Visualization is one of the most powerful tools that everyone can use to reach their goals and achieve success in life. The use of a vision board can increase the activity of visualization through our minds. When we frequently look at the pictures of the things that we want, we will imagine the achievements, the enjoyment and the fulfillment we get from them.
Plenty of highly successful people leveraging on vision boards to achieve outstanding results in their lives, e.g. Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Byonce and Katy Perry, just to name a few. But also Will Smith and Arnold Schwarzenegger at least said, they used the power of visualization to become what they are today.
What is a Vision Board?
Well, I guess you already know, otherwise you wouldn't be here. For the sake of completeness, it’s basically a board of pictures of the dreams and goals you want to achieve in your life. Yeah i know it doesn't really sound exciting, right? But it's much more than just a board of pictures. It should serve you as a source of inspiration and motivation and it's purpose is, to help you focus on you dreams.
Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash
Furthermore, it should help you make use of the so called "law of attraction". According to the popular book The Secret, "The law of attraction is forming your entire life experience and it is doing that through your thoughts. When you are visualizing, you are emitting a powerful frequency out into the Universe."
It's up to you whether you believe that or not. However, Vision Boards and especially the power of visualiziation works and the latter has been scientifically proven.
What should be on your Vision Boards?
If done properly, creating your Vision Board will take some time. Of course you can finish it in a few minutes and that's ok if you exactly know what you want. But if not, it probably won’t reflect the things you actually want in life. So my advice is, take your time, even if it takes several days. Think about what you really want.
I don't want to tell you what you should put on your board or not. It's yours, so put on it whatever you want. But my adivce is, do not focus too much on materialistic things. Yes, they will definitely end up on your board. Try to focus on things that will make you feel good and make you happy, e.g. places you always dreamed about visiting.
Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash
Here's an example. I have a picture on my Vision Board, showing me and my teammates in the huddle right before a flag football game. This photo doesn't stand for winning the game. It stands for friendship and the feeling being in the huddle with your teammates, having fun playing the game you love. And it also means playing this game as long as possible together with this guys. Don't get me wrong, I'm not playing the game to lose it and all the people knowing me know that I don't like to lose a single game.
Why do you need a Vision Board now?
Ok, now that you know what a Vision Board is and how it may help you, let's answer the question why you need it. I've already written a few things and I'm quite sure you already know why you need it, but ut let's put together a few reasons:
1. It is a very profound task
The process of sitting down with a cup of tea and having a conversation with yourself about what you want to achieve in life and what to put on your vision board is informative and emotional. Done properly, it helps you let go of things you thought you want but actually don’t. On the other side, it lets things you didn’t realize were important to you come to the fore. Also, you have to actually spend some energy considering the things you have in life and the things you’ve already achieved. This can be really rewarding.
Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen on Unsplash
2. Learn what you really want
A Vision Board helps you understanding what you really want. But only if you are really honest to yourself. As written in my example above, I placed the picture of standing in the huddle with my teammates on my Vision Board. First I placed it there and added the note, that I want to play a perfect season with them. But the longer I was thinking about it, the more I realized, that it wasn't about winning and having a perfect season. It were all the other things. The time of beeing together, having fun and playing the game. Nevertheless, having a perfect season would still be awesome, but it's not what it's all about.
3. It affects your daily decision making
All the things you put on your board will affect you daily decisions. If you want to travel around the world, you either have to save some money for it or you have to find a way to make more money than you do right now. One way to save some money is to reduce unnecessary costs. Next time when you are out and you feel like you need a coffee right now, think about whether spending about € 5,- or more at a well known coffee shop is worth it? Believe me, quite soon your Vision Board will pop into your head and will affect the decision. It could also be a much cheaper and also sometimes much better coffee right the next door.
And very soon you will be able to tick off one your goals of your Vision Board.
4. It helps you stop procrastinating
As you finally know what you want to achieve and if you take it serious, there is no reason anymore to not do the things that need to be done. Furthermore, you'll soon notice what are the things necessary to reach your goals and what are things you don't need to do, because they are not relevant anymore.
Are you ready to create your Vision Board?
If you now feel like you definitely need to create a Vision Board, then register at GYSD and start creating your Vision Board immediately for free.
Combine your Vision Board with a Bucket List
If there are goals that are really big and you don't know where to start, it may be usefull to split those big goals into several small tasks by use of a Bucket Lists. What exactly Bucket Lists are and how to use them together with Vision Boards, will be part of one of the next blog posts.