How to Make a Vision Board for the Year

Many of us may have heard of vision boards. Some of us may have even attended vision board making parties, but what is a vision board really?

Simply put, a vision board is a tool to help you achieve and manifest your dreams. Whether they be career ambitions, fitness goals, love intentions or travel plans, a vision board helps you get clear and deliberate about what you want to create in your life. Instead of letting another year just happen, be proactive and design the best year yet by creating a vision board.

1. Be clear about the purpose of your vision board

The first step to creating a vision board is to be clear. L’areal Lipkins, author and speaker, says, “Get clear about what you want before you start cutting out pictures. Most people start flipping through magazines for inspiration, but what ends up happening is they start creating a wishlist versus goals they are serious about achieving,” so be clear and specific.

For example, if you want to travel more this year, pick out a specific location and add it to your vision board. The more details, the better.

2. Gather supplies

Now that you are clear on what you would like to manifest, it’s time to gather supplies. Here’s what you will need to create a vision board:

Corkboard or poster board
Glue stick or tape
Images that inspire you. (These can be from magazines, photos or any other items that spark joy in your life).
Scissors

Give yourself enough time to create your vision board and if you want to make it extra cozy, get your hygge on while you work.

3. Get creative

Now that you have all of your supplies, it’s time to get creative. Go through the magazines and search for images and words that inspire you, then go through and get specific about everything else. If you have a charity you want to raise money for or have a favorite podcast you want to be interviewed on, you may need to print out images from online. When designing your vision board, categorize images together or go with the flow and design a vision board that is aesthetically appealing to you. Make it a real art project and let creativity flow through you.

Here’s what works for me: when I design my board each year, I keep three categories: the left side contains images I am currently manifesting, the middle holds images of manifestations I am starting to see come to fruition and the right side of my vision board contains images I have already manifested, which serves as a nice little reminder of how far I have come.

4. Display or detach

After you’ve created a vision board, it’s time to decide whether or not you want to display it or detach from it entirely. Some people prefer to display their vision boards so they can see their goals and be reminded of what they want to create in the year ahead, but some experts recommend hiding it in your closet or under your bed. By detaching and surrendering you are truly trusting that what you want is on its way to you and if it’s not, then something even more beautiful is headed your direction.

5. Feel the feelings

Betsy Pake, Master NLP Life Coach, offers a very important reminder when creating vision boards.

“Vision boards should be less about items you want to manifest in your life and more about things that inspire the feeling of what you want to have in your life. Go through each item [on your vision board] and get in the feeling of it. By this I mean, what would it smell like, look like, sound like? Who would I become with this thing in my life? Hold that feeling. Use vision boards to train your body how to hold this emotion because once you create that emotion in your body, it knows how to move your brain towards it.”

When it comes to creating a vision board, remember that happiness does not exist once you have manifested every image on your board. Instead, our bliss, fulfillment and happiness exists within each and every one of us already.