What, in your view, is a good life? What makes a life valuable or worth living? When you are on your deathbed, what will you have hoped to have accomplished?
What activities do you want to learn how to do? What hobbies and activities do you already do, but want to continue doing or get better at? What are your career goals? What steps will you have to accomplish along the way to be able to eventually land your dream job? (For example, do you need a particular degree, or will you need to secure an internship?) What are your relationship goals? Don’t think just in terms of whether or not you want to be married, be in a long-term relationship or have children: think more specifically about what kind of person you want to be with, how you’d like to spend time with your partner, etc. How do you want to be remembered by others? For example, do you want to write the next great American novel? Do you want to head a charitable organization that positively impacts the lives of others?
You can decide to make a vision board which focuses on a very specific goal that you have. For example, if want to be able to afford your dream vacation within the next year, you can design a Jamaica-themed dream board. You can also make dream boards which have a more general theme. Perhaps after reflecting about the type of person you want to be remembered as you determined that you want to work on becoming a kinder, more generous person. Your dream board can be devoted to this theme. Among the things you include can be pictures of inspiring role models.
However, there’s no reason to limit yourself to just this style of vision board. You can also make an electronic version of a vision board. You can design your own webpage or blog, use sites like Pinterest, or even just create a private document on your computer where you’ll collect your inspirational images and affirmations. Choose the format that you’re most comfortable with, and which you’ll be the most likely to actually look at and update regularly.
When choosing your images, select them with a careful eye, making sure to closely examine the entire image. For example, if your goal is to get into your dream college, be sure to include an image of the campus, but select shots that are taken during your favorite season, or which show students engaged in activities you hope to enjoy while enrolled as a student.
An affirmation is a positive saying or script which you can repeat to yourself as a mantra. You can of course write your own affirmations, or you can search online for examples or visit your local bookstore or library for inspiration. Your aspirations should be positively focused. For example, perhaps your goal is to be selected as first violin in your orchestra, but in the past you’ve struggled to practice every day, in spite of making resolutions every New Year’s Eve. Don’t include the following: “I won’t quit practicing daily after just one month, like I always do”. This just highlights your previous shortcomings, and has an overall negative tone. Instead, consider something like “I’ll fill my home with joyful music daily”. This is so much more positive, and makes practicing an activity to look forward to, as opposed to describing it as something to be endured.
Consider choosing a colored background for your vision-board. Select this color carefully depending upon the nature and content of your theme. For example, if you want to stay pumped-up about being able to accomplish a difficult physical goal (like being able to bench press your own weight), choose a strong color, like red. If, on the other hand, you are working on achieving peace and calm in your life, choose colors that are likewise soothing, like a soft blue. Think about including a photo of you in the center of your vision board and surrounding yourself (literally!) with your inspiring images and words. If you are making a physical vision board, you don’t have to glue anything down immediately. Instead, you can play around with the layout. You can even take pictures of different layouts and compare them. Once you’ve settled upon a design and arrangement that appeals to you, secure the components with glue or staples (if you are making a physical vision board; if you’re making an electronic version, be sure to save your file!).
You may prefer that your vision board be a private source of inspiration, which is fine. If this is the case, don’t feel as though you must hang your vision board in your living room. Similarly, if you are using an electronic vision board, you don’t need to make it public. Most webpages and/or blogs can be set to private, or you can limit the people who can view your work. The point is that your vision board should be accessible to you, and shouldn’t be placed where you’ll fall out of the habit of looking at it. [4] X Research source
Don’t just read the inspirational sayings and affirmations silently to yourself: repeat them out-loud and with conviction. It’s one thing to silently say to yourself “I will become a successful designer,” but it’s yet another thing to hear yourself say that with confidence. If you don’t believe in yourself, who will?
There’s absolutely no scientific evidence that creating a vision board and visualizing your success at achieving your goals will cause the universe to deliver. [5] X Research source While you shouldn’t give up your dreams before you start, understand that life throws roadblocks at us, and that sometimes, try as we might, we simply won’t be able to achieve everything that we desire. If you go into this project thinking that you’ll get results if you do it correctly, and if you then aren’t able to get everything you want, you’re only setting yourself up for self-blame and disappointment, which can lead to depression or lowered self-worth. [6] X Research source
For example, students who were asked to spend time imagining how great it would feel to perform well on an exam did worse than those students who instead visualized their study process and those who did not visualize at all. [7] X Research source The lesson to be learned from this and other similar studies seems to be that, while it’s good to specify your goals and spend some time envisioning what your life will be like if and when you reach them, it’s both more effective and better for your mental health to focus on the specific steps you’ll need to take along the way. For example, there’s probably nothing wrong with day-dreaming about how awesome you’ll feel once you cross the finish line of your first marathon. However, you may actually be less likely to ever actually complete the grueling run if all you ever do is visualize this moment of success. What time you do spend visualizing would be better spent focused upon your training process. Make sure that your vision board has plenty of images and inspirational sayings related to the minutia of training and not just the moment of success. And of course, don’t forget to actually strap on the running shoes and get out there!
