How to Create the Perfect Vision Board

Setting and working towards your goals is such an important part of life. However, this can be a challenge! You could fall back into bad habits, lose motivation, and run into challenges you never thought would happen. How do you push through and see your goals be met? One of my favorite ways to do this is through creating an inspirational vision board! Vision boards are such a great tool that actually work. Using one can truly change your life! So today we are going to cover just how to create your very own vision board and use it to its fullest potential. Let’s dive right in!

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What is a Vision Board?

I am so glad you asked! A vision board is a collage of inspirational photos, quotes, and art that motivates you to reach your goals. Each photo can represent a specific goal, or the entire board can! Here is a great article about what a vision board is and how to use it to its fullest potential! For example, you might have three very specific goals: buy your dream home, lose some weight, and go on an awesome tropical vacation. For these goals, your vision board may be filled with photos of beautiful home ideas, people who are incredibly fit, and tropical islands. Then, every time you look at your vision board, you’re reminded of your goals, why you began this journey, and where you want to end up! This might make it easier to skip desert tomorrow or save up some cash instead of going out this weekend.

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Why are vision boards so important?

Vision boards are important for one simple fact: THEY WORK. But, how do they work? By helping you maintain motivation, reminding you of why you started this journey in the first place, help you look for inspiration along your journey, and to re-center your focus when you start going astray.

However, you need to remember that alone, vision boards will not work. You need to put in the hours and actually work to achieve your goals. Use your vision board as a tool and actually look at it each day!

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Nine Easy Steps to Create Your Own Vision Board

Ready to create your very own, personalized vision board? Let’s dive right in!

1. Create a Personal Mission Statement

Your first step in this process is to create a personal mission statement. This is a short, one to two sentence statement that embodies your priorities and purpose in life. This is a great little exercise to help guide you in the right direction and ensure that when you are creating goals for yourself, you can easily narrow down your focus. Learn how to create your own personal mission statement HERE. You can even print it, cut it out, and use it to put on your vision board later on!

Related: How to Create an Effective Personal Mission Statement and Why It’s So Important

2. Set Realistic and Challenging Goals

Now that you have a good direction to follow, begin setting some goals for yourself. Take some time out of your day and really think about what goals you want to reach in the coming year or so. Make sure they are SMART goals (check out this cheap and amazing book on goal creation, it is a game changer!). These goals are the entire reason we are creating a vision board in the first place… right?

Related: Achieve Your Long-Term Goals in 8 Simple Steps

3. Gather Supplies

Now that you have your goals in hand, let’s actually prepare to create your vision board. You’ll need to gather a few simple and cheap supplies before you get started. Don’t worry, I’ve put together a quick list for you to use:

Poster Board
Wall-Sticking Strips
Mod-Podge with Brush
Photo Paper
Scissors
Optional Decorations: Ribbon, Glitter, Craft Jewels

4. Find and Save Your Images

Time to search and track down some motivational images! Be sure you are choosing photos that represent your goals and motivate you to reach them. You can do this by looking through your own photos (tip: family photos can be a great motivator!), cut out magazine photos, or do some simple internet searches. Here are some examples of goals paired with photos you might use:

Goal: Eating healthy, Photo: Fruit and veggies or a cute kitchen
Goal: Graduate college, Photo: Someone in a cap and gown
Goal: Land your dream job as a doctor, Photo: Someone in scrubs
Goal: Save up for a Euro-trip, Photo: Big Ben or the Eifel Tower
Goal: Start a family, Photo: Your family growing up or a silhouette of a family
Goal: Pay off all of your debt, Photo: Something you’ve always wanted to buy
Goal: Get accepted into your dream college, Photo: That college campus

Related: Budgeting 101 – How to Create and Stick to a Budget!

5. Sort Through Your Images and Pick Your Favorites

Now that you have a ton of photos saved and chosen, there is a huge chance they all won’t fit onto your poster board. Now is the time to sort through and choose your favorites. Be sure to keep at least one photo per goal! Once you have them all chosen, print them out.

6. Add Words and Quotes

Next, take some time to search for motivational quotes and words that will help you along your journey. You could also add sentences that specifically state your goals or personal mission statement. These can easily be typed up and printed out, or you can find images with the quotes on them.

7. Cut, Organize, and Paste onto Your Vision Board

Time for the fun part! Cut out all of your photos and organize them onto your vision board. Be sure to make them look presentable! I prefer a very clean look, with square photos that come together like tiles (and I actually insert them into my binder covers, like the one below), while others enjoy a messier look. Just go with whatever looks best to you. Once you have everything in place, glue it all down and go over it with mod podge to ensure it will hold up until you make a new one!

Related: 15 Tips to Keep your School Binder Organized

8. Place your Vision Board Where You Will See it Everyday

Once your board dries, place it somewhere you can see it everyday. Perhaps this is above your dresser or near your desk? You can even take a photo of it and set it as your phone or computer background! Better yet, you can use some of those saved images and make a digital version as well! It is important that you look at your vision board often to maintain motivation.

9. Repeat this Process Often

The final step is to repeat! Once this vision board is no longer motivating you to reach your goals, you’ll know it is time to create a new one. Just start from step one of this post and go from there!

Top Books on Goal Setting

The entire goal setting and achieving process can be overwhelming and difficult. There are absolutely right and wrong ways of going about it and these books have helped me achieve my biggest dreams (and continue to lead me in the right direction today!). I am sure they will lead you on the path to achieving your largest goals in life.

The Compound Effect: Jumpstart your Income, Your Life, Your Success by Darren Hardy

If you haven’t read this book you are seriously missing out. It is a complete game changer and should be sitting on everyone’s shelf. This Wall Street Journal and New York Times Bestseller covers the powerful yet surprisingly simple principle that little everyday decisions will either help you achieve greatness or end up in disaster naturally, and how to steer them in the right direction. It covers how to win at everything, abolish bad habits, maintain motivation and more. It is an absolute must read!

Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals by Michael Hyatt

As the title suggests, this is book covers a phenomenal 5-step plan that guarantees you set and reach the most important goals in your life. It covers tips that help you when you get stuck, how to quit-proof your goals, and so much more. As an added bonus, it is a quick and easy read!

Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr

This New York Times Bestseller explores the secrets of the famous and wildly successful goal-setting system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) that has been proven time and time again to be effective. This system ensures you maintain focus and stay on track until your goals are being met!

Goals! How to Get Everything You Want – Faster Than You Thought Possible by Brian Tracy

This is a fantastic book that helps distinguish the people who reach their goals from those that just dream of having a better life. It then dives into a simple yet powerful goal setting method that is incredibly effective. Tracy also focuses on specific goals in different areas in life, such as finances, health, and family. A fantastic read!

Related: 21 Life-Changing Books You Must Read in Your 20’s!

Goal-Setting Series

This post is part of my goal-setting series. Here are the rest of the great posts included in this blog series (and what order I recommend reading them in):

There you have it! The nine easy steps to creating your very own vision board! I hope you found this post helpful and inspirational. I know that once you create your own vision board, you will see just how amazing it can truly be! Have fun!