Creating a Vision Board for Mental Clarity and Motivation
A new year is starting and this year you are probably hoping to again grow and improve in one if not several areas of your life. Previous years might have started with good intentions, and yet some of (or many) of your goals have remained “unticked” on your list of achievements. What was it that has led to this unsatisfying result? Some struggle with slow or invisible progress. Another group of people might have just been too overwhelmed with other things that required more of their attention at the time. For many, it is a weakening of resolve over the passing months.
None of these reasons are a sign that you are bad or weak. To me, it only means that you could benefit from additional tools in your toolkit to keep yourself on track.
One very helpful tool that many find useful in sticking to their goals and getting frequent reminders to stick with them are vision boards.
What is a vision board?
Source: Color made Happy https://images.app.goo.gl/JjvC8qvfKckGoKAV6
A vision board allows you to keep focus on what your future could look like through pictures and slogans. It can be a collage of things that visualize how “success” would look like for you, or can represent things that would indicate to you that you are on the right track. The picture above is an example of a vision board. The person who created it collected a wide variety of representations of what happiness looks to her. She created this board by cutting out pictures and words from magazines and then sticking them on a poster cardboard.
So why is this so powerful?
We are very visual beings. That means that information conveyed to us through our eyes is easier and faster to process and bring to our consciousness than through some of our other senses. A visual reminder can make certain concepts or ideas more “real” to us, thereby helping us to remember them more easily. Research has shown that visual reminders can help to improve motivation (Rawolle, Schultheiss, Strasser, & Keh, 2017). It is normal that we don’t hold all our goals in the front of our minds at all times. How else would we be able to go through our daily life, if we weren’t able to focus on anything else than our long-term goals. But to help yourself regularly remember what you want to achieve, a vision board can give you sporadic nudges to bring your long-term goals back to the forefront of your consciousness. This can increase the chance that you take action towards those goals, thereby making reaching these goals more likely! Makes sense, right?
Here is how you can do it:
The way you can approach creating a vision board can be up to you. Some people start looking through materials and put things on the board that they like, others start thinking about themes and goals first. Whether you prefer to do it the one way around or rather the other, is up to you.
You can create boards digitally, and then print them out through programs like “Canva” and with the help of a library. Alternatively, you can look through magazines and newspapers and cut out parts to glue on a piece of cardboard.
There is no wrong way to do it. The goal is always that you end up with a (possibly, for you visually appealing) poster you can hang up somewhere where you can see it.
Some people enjoy creating these boards with friends. They arrange a vision board-crafting party and then spend time together creating a motivational representation of what they hope their year will entail. This can be a fun afternoon for you and your friends.
I hope you are now inspired to create a vision board for this year. In case you are struggling to come up with any goals or would like a bit more help sticking with your already existing ones, I am available for coaching sessions. You can find more information about prices and options here in English and here in German.
References:
Rawolle, M., Schultheiss, O. C., Strasser, A., & Kehr, H. M. (2017). The motivating power of
visionary images: effects on motivation, affect, and behavior. Journal of Personality, 85(6), 769-781.
Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash
Margaretha Madoures 