keep you consistent and motivated by acknowledging the small changes that sometimes disappear into day-to-day life but build and build creating the big wins you want.

4.     Reflection – a step lots of us miss. Reflection is all about learning from the experience by taking the time to note all the things that went well, what you’d do again or what you’d change next time. Reflection is also built into the journey because sometimes a goal needs to be changed. As we’re pursuing what we thought we wanted we are often confronted with the realisation that we no longer want to achieve this goal which means some adaptation or complete change.

If you’d like any more information about creating a successful goal then read my blog post here which goes into greater detail.

So, how does all this fit with a vision board? A vision board covers point 1 above, the ending. It’s a visual representation of your goals; it provides you with a snapshot of where you want to be, and what you want to achieve, demonstrated in images. Vision boards are excellent as reminders of the long-term goal and represent the ending place we want to me. They are powerful because they harness the power of images and the shortcuts, they offer the brain; from simple images we can recall complex information that involve all the senses.

 This blog post will help you move through the necessary stages and thinking to help you create a vision board.

Goal Setting

Before you create a vision board you need to know what you want it to contain. Images are powerful because they not only are visual reminders, but they also allow for other senses to be connected too. Think about a photo you have, when you look at it you remember when it was taken but also remember how something smelt, the sound of where you were, the feel of the temperature, the stories that happened around that moment, etc, etc.  

Goal setting requires clarity, if you set a goal like ‘I want to be fitter this year’ does this mean you want to take up running, lift heavy weights or start rock climbing?  Being specific about goals increases your success rate greatly and being able to visualise that success is the key.

To visualise a goal, you need to focus on seeing yourself achieving the goal once you can see what that looks like you can describe your goal in detail and start to reverse engineer how you get yourself there. Visualisation is a much researched and endorsed activity (especially in sport), so much evidence exists highlighting its importance with goal setting. If the thought of visualising your goal is confusing or downright frightening then I have a free visualisation activity that walks you through the process, click here to have a look.

If you find you are still confused as to what exactly you want to achieve then a wheel of life might help. When I run a Vision Board Workshop, I have participants who know they want to change things in their life but aren’t sure exactly how to start. I use a wheel of life with them which helps them to start to pinpoint which elements of their life they’d like to begin with.

Your board

 So now you are sure what you want to achieve and are desperate to start, I encourage clients to think about a few elements first about your board.

 Do you want a physical board or a digital one?

A digital board is easy to create you can save somewhere that you’ll see it every day, like a screensaver. Methods I’d recommend collating the images digitally are using something like Canva or equivalent, a digital template like this or as a collage board in Pinterest.

If you want a physical board, I’d encourage you to think about what size you want it to be and what type of board you’d like to use. I sell a vision board kit and I offer corkboard, wire notice board or foam notice board in a variety of sizes. My personal preference is a wire notice board because I love the flexibility it offers to move images around and remove them if my goals change. It’s a very personal choice.

Other elements to consider is how long your board will cover, is it 5 years, one quarter or 1 year. You don’t have to know but I prefer to gather similar length goals together.

 Finally consider where are you displaying your board? It needs to be something you can see easily and preferably daily, so you are constantly reinforcing your goals to yourself ensuring they aren’t forgotten.

Images

Hang on, we’ve already covered images, haven’t we? Well now you should have an image in mind for each of your goals but there are a few things to remember when sourcing the images. Make sure the image accurately represents your goal. For example: If you want to go on a tropical holiday find an image that represents the resort you want to be in rather than one in the middle of a storm.

I source image from 3 places: Pinterest, AI (using chatgpt or Canva) and Magazines, in that order. Because I want images to reflect what I have my head as closely as possible. I’m often asked if adding words is okay and it is to me.

So, there you go, you can now create a vision board! Let me know how you get on.