Sometimes you take on a project that seems simple but turns out to be fairly difficult for you. This can be a recipe you are making for the first time or a DIY project that isn’t cooperating. For me last week, it was creating a vision board. I saw all of these beautiful vision boards on Facebook that, frankly, could have been considered works of art (they were that gorgeous). I had never made a vision board before but I believe in the concept behind them and thought, “How hard could it be?” It turns out, very! Apparently vision boards are not intuitive, at least, not for me. If you are struggling, too, take heart that you are not alone.
[bctt tweet=”Apparently vision boards are not intuitive, at least, not for me. Here is the best list I could discern for making one! #visionboard”]
Getting Started
I sat down on my living room floor after the kids went to bed armed with:
- Poster board
- Stacks of magazines
- Glue sticks
- Scissors
I had New Girl on Netflix to try to channel my inner Jessica Day and began flipping through magazines. If you read How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions then you know I already had my goals for the years. To provide continuity of vision I was looking for quotes and images in the magazine that represented those existing goals. About thirty magazines in I only had 3-4 pictures pulled out. It was then that I realized I had no idea what I was doing!
Researching Vision Boards
What’s the first thing you do when you want to learn how to do something immediately? You Google it. So that’s what I did. Want to know what I learned?
There is no hard and fast way to create a vision board.
I love lists and specific, defined steps when doing anything new. Those lists don’t seem to exist for vision boards. To help you out, here is the best list I could discern from my research:
- You can use one goal or many
- A vision board is meant to inspire you
- Or focus you
- Or provide visual goals
- It can include quotes, pictures, and objects
- It can be on a cork board, poster board, digital file, white board, or any other visual form
Wait… Huh? So a vision board can be anything made out of anything to focus on anything. Oh… Now I get it. Not! In the end, I decided to go with this Huffington Post article by Elizabeth Rider to use as a guide.
Finishing the Vision Board
My vision board has 4 focal points (one in each corner):
Publish
Business
Travel
Personal Growth
Once I got all of the pictures and quotes on the board, it still wasn’t inspiring. I had to figure out a way to make it something I would want to look at. How did I do that? I added Hello Kitty of course! Once she was on there, the rest of the vision started falling into place. I added flowers for a 3-dimensional pop and glitter because no project is complete without glitter.
The process of making vision boards can be challenging but chances are, you will learn something about yourself whether it is what your goals look like to you or what truly inspires you. I, for instance, learned I cannot be inspired by anything that isn’t pretty. This experience also cemented my belief that Hello Kitty really does make everything better. Have you made a vision board yet? What did you learn about yourself in the process?
See where I’m linking up!