You might want to also read How a Vision Board Can Lead You To Success, to learn how visualization ‘tricks’ the brain so that your subconscious mind starts to pick up your goals and presents them to you in everyday life.

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There are several methods that you can use to create your personal Vision Board, but remember there are no strict and fast rules. Just let your creativity and the positive emotions when you look at the images, guide you. Don’t worry if others won’t understand it or it doesn’t look artistic enough – the end result is something unique to you, something that means your dreams to you, something that inspires positive emotions in you, so that you will succeed in your goals.

Some Factors to Keep in Mind for Your Vision Board

1. Visual – since our subconscious mind thinks in images, use lots of pictures on your Vision Board. You can add some words, if you think you will get a better affect.
2. Emotional – the images on your Vision Board have to stir up positive emotions in you, and the thought of achieving those goals has to excite you beyond reality.
3. Positioning – when your Vision Board is ready, you have to place it in a place where you can see it all the time. You can even take a photo of it and place the photo in your purse or in your car.
4. Fear of Being Ridiculed – if you are afraid that people might ridicule you and question your dreams, then make sure to keep your Vision Board in a private place. If you want, you can also make a Vision Book – like a Vision Board but on a smaller scale.

Supplies You Will Need

• Poster Board or Cork Board or Foam Core Board
• Magazines – all sorts of magazines that you can get your hands on. Ask around (spas, hairdressers, dentists) for a variety of old magazine issues such as home, gardening, nature, sports, parenting, cooking, money, travel, cars, and so on. Don’t limit yourself to just one particular theme.
• Glue
These are the supplies needed to create a Vision Board the traditional and mostly used way. However, I also know people who find images from the internet, print them in colour on paper or even directly on sticky labels, and stick them onto their Vision Board.

Mental Preparation

Set the mood. Play some soft music, remove any distractions and focus on the task at hand for an hour or so. Before beginning to attack the magazines, start with a few minutes of thinking. Ask yourself what it is that you want in life – what are your goals, your dreams.

Creating Your Vision Board in Seven Steps

1. Making a big pile of images and words. Go through the magazines and tear any pictures, words or headlines that catch your attention or stir some emotions. Don’t think, just rip pictures that you like and place in a pile. Can be pictures that relate to your dream home, car, kids, office, career, clothes, charity work, happy person, career driven people and more.
2. Selecting. The next stage is the selecting phase. Go through the pile of images, and randomly place the images that impact you emotionally on the Vision Board (don’t stick anything yet). Let your intuition guide you – there is no right or wrong answer.
3. Gluing. Once you have your images arranged on your board, then start gluing them in place. Note: When laying your images you can dedicate a theme such as career to the whole board, or you can assign different themes (such as personal, career, travel) to different sections of the board. Experiment with the images till it feels right.
4. Adding Details. After gluing you can add your touch to your Vision Board, by painting on it, writing some words or decorating it. Can add a picture of a vibrant, happy you in the middle of your board. You may want to create a time frame for your goals manifestation (can be weeks, months or even years). Or, if putting a timeframe doesn’t feel right, then at the bottom you might include the date that you created your Vision Board, and next to it leave a blank space for a future date when your goals are achieved. This might give you a sense of urgency to achieve your dreams.
5. Extracting Meaning. After creating your Vision Board you might want to try to decipher the essence of what it is that you want. Can do this on your own, or can involve a loved one, colleague or trusted friend. Might find out things that you weren’t aware of.
6. Positioning. Hang your Vision Board in a strategic location that gives you a lot of visual exposure throughout your life, so it becomes imprinted in your subconscious mind. Don’t let others get in your way of achieving your goals – if there is a risk of others judging you and ridiculing your ambitions, then place your Vision Board in a ‘safe’ area. In addition, you might consider taking a picture of your Vision Board and putting pictures in places such as your purse, your car, and your office.
7. Updating. Your life and your dreams are constantly evolving. So you might find that as time goes by you would want to update some images to match your evolving goals.

Different Kinds of Vision Boards

These are some ideas of Vision Boards that you can create, although you can use a combination of different variations and come up with your own.
• Theme Vision Board – focus on one theme e.g. weightloss or New Year Goals.
• Family Vision Board – create one Vision Board as a family. What are your goals as a family?
• ‘Clear Goal’ Vision Board – very clear about your goals. Focus on this specific thing that you want in your life e.g. want to start your own business, or want to settle in a new country.
• ‘Show Me The Way’ Vision Board – you are not totally sure what you want exactly. You have a vague idea, but it is not 100% clear on how to go about it. Just rip pictures that catch your eye, and paste them on your board (let you intuition and emotions lead in this type of Vision Board). You might get answers straight away after finishing your Vision Board, or you can ‘crack the code’ months after.

Visualization + Action = Success

Vision Boards are creative and fun to do. However, don’t let their simplicity deceive you. The principles of visualization are grounded in science. Hence Vision Boards can be seen as powerful magnetization and manifestation tools that tell your subconscious mind what to focus on and create. These golden opportunities coming your way, combined with massive action, will surely ensure success.

‘The only thing which separated Thomas Edison or Henry Ford from the rest of people in the world was persistence. For both of these great men had an image and they would not let anyone or anything dissuades them – they were persistent.’ Napolean Hill in Think and Grow Rich

If you would like more information on Vision Boards sign up at Christine Kane’s Blog for her free e-book – ‘The Complete Guide to Vision Boards’.

To Your Success

Related posts:

1. How a Vision Board Can Lead You to Success

The other day I had a client who mentioned that she is going to make a Vision Board where she is going to tear different images from magazines, paste or collage them on a poster board and place it in a prominent place where she sees it often, so that she achieves her goals.

I got interested as I already knew the power of visualization for success. So I did a bit of research. Now, I am not going to go into the Law of Attraction that is usually associated with Vision Boards or the documentary movie The Secret by Rhonda Byrne through which Vision Boards gained a renewed interest or The Oprah Show where Vision Boards were discussed. Instead I am going to focus on how visualization can ‘trick’ the brain into thinking it is reality, to achieve the successful life that you have imagined. And a Vision Board is a way of creating this ‘false’ visionary life, so the brain will embrace it as part of your real life, and in a way things start to happen to you.

What Does Scientific Research Tell Us?

Stroke victims, who actually visualize themselves moving their paralyzed limb, have more chances of being successful at eventually moving their affected limb. This happens because visualizing an action, example moving your left leg, and actually carrying out the action of moving your left leg, stimulates the same part of the brain. So with stroke victims who now have a lack of blood and hence a lack of nutrients and oxygen going to the dead brain tissue, the surrounding tissue tends to die too. If on the other hand, this brain tissue is being stimulated by visualizing the action, the blood will still flow to the same area, leading to a more chance of recovery.

More examples of the power of visualization is in sports, where athletes are told to visualize themselves performing their sequence or their jump or their shot, and most often their real performance is similar to how they imagined it. In weight loss, people are told to place a picture of their ideal weight person, in places where they are constantly seeing it – on the fridge , the bathroom mirror, bedside table, car, … Same goes with anything in life – personal or career achievements.

What Does This Mean?

So now, because of the shared area of brain activation when we imagine an action and when we actually perform the action, we can also tentatively conclude that in a way our brain cannot differentiate between our goals (let’s have them as mental images) and real events. We have often heard that a picture is worth a thousand words – the same goes for the brain – an image will captivate the brain’s interest more than writing down your goals in simple words. That’s where the Vision Board comes in.

In addition, we can also see the brain as consisting of the conscious and the subconscious mind, where the conscious mind is what we have control over and the subconscious mind as an infinite storehouse of all our emotions and past experiences. Hence if you create a Vision Board with lots of images – these will become embedded into your subconscious, together with the emotions that the images bring to you. Now, because the images on the Vision Board have in a way become an intimate part of you, since the brain has ‘filed’ those images of the Vision Board in the same ‘filing cabinet’ as your past real life experiences, then you will start finding out that the images keep coming up in real life as real events.

Cognitive neurologists tell us that the brain sees numerous images of the world at once, and our eyes are constantly darting around in a ‘visual interrogation’ process to capture information and create ‘ah-ha moments’ of understanding and familiarization. A simple example is when you are looking to buy a car and you are looking at a particular model, and all of a sudden you start realizing how many of those cars there are on the street. That’s your subconscious at work.

So by having a Vision Board, where you place all your goals and you are constantly visualizing it, it ‘tricks’ the brain into thinking that those images are part of your life. That is why then it feels like suddenly all the opportunities are coming your way – it is because your brain has accepted your goals as part of you, and now it will take simple raw signals and will begin to identify and give meaning to things. Hence you find that you begin to attract new ideas, new discoveries, new thoughts and new events, which if you are determined enough will get you closer to your dream goals.

Click here to read How to Make an Effective Vision Board

P.S. Do you agree or disagree with this article? Post a comment below!

To Your Success

Related posts:

1. How to Make an Effective Vision Board