Have you ever made a vision board?
I’ll be honest, the first time I heard of the concept my reaction was that it sounded totally hokey. So if you’re like me, don’t worry. You’re not alone.
And yet today I encourage you to consider it with curiosity.
What do you have to lose?
What is a vision board?
A vision board is a visual representation of your goals and dreams.
(Sometimes it’s called a dream board. Personally, I prefer the word vision to the word dream. You can use whichever word you like best.)
The ideal vision board makes you feel good when you look at it. It represents those things which you aspire to in your heart – they can be accomplishments, material things, meetings with people, or even visual representations of feelings themselves.
For example, here are some things that I have on my vision board, and what they represent:
- A historic house in Mexico City – When I put this photo up, I hadn’t spent any memorable time in Mexico City. Yet I desired to. And I love historic houses. In my ideal future I would own or otherwise have access to a sumptuous historic property in that city, to which I could escape Minnesota winter whenever I choose. The city seems very exciting. AND, while I made this board over one year ago, I now have a flight booked to visit the very neighborhood in Mexico City where this particular house is located – next month!
- A beautiful library – I love to write. And I love to read. I own more books than I have space for, and my next home will have a library.
- Three pictures of tree farms – I love to plant trees nearly as much as I love to buy real estate. My intention is to plant trees everywhere there is an opportunity and a need to do so. In fact, I desire to plant one million trees in my lifetime, so I put those words on my board as well!
- Pictures of me (photo-shopped) sitting with Gary Keller and Tim Ferriss – I have incredible respect for these two people, and words they have written changed my worldview and subsequently my life. I will meet both of them in person someday soon.
- A real estate office with my business logo on it, and the words “Lake Superior.” I will be involved with the opening of a Keller Williams office in Duluth in the future.
- 100 houses – I am visualizing owning 100 properties!
- A picture of a woman’s upper-body, taken from behind, showing lots of muscles – I desire to be strong, and to continue to be strong and healthy as I age.
How do vision boards work?
Vision boards work because, as a coach of mine once said:
The conscious mind is the goal-setter. The unconscious mind is the goal-getter.
If we desire to achieve something, it’s critical to think that through and write it down – that’s the goal. And yet for many of us, writing down the goal is not enough by itself. We require other ways to get the goal into our subconscious and put that part of our brain to work. Images are incredibly useful for this purpose.
How do I use my vision board once I’ve created it?
It’s important to see your vision board regularly. I suggest that you hang it somewhere that you will see every single day. It could be in your workplace, or it could be at home. You might even choose to have two or more boards – one for your professional goals and one for your personal goals. Have fun with it!
Jack Canfield suggests that if you do have separate ones, you place your personal board near your bed and make a practice of looking at it in the evening before you go to sleep. This will help your brain get to work on the methods to attract that which you desire while you’re sleeping.
(It’s also helpful to think positive thoughts before falling asleep, as you are then likely to also wake up with positive thoughts, as opposed to the all-too-common worrying yourself to sleep, and then waking up to the same worries in the morning.)
Is this for real?
Yes. It’s for real. If you’d like to see more on this, go here, or here, or here.
So go ahead. Make a vision board for 2020. And even better, find others who want to do the same and make it an event that you share together.
What do you have to lose?