How To Make A Vision Board That Works

By Joep van Ool1 on March 15, 2021 - Fact checked by Dumb Little Man

by Joep van Ool1 March 15, 2021

You’ve probably seen the idea of a vision board on the internet a couple of times now. Most articles show you how to make the board, but not how to actually use it. I don’t want your board to be just a decorative piece. I wrote this post to help people realize their dreams through making a vision board because there may be some things I think you haven’t thought about. Read this post and let me show you what I mean!

Table of Contents

What Is A Vision Board?
Why And How Does It Work?
But Before We Start Creating Our Board
Let’s Make Our Board!
Creating The Board
How To Make The Vision Board Work

What Is A Vision Board?

A vision board goes disguised under a bunch of names, but it all amounts to the same thing. You might have seen mood board, dream board, vision map, and goal board passing by. And I’m sure you can think of a few more synonyms.

What it essentially is, is a collection of (mostly) pictures, but you can also use a quote or anything else that inspires you and resonates with you and your goals. So it’s a visual representation of the goals you want to accomplish. Your goals are what create your vision as this is the route you aim to take for your life.

A vision board can then be seen as a mixture of goal setting, visualization, and for some, affirmations as well.

Why And How Does It Work?

A vision board works because of multiple reasons. The first and most important is that it creates pathways in your brain. These pathways are formed through daily repetition and it could be seen as forming a habit for the future.

When you look at your vision board and visualize everything that’s on there, you are tricking your mind into believing that it already has the things you’re visualizing. The more lively you can see these things in your mind’s eye, the more effectively you are creating those brain pathways. In a sense, a vision board allows you to program your mind.

When you have, over time, established these brain pathways, you will be more receptive to spotting opportunities and thinking and behaving in certain ways that correspond with your vision. If you hadn’t programmed your mind, you may have never spotted these opportunities.

Your mind truly has incredible power, so why not leverage it? That’s what a vision board is about!

A few bonus reasons to get you in the mood for creating a vision board:

People are visual creatures and thus, will respond better to a vision board as opposed to a sheet of paper filled with goals
If your vision board truly resonates with you, you will see an increase in intrinsic motivation
It’s a fun way of focusing on what you want in life; writing down your goals in a notebook can be pretty boring and does not spark a lot of creativity

But Before We Start Creating Our Board

You can’t make a vision board without a clear vision. So let’s start there!

Here’s a quick guide to creating a mission & vision with goals. Take the time to write down a set of goals, and of course, your mission & vision. They should really encompass what you want to achieve, from within. Whether this is based on the relationships in your life, your career, health or finances, it can be anything. As long as it offers value for you to be focusing on that aspect of your life.

What you shouldn’t do is make your board about superficial things like getting an expensive car, an exotic animal like a tiger (pretty sure it’s illegal in most places), or getting a chiseled body. Once you acquire those things, you will only be happy with it for a little while. Then, the race starts all over again.

So instead, make it about how you would want to feel when realizing your vision. Don’t settle for ‘happy’. Define happiness, be precise. You can do the same for success or any other generic term. Also, think about the growth you would experience on your journey to realizing your vision. Where are you now and where would you like to be? Fill in the gap!

We’re almost ready to begin creating our board. There’s just one last thing.

Make your board represent you. If you’re an ambitious person this means that you might want to make several boards for different aspects of your life. Of course, you can also divide your board into sections or even put everything at random on one board.

The most important thing is that your board, as a whole, should resonate with you. After all, you’ll be looking at and dreaming about it every day!

Let’s Make Our Board!

What you’ll be needing

Your vision, (mission if you see fit) and a clear set of goals
A bit of time to get in an arts and craftsy kind of mood (unless you will be doing it online, which I wouldn’t recommend)
Images (quotes and affirmations) that resonate with you, your vision and your goals, collect them! You can really pull these from any source you like
A nice picture of yourself to put in the middle of the board (optional, but recommended)
The actual board. You can use a board made of cork, a big sheet of paper, a whiteboard with magnets, etc.
Scissors
Decorations (very optional)
Music that will get you in the mood!

Creating The Board

Now you should have everything you need to create your vision board! Make sure that every picture you’ve collected gives you a feeling of ‘yes, this is what I want and I will definitely strive to get it!’. Then lay your pictures out on your board without actually sticking them to it. Just get a feel for what you want your board to look like.

Do you want to create categories or subjects (health, relationships, etc.)? Do you want to write down the goal and stick a picture under it? The options are endless and it’s all up to you. Make your board clear, structured and inspiring in the sense that you can make sense of it.

Managed to find your ideal layout? Good! Now make it definitive by sticking all the pictures, quotes, and affirmations to your board. Place it somewhere you will see it easily multiple times a day. This could be on the wall of your living room, bedroom, your office or in the kitchen, for example.

How To Make The Vision Board Work

You’ve now made your board, but we’re not finished yet. The last thing you need to do is learn how to effectively use the board to manifest your dreams into reality!

So, we’ve established that a vision board works because of the influence it can have on your unconscious mind. Simply glancing at your board a few times a day will probably not help you an awful lot. Instead, I encourage you to just spend a few minutes, 3 to 5 at a bare minimum to ponder in front of your board. Doing this when you wake up and before going to bed are the most effective times of day.

Spend these minutes visualizing and really feeling the desire, intention and positive emotions that you associate with your board. This, in a very basic form, is invoking the Law of Attraction. This is the real magic behind a vision board! I can’t urge you enough to emphasize these sights in your mind, feelings, and emotions, because these are what make a vision board work!

If you would like to dive a bit deeper into the mechanics of this, I recommend you go through How To Apply The Law Of Attraction To Realize Your Dreams. This offers more details and a case study of how this has been applied successfully. It can really help you to get the most out of your vision board.

That’s it! These are all the things you need to know to create a vision board that works. With this, our ways part, for now. I wish you all the best with creating your vision board and hope you will realize your dreams by using it. There’s no doubt in my mind that it will have some positive impact on your life.

I hope to welcome you once again in the near future. All the best!