There’s an interesting real-life story in the documentary called The Secret which shows the power of a vision board. A man stored a collection of vision boards in his house. One day, many years later, he moved into a different house together with the rest of his family. Upon unpacking their things, his son was playing around with a particular box. The son was adamant about knowing what was in that box. When the father unpacked and started explaining, he realised something profound. On one of the vision boards, he had stuck an image of his dream house. What was extremely fascinating was that he had just moved into his dream house.
Visualization is extremely important. Nearly everything we see was first created by imagination – a car, a house, a phone…When you visualise something, you manifest it into your reality. You are creating your reality right now. That’s where a vision board comes in. It helps you to visualise exactly what you want out of life, and take actionable steps to get to it. Remember, the hows are the domain of the universe. Your dreams should be so big that they scare you.
Here is how to get the most out of a vision board.
1. Sell yourself the idea
You know that phrase – If you don’t believe in your dreams, who will? Here is the practicality of it. You must believe in your ambitions, even though they seem too high to aim at. The first trick to selling yourself the idea is to fully believe that they work. You can acquaint yourself with material on how vision boards have worked for different people. For example, The Netflix Documentary The Secret has plenty of real-life examples that show the power of vision boards.
2. Put your vision board in a visible and accessible place
The main idea behind a vision board is being able to constantly consume its contents. You have to be able to visualise its particulars. To do this, it has to be in a visible place. If you make a digital vision board, you may consider having it as your phone or laptop wallpaper. If it’s a physical vision board, stick it onto your room’s wall or even on the ceiling. Let it be big enough, and in a place that you will be forced to look at it several times a day.
3. Use quotes
Words are powerful. Your vision board should not only have images but also quotes and themes that you want to centre your life around. Quotes are an amazing way to keep you inspired. They can keep you motivated and help you stay focused on your goals. You can pick them up virtually anywhere – movies, songs, words by famous people, your family members… Make sure that they completely resonate with the values that you are chasing and use them to keep you on track.
4. Ask why as well as what
When making your vision board, there has to be a ‘why’ behind your reason for wanting to achieve something specific. This will help you get to the bottom of your motivation, and in so doing help you to focus on what matters to you the most. Ask yourself why you want to buy that car, or get that job, or acquire that money, or buy that phone. Make sure that your vision board makes sense to you particularly and is not just a ‘copy paste’ of somebody else’s dream.
5. Break down your goals into smaller chunks
Yes, you want to own your own multi-million dollar company one day. That’s not too big of a dream to have, but it seems unattainable without actionable steps. Your vision board might have extremely big dreams but it should scare you, by all means. This is important for celebrating your wins along the way. Whether that celebration takes place on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis will depend on your unique aims and the pathway you choose to follow.
6. Feel, don’t just think your way through it
You must have some sort of emotional attachment towards your vision board and its aspects. That’s what makes the dream a reality. As part of visualisation, open your hands and imagine yourself holding that money. Close your eyes and imagine yourself closing the dream car and driving it. In the same way, you must feel your way through a vision board.
7. Don’t settle for second best
It’s a vision board, why would you let anything stop you? You deserve nothing short of the best, and this is the mentality you should have when creating one and implementing steps to get there. If you get a strong feeling that you want to interview Matt Lauer on The Today Show but can only find a picture of your local consumer affairs reporter, leave the space blank!
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