For my readers in the United States, Happy Independence Day! For those elsewhere, Happy Monday! To all, welcome to today’s blog. More importantly, welcome to the official second half of 2022. We’ve made it this far. It’s time to assess where we are by doing {read more}
Can you think of one instance in which a second chance would have been great? An interview? A relationship? A career choice? Thinking about these moments, name the top three things you would change before going into the second chance. Preparedness? Deodorant? Self-reflection? Word choice? {read more}
Today is the last day of 2020 and we now have the opportunity to look forward into 2021and all it has to offer! The start of a new year (and even a new month to be honest) has always made me a tiny bit eager. Over the years, especially in college I was one to just want to hurry up and get to the next ‘level’ (as though life was a video game). Slowly but surely this feeling calmed down. Although I doubt I will ever be the type that floats through life, I have been able to appreciate the journey. To become more deliberate in recognizing the process and enjoy the ‘now’ moment much more so than ever.
One of the tools I have used to rein in my restlessness and start living to create memories is: a vision board. Today, I’d like to share with you how I personally create a vision board, why it has been a useful addition to my planning and hopefully inspire you to create one too!
Let’s start with the reason behind why vision boards are useful. As a person who has always had a determined, goal-setting, fast paced attitude toward life, I found myself becoming burnt out. I was achieving consistent results no matter what I set my mind on. Including travel, fitness, nutrition, finance and career but (… you saw that coming right ;)). Once I accomplished my goal, I was not taking the time to look back and appreciate the steps or even acknowledge that it had been done. Instead, I would set a higher goal and try to achieve it even faster than the last. Somehow I kept going at this speed until one day I woke up and realized that with all of my accomplishments I barely ‘felt’ anything.
If you can relate to this – you know how real this strange phenomenon is.
Connection
As is my true nature, I immediately started set goals more related to connecting with myself and my community. I dove deep into spirituality from a new perspective and got to know myself. I stopped using external examples of achievements and success as a foundation and instead did some soul searching.
All of this led me to Vision Boards! At its most basic, a vision board is meant to be a reflection of YOUR own personal dreams for YOURSELF, not based off culture, family or external expectations. And let’s be honest – it can be so fun to sit down and gather pictures or make a digital board!
Okay… so now that you know my story and why I started doing yearly vision boards, I want to walk through the process I take to create one each year.
Write a bunch of words, ideas and phrases down in general on how you want the following year to ‘feel’. Include any thoughts around goals, travel, career aspirations – anything you really want to experience or accomplish!
Select ONE word out of all the thoughts that will be my theme for the year. Selecting just one word can be difficult, so looking up potential words in the dictionary and doing a general google search can help to make sure its the word for your year!
My theme for this year is “CREATE”.
Some other themes I considered were:
Once you have a theme, it is then time to start categorizing all of your other thoughts into focus areas. The vision board queen (Terri Savelle Foy) recommends up to 10 focus areas. This year I am trying something new and only doing 4 focus areas. In the past I’ve done more or haven’t categorized my thoughts and I found it to be more scattered than helpful.
My four focus areas this year are:
Using Pinterest is always helpful to find visuals related to your focus areas, goals and themes. Sometimes I start with this step because it really is so fun! I use Pinterest and my own pictures, while I’ve known some folks to use magazines, their favorite influencers or photoshopped images!
I found a picture from last year’s board creation (so fun!)
YAY this part is where you will either print, cut and glue OR copy, edit and paste depending if you are doing a physical or digital board. This year is the first that I am doing a digital one – partially so I can share it with you and also because I no longer have a printer :-p.
Arrange your board in a way that is pleasing to you!
Now that you have your board put together, it is time to display it in a location where you will see it often. This will keep your top goals, desires and dreams for the year at the front of your mind.
At the end of each month, I check-in with myself and make sure my board is still reflective of what I want, but also to see how far I am coming. This isn’t meant to put pressure on yourself, but to really determine if you are taking action that is leading you down the path you want to be able to experience. Depending on your season of life, your thoughts and goals may be in more flux than other times and it is important not to stick to something that you may have already grown out of.
For example, maybe you tried that new hobby and didn’t particularly like it… time to move on! Or, one personal example… I broke a bone one year which limited my physical ability and therefore I didn’t meet my fitness goal for that year.
<3
Hopefully, this was helpful! It would be great to hear if you decided to make a board this year!
Stay tuned for the follow-up post later in the month, and of course at the end of 2021! I cannot wait to look back with you all and see how far each one of us has come.
In 2023, I updated this post with: THE MOST IMPORTANT thing I’ve ever put on my vision board. Watch my below short to see what it was: