Do you want to learn how to take your dreams and goals and make them real? Do you want to do something simple that can help you get motivated to make a positive change in your life? Do you want to activate the subconscious parts of your mind to help you achieve big things in your life?

You should invest the time and energy to learn how to make a vision board. It’s a fun project and the perfect thing to do with friends and family.

What is a vision board?

A vision board is a visual depiction of your goals and dreams. Some people create them out of photos clipped from favorite magazines. Others use computer imagery to make a digital vision board or draw/paint their own masterpiece. The idea of creating a vision board for this purpose became popularized through the Law of Attraction movement and the movie The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

How a vision board works

Vision boards are powerful. What makes them powerful is that they help you gather all the strength and power that you have locked away in your mind. This is a strength that is not born from conscious thought. It is the strength that is present in your sub-conscious mind.

Your brain is a deletion machine. You encounter so many images, sounds, smells, feelings and experiences in your life that your brain has no choice but to focus on the few things that it feels are most important to your own existence.

What are the most important things in your life?

You probably know all about Maslow’s hierarchy. That’s a starting point. Self-survival and basic human needs are a priority for everyone, and your brain is hard-wired to make sure it is capturing things that help in this regard.

What about goals and dreams? Will your brain support your pursuit of those things?

It answer will depend on your own beliefs. Do you believe that you can really achieve the goals that you hold so dear? Do you have a clear image in your mind of what success looks like? Do you even have goals to begin with?

As far of your brain is concerned, until you get clear about what you are after, your brain will have a tough time marshaling its full power to help you out.

Take the classic example of buying a new car. When I purchased my fist car, Silver 2001 Honda Accord Coupe many  years ago, I hadn’t seen a single one on the road. Definitely not in that color at least! Now, hardly a day goes by that I don’t run into my exact same car model, being driven by someone else. Did the car just get that much more popular or did my brain actually start to notice it more because it was not top of mind for me?

One of the wonderful things about vision boards is that they help you to get clear and stay clear about what some of your big goals are in life.

Vision board examples

By using fun visuals and powerful slogans on your vision board, you can make your vision and goals interesting and inspirational. Just looking at your vision board for a few minutes each day will be enough to remind your conscious and unconscious mind what is really important for you.

Here’s an example of my first vision board. I started out by scribbling this down in a notebook at a Tony Robbins “Date With Destiny” event back in December 2006. I then used Microsoft Office PowerPoint and Clip Art to trick it out. I printed my vision board on 4-foot wide poster board and hung on my living room wall for an entire year. Not a day went by that I don’t see this thing.

Next up, I created this Vision Board in May 2007 with more of a creative and visual feel. It was produced as part of a goal setting workshop that I led for a personal development community I created and ran at the time. We had about 20 people all setting goals and building vision boards together. Wow, what power there is in doing this type of activity with other motivated people!

 

Lastly, here is an example of a  vision board I created in late 2007, again, as part of another vision board workshop I conducted. This time, I took a few of the key themes from my previous vision board (fitness, health, yoga) and expanded on them.

How to make a vision board

There is no right or wrong way to create a vision board. The most important thing is to be in a positive and upbeat mindset when you are doing it. However, I have created many vision boards and have discovered a simple process that works well.

Here is the step by step process that I use to make a vision board:

Step 1

Recruit friends to join. Have them bring magazines with colorful pictures, books of quotes, and inspiring reading material with them. Have them bring their laptops so they can browse online for inspiration. It helps to have a printer available to print out photos and quote from the web.

Step 2

Have everyone go on a walk together or turn on some great music to get in a positive and upbeat state of mind. Do not start your vision board party without making sure everyone is in a great state of mind!

Step 3

Go through a process of goal-setting. The best way is to use the process I use and share with my email subscriber list. Click here to get it. The goal setting process I use takes about 1 hour and is super fun.

If you don’t have time for this, just have everyone think about 3-5 things they want to bring into their lives over the next year. If you already have a set of goals you are working on, you can just use those.

Step 4

Have everyone spread out their magazines and start browsing through the photos to get inspired.

Rip and cut out photos that resonate with you. Don’t worry about arranging things or cutting them out nicely. Just pull things out that feel good and align with your goals. It is fun to trade and pass along images to your friends, based on what you think they might like to get inspired by.

Step 5

Start arranging the images and quotes on your vision board. Use a glue stick to make the images permanent and use colored markers to draw or write in more quotes. Be creative!

Step 6

Place the board in a place where you will see it daily. Good spots are near your computer desk, or in your bedroom or workout space.