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How to Create a Vision Board: a Beginners’ guide

It’s the beginning of the year. Motivated by new energy, you set up your goals, thinking about all those things you want to accomplish.

But somehow, life happens, and you reach the end of the year without having achieved one single goal (and you’re really tired).

You feel frustrated, defeated.

Did something like this ever happen to you?

It sure happened to me. Several years (2020 doesn’t count, does it?).

I used to start my years with a renovated energy and the aim to accomplish my most profound dreams, and then December came and I was depressed.

Worst thing? I felt so frustrated that I thought I would never be able to accomplish anything in life.

If you’ve felt somewhere near this (it doesn’t have to be so dramatic), this article is for you.

Disclaimer: Some of the links on this post are affiliate links. That means that if you make a purchase through any of those links I will receive a commission at no additional cost to you (learn more at the privacy policy section).

Having trouble to set and achieve goals, to design a path to success and actually walk it, come up with a plan, and get things done, are some of the most common challenges of this century.

But don’t give up! There are easy ways to achieve this. You just have to follow the steps.

One of the main ways to be successful at all of these is having a vision board. Vision boards are proven tools on the road to success.

Whether it’s for your business, career, relationships, a vision board is a wonderful tool that’ll help you visualize and come up with a plan to accomplish and exceed your goals.

In this article, you’ll learn how to create a vision board that actually works step by step, without spending hours on Pinterest, (because guess what? I’ve done it for you).

What’s a Vision Board?

Motivation isn’t everything, but it’s certainly a boost to your daily work routine. Even for non-work stuff.

Whether it’s for working out or saving money, having a source of motivation can really make the difference.

A vision board is a visualization tool that serves as a motivation to achieve your goals.

Visualization has proven to work extremely well when it comes to accomplishing. According to Psychology Today, “the brain is getting trained for actual performance during visualization.”

Vision boards are used by athletes, business owners, and all kinds of professionals.

And although there have been some debates on whether they work or not, they’ve proven to be successful (but only if you’re willing to put in the hours and effort that your goals require).

Although some may think vision boards are collages with beautiful pictures, they’re more than that.

A vision board is a really powerful tool to set your mind up for success. It serves as a reminder of why you’re doing what you’re doing. And this is really helpful especially when you’re tired or don’t feel like making the effort.

The vision board’s purpose is to boost your energy and trigger your work.

How? By showing you your goals in life and recreating the emotions that you’ll feel once you’ve accomplished them.

This is really helpful, especially when you don’t feel like making things happen, or when you lose your will.

A vision board is a reminder of purpose. It reminds you of the reasons why you do what you do.

Read also: Want to Incorporate New Habits? These 4 Golden Rules Will Help You

And that’s not all. Vision boards also take you to how you’ll feel when you get what you want.

But not every vision board works. A vision board is not a magic place where you put all your dreams and they suddenly come true. You’ll need to be dedicated so those dreams actually happen.

For a vision board to work, you need to put a lot of yourself.

Types of Vision Boards

Vision boards can be digital or physical. Your choice will depend on your personal lifestyle.

You’ll be more inclined to digital if you spend most of your day on your laptop.

On the contrary, if your routine includes a lot of walking around, you’ll choose the physical options.

But let me tell you a little bit about both options so you make an informed choice.

Digital Vision Boards

For those of us who weren’t born with a knack for crafts, there’s fortunately another way to do it (don’t you feel lucky for being born in the last couple of decades?).

No, seriously, for those who love digital art or prefer things to be digital this way is probably best for you.

You can create a vision board online for free. If you want to make a vision board online, you can choose between various options.

One of them is to download a vision board app. You can also use online vision board websites.

If you’re more of a creative, you can also do it by yourself with design software like Canva, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.

Even in PowerPoint. Just make sure you like to look at your vision board. Remember that its operation is based on being a visual tool.

Physical Vision Boards

Physical vision boards are the most traditional.

The good thing about physical vision boards is that you can put them in a place where they’re visible to you most of the time.

Like your office, room, kitchen, wherever you spend the most productive hours of your day.

They might take more time to build basically because it’s faster to get digital than physical stuff. But if cutting magazines and making collages is fun for you, a physical board is probably the best option.

The type of board that you choose will depend on your skills for crafts, along with how it works best for you: do you work with computers and screens all the time? Maybe it will be helpful to have it as wallpaper on your computer.

Also, you could have a physical vision board, then take a picture and also have it on your screen. Or the other way around. Have a digital one and then print it and put it somewhere you see it.

Remember that having it on sight will help it serve its purpose.

How to Build a Vision Board Step by Step

When building a vision board, the main concept to keep in mind is that this will be a visual stimulus that’ll motivate you to work hard for what you want to accomplish despite your willingness or motivation in a certain time.

So to start, make sure you have enough time to delve into the task of creating a vision board, and also that your mind is relaxed and ready to focus on this for a while.

Let’s dive deep into how to make a vision board that actually works (without losing the entire day scrolling on Pinterest).

Step 1: Sit down and think about your goals

As much as you’d like to start with the fun part (that would be gathering or cutting pictures and playing with color palettes), you’ll need to take a significant amount of time to think.

Don’t just skip this step, because what you do at this stage of the process is what’s going to define your vision board.

This step is fundamental to the “that actually works” part of building a vision board for success.

And if you do it wrong, having a vision board may not work at all to help you achieve your goals for the year.

You may be asking “Ok, so what should I think about?”

Well, vision boards have different elements. But they all come to the same: it’s about things you want to accomplish in every stage of your life.

Some of them, are related to:

• Career
• Education
• Relationships
• Health
• Beauty
• Workout
• Money
• Possessions
• Habits/productivity/screen time

And the list goes on.

Take time to think about what you really want to achieve this year. And it could go from deep and life-changing goals to something more trivial.

Think about everything. Don’t leave anything out. Don’t think you need to come up with only transcendental stuff about what to do with your life. You can also think about those smaller things you want, too.

Maybe you’ve worn the same clothes for the past ten years and want to change your entire wardrobe.

Or maybe you’d feel better if you had a renewed workspace. Or you’d like to take a nap once in a while.

Those things are important, too. Because it’s related to what you want.
Just make sure you put them through the filter: do I really want this so much that I’m willing to put an important amount of energy to achieve this?

Because, you know. Your vision board is not a wishlist.

It’s an actual place where you’ll set the goals and objectives that you want to achieve, and you’ll need to take action for that to happen.

Write everything down.

Also read: The Power of Now. A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment – Eckhart Tolle

Step 2: time to filter

After you finish writing everything down, read everything on your list and think about why you want that.

Believe it or not, thinking about the reasons will help you realize whether you really want that or not.

Important! Don’t try to put everything you’ve always wanted to do in life for this year, in this vision board. Remember that these goals require tasks that need to get done, and that you’re the person that will carry them out.

So the thinking and structuring part of the process is key both for establishing your real goals and also for taking out those that weren’t that important at all. Or maybe they are, but you’ll leave them for next year.

Step 3: Mood part of the vision board

Although this is not a mood board, feelings, and emotions are relevant.

Visualize yourself having achieved the things on your list. How would you feel? Write down those emotions, because that’ll help you understand not only what you want, but how you want to feel.

Also read: The 5 Chairs TED Talk by Louise Evans

Visualizing accomplishment feelings and emotions will be a real boost, especially in those days when you don’t really want to work and feel down (ahem… Autumn).

Step 4: Gather what you need

You can let yourself fly here. There are no rules when it comes to choosing materials for your vision board.

It will depend on what you like, the way you structured your goals, and your willingness to spend time gathering pictures and photos.

Once you know which your goals are, and what you really want for this year, you need to find visual representations of those things.

Images that lead you to that place so strongly that you feel as if you were already there.

So let’s set an example: if you want to finally be able to travel to Japan this year, find things related to Japan. Pictures of Japanese food, a map, a photo of Tokyo, etc.

If you did the first step right, you won’t be spending hours scrolling on Pinterest. Just look for what you need, not everything.

You can grab magazines, print pictures that you like, do some lettering, use old postcards, personal, friends, and family photos.

Here’s some guidance on what to include in a vision board:

• Pictures of places and family/friends/self photos
• Quotes from books or movies you love
• Photos of people you admire
• Motivational quotes
• Art & lettering
• Pictures of your favorite movie scenes
• Other elements you find relevant

When you choose pictures of yourself, make sure you pick the ones where you like how you look, or the mood you’re showing.

For physical vision boards, you’ll need scotch tape, glue, and those kinds of stuff. For digital, just the app, website, or design software of your choice.

Remember all of these things will trigger different feelings and emotions that’ll set the tone for you to channel a set of actions thta’ll take you where you want to be.

Step 5: Build your vision board

There are as many ways to organize a vision board as people in the world.

You may choose to frame it and hang it somewhere, or you could select a place in the wall, and separate the elements by section, e.g.: work, relationships, travel, home, career, finances, etc.

You can also use magnets on a whiteboard. Think about it and let your mind flow. Here are some tips:

Organize your vision board: find the logic in your plan. What would you want to do first? And which feeling is associated with that goal?

Place them together, so you automatically relate that goal to a certain emotion or feeling.

Don’t be chaotic. Follow the less is more rule.

What do you think will happen if every time you see your vision board, you find disorder and chaos? Your mind will behave according to that. And your goals and objectives may get lost (in my case, if I want chaos, I have my own head for that, so I don’t need to replicate it).

Step 6: Put it where you see it every day.

Ok, so you’ve done your work, and you got an awesome vision board that will help you achieve your goals and grow.

Now, you may be wondering “Where should I put my vision board?”

Whether it’s digital or physical, the vision board has to be somewhere you can see it. It doesn’t need to be visible all the time. But make sure you see it at least once a day.

That’ll help you set your mind for getting things done to achieve your goals. To do what you need to do and work hard towards your objectives.

That way, at the end of the year (or whichever period of time) your vision board will actually work, and you’ll go from:

“I’ve always wanted to… (sigh)”

To actually having accomplished all those things. And that will motivate you to set new goals.

Also, share it with other people. You could talk to people in your circle and encourage them to make their own vision boards.

Then, you can all share it and motivate each other.

Ask others how they’re doing with their goals. Talking about it and sharing failures and successes will make you feel that you’re not alone in this.

Finally, leave space for life to happen. Not everything in life has to be planned. There needs to be room for spontaneity.

Change of plans often leads us to accomplish our goals sooner and better.

Vision board checklist

So, to sum up, here’s a vision board checklist:

1) Sit down and think about your goals: with time, and a relaxed and focused mind, think about everything you’d like to accomplish in the different aspects of your life, such as career, education, relationships, health, beauty, money, etc.

2) Filter: read everything on your list and think about the reasons why you want that. Eliminate and prioritize. Does this really have to be this year? Can I come up with a plan for all this?

3) Mood part: Visualize having achieved those things on your list, write down those emotions.

4) Gather the materials: Choose the materials you like for your vision board. Pictures, photos, quotes, relevant objects.

5) Build your vision board: Find the logic and don’t be chaotic.

6) Locate it in a visible place: You need to see it every day.

Vision board ideas

I promised you that I would give you ideas so you don’t have to scroll your life down on Pinterest.

Here’s a little collection I’ve prepared for you, trying to include examples of everything that I talked about in this article.

Physical Vision Board Examples

Look at this one, separated in sections, with cute lettering.

This is very original! If you prefer to take it in your notebook, for example.

This has an amazing set of lights, both eye catchy and inspiring.

I liked this one with envelopes and different kinds of elements. Very clear, also.

This one is awesome. Look how organized it is, and in a small space you can include lots of categories.

For the simple people: Only text, very organized and clear.

This one’s stylish. Organized and minimalist. And I liked the plants around, they bring an interesting touch.

This one with the inspirational quote in the center, so you don’t forget the purpose of everything.

I like this framed one, with different pictures and lettering.

An interesting color combination, you get peace only by looking at it.

Look at this one, how they wrote with big signs the important goals, like “Zero debt.”

Digital Vision Board Examples

My advice is that you start with a simple vision board. After some weeks you’ll start experiencing the benefits of having a vision board. Then, you can make your vision board more powerful.

If you liked these ideas, follow me on Pinterest. I love creating boards about self-development, productivity & habits, and more.

I recently created this board about Goals & Purpose you might want to check out:

Vision boards: FAQs

How do I organize my vision board?

You can organize it as you want, but keep to the basic ideas:

• Organization: find the right logic for your elements.
• Less is more: be minimalist, don’t overcharge your vision board because if you do, you’ll feel overwhelmed.

What should a vision board include?

Vision boards include pictures, relevant quotes, family, friends and pet photos, and other elements that take you to the place where you want to be and the feelings and emotions you want to experience.

Where should I put my vision board?

A vision board can be digital or physical. Locate it in a place where you can see it often, without even thinking about it. Remember that your vision board serves as a constant reminder of why you do what you do every day and helps you work hard towards your goals.

Do vision boards actually work?

Yes, they do, because their goal, as it’s explained above, is to set your mind up for success.

But they’re not magical tools, you definitely need to work hard and get things done.

Vision boards work because they help you visualize what you want and visualization is a powerful tool to help you get up and do what it takes to accomplish what you dream.

Encourage people around you to make vision boards to set their minds up for success. Share this article!

Do you have a vision board? If you do, here’s a little challenge: upload it to Pinterest and tag me or leave the link in the comments and I’ll save it in my Goals & Purpose board 🙂