How to Make a Vision Board: The Coolest Way to Turn Your Vision into Reality

Vision boards are everywhere, in offices, workshops and countless Pinterest groups dedicated to them but what exactly is a vision board and how does it work? When I decided to put my own board together I ran into these questions and more. A vision board is basically a visual representation of goals you want to accomplish for yourself.  My board is filled with photos and phrases of things I’d like to work on doing this year (like writing a book) including the intangibles like being more positive, represented by a picture of a woman simply laughing. While each one differs from person to person a vision board helps to organize and sketch out individual goals in a creative way. To make my board I grabbed a stack of old magazines, (newspapers work fine too)and cut out all the photos that symbolize things I want. For my goal to be more organized I found a photo of a neat, clutter free closet and for my goal to do more traveling I found pictures of places I want to visit. And now I have everything I need to accomplish my goals, right?

“Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing time. Action with vision is making a positive difference.”- Joel Barker

In other words, we need more than just a vision to make our dreams a reality. Pictures may be worth a thousand words but it’s the actions that count. I like my vision board a lot— it’s me in picture. But how do you translate your vision into action?

When I started researching vision boards I came across many with great ideas for putting one together but few on how to execute them. That’s where the “action” portion of the board begins! From my experience creating a board I came up with these four tips to make sure your board doesn’t become just another photo collage:Be realistic.

While you might have tons of goals in mind life my have other unexpected plans in mind. Do you have a plan to buy your first car, is the price reasonable? Do you have second choice just in case?

Focus

It can be exciting to pick photos of the things you want but it can also make it hard to decide which to choose, leading to a board with too many photos and clutter. There’s no set number of pictures when making your board but you should include enough that it effectively displays your goals and dreams without confusion.

Write it down

I recommend using a small tablet for jotting down steps for accomplishing each goal from start to finish. Remember your board is merely a reminder, it’s more effective to plot out goals in bite-size steps to be successful.

Have fun

It’s your dreams and goals and that means you control how they unfold! Be sure to place your vision board in someplace visible that you visit often and put those steps you create into action.