If you want to be balanced and operating at your highest vibration, I think creating a vision board is one step you can take to move toward that in a tangible way.
What is a vision board?
A vision board is a visual representation of what you want out of life and for yourself in terms of career, personal life, relationships, etc. It’s a visual articulation of how you want to exist in the world, what you want out of life, and what you want to accomplish.
You may be thinking, visualizing something is not going to make it a reality. Why should I even do this? And yeah, that’s true. But I think creating a vision board is worth the time for a few reasons.
Why you should you create a vision board?
• One, you can use a vision board process to listen to yourself. Coming from a place of love, asking yourself what is it that you want to accomplish or how you want to feel, what do you want to create in your life.
• Two, I think making a vision board can help you stay motivated and recommitted to my goals. There is psychology research (I’ll put links in show notes) that shows visualization can help you feel more confident and help motivate you toward reaching a certain outcome.
• Three, it’s an amazing feeling to look back and realize that you’ve put in the work and created what you wanted in your life. I’ve created vision boards in the past. I remember creating a vision board a few years ago, finding pictures that represented earning a PhD and eating a vegan diet, and here I am.
I truly believe there is power in taking your dream or your vision out of your head and going through this process because it puts it out into the universe. AND you’re admitting to yourself that this is what you want.
That’s why I want to share my current vision board process with you. I expect this process will evolve and change as I grow in my spirituality. But right now, this is the exact process I am going to follow to create my new vision board. Going to create a vision board after I’ve turned in everything for this semester. I put it on my calendar, and I am going to do this process, maybe have some tea, combine it with a little at home mani-pedi, some meditation music.
I’ve broken down this vision board process into 3 steps.
Step 1: Do a Brain dump.
This should be a written or typed brain dump where you stop and take a moment to think about what you want for yourself. No judgment, write the first thing that comes to mind, don’t consider if it “realistic” or not. I do this digitally. Do it in Word, on your phone, or write it in your journal.
But yours could be written in a journal. I like to limit it to accomplishments in the next two years. That way it feels more immediate for me. It’s less overwhelming, and I can tell if I’m making progress along the way because I know, 6 months into working toward this, I should have something to show for it at this point.
Start by writing paragraph where you describe your ideal self in detail. Think about:
If you could wake up tomorrow and be your ideal and best self, what would this person sound like?
What would she think about? What would she not think about?
What habits would she have? What habits wouldn’t she have?
For me, this would be someone who is living a balanced life, committed to sticking to an Ayurveda lifestyle, practicing yoga and other spiritual practices.
Following a routine, exercising consistently.
Practicing meditation and deep breathing to feel more relaxed and at peace.
Journaling.
Keeping space neat and clean.
Feeling creative and doing more design.
Disciplined with working AND taking breaks.
Not drinking regularly, if at all.
Feeling confident enough to work consistently toward things that scare me in terms of my career and as a scholar.
This is the type of person I’m working toward being.
So, really think about who you are trying to be and write out the first thing that comes to your mind. Take about 5 minutes or so.
Next, I like to write out bullet points and describe my vision based on different areas or segments of my life.
Segment into areas: Career, Personal, Social/Relationships. I encourage you to do whatever segments make sense for you.
2. Make it visual and easily accessible to you.
Make it visual and put your vision board somewhere that is easily accessible as a reminder of what you’re working toward and to keep you motivated. You can create a physical or digital vision board. Or you could even do both.
Create a physical vision board, use posterboard and use magazines or print out pictures. Choose pictures that correspond with your vision and hang it up on your wall in your office or bedroom. You could paste the images in your physical journal or notebook. Print out a bunch of pictures.
If you want to create a digital one, like me, you have a bunch of options. You can make it on Pinterest. Create a new board and name it 2021 Vision Board or something. Pin things that correspond what your goals and vision that you laid out in your brain dump. Link to content from Pinterest. For example, if you want to buy a house, do search on Pinterest on home buying tips. If you want to start practicing yoga regularly, pin some articles about a regular yoga practice.
You can keep it simple and make a vision board in Word or Canva. Post images that correspond with your brain dump.
Whatever format you choose (physical or digital), you want to make sure that your vision board make it accessible.
Physical – put it up somewhere around your house. Office, bedroom, on the refrigerator.
Digital – If you do make your vision board in a Word document, link to it on your computer desktop. You can put it in your Dock is you have a Mac.
Take a picture of your physical or digital vision board and put it on your phone home screen via a widget.
3. Last thing you’ll do, make a plan and follow through.
It’s easy to go through this process and stop at #2. You get all the good feelings of thinking of yourself accomplishing these things, but it’s harder to take strides and actually put in the work.
But I encourage you to plan out how you’re going to make your vision a reality. Break them down into smaller goals and put it on your calendar.
So, the last thing is to break down your vision into action steps and do the work to bring your vision to life.
FREE Daily Self-Care Plan: https://herguidedevolution.com/plan
FREE Journal Prompts: https://herguidedevolution.com/4
