Introduction
“A picture is worth a thousand words.” How often do we become accustomed to this adage that it became such a cliche to many of us? However, this immortal saying is the ultimate maxim that most creative professionals follow through and the underlying principle they apply to many creative outputs they make. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words because scientifically speaking, the meaning of an image is much easier to comprehend which is just a split nano-seconds than written words which you can only understand after you read it in like one to a couple of seconds or even a minute. Thus, a picture is so powerful that it can create possibilities beyond the limitations of our understanding.
What is a Vision Board?
A vision board is an organized collection of images or words that inspire and help you to take an action and pursue your goals or dreams. It is essentially a collage of pictures taken from magazines, posters, and books that invokes a feeling of motivation to be consistent with your goals and gives a mental picture of the desired outcome of achievement or realization.
The practice of creating a vision board is synonymous with the popular book “The Secret” and its concept of the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction states that the universe responds to positive affirmations and inner desires of an individual and the universe will realign the possibilities to materialize those desires in a form of consistent visualizations. According to this book, the mind is very powerful that it can somehow reshape reality to its advantage by tapping into the practice of visualizations of the desired outcome and repeated words. It teaches us to visualize our goals as if it is already achieved so that the individual will feel a motivation to make a way to materialize that goal by invoking the feelings of possessing or experiencing that goal.
It is a board of any specific materiality or size that can be hung in a wall or be pasted on a sturdy background filled with images or quotes that are pinned in a cork surface and creates a coherent theme that illustrates the goals and dreams of an individual. The images are picked according to the emotions that you feel when you see that image and creates a subconscious joy and satisfaction that can be torn and pinned on the board. The images vary and have no specific rule or standard in size or category that one can follow in making a vision board, only the limit of your imagination. The visualization of these images creates a subconscious desire to attain that goal and dream and serves as a motivation to achieve it with positivity.
The Purpose of a Vision Board
A vision board is a tool that reminds us of our goals and dreams in a visual form. It is a collage of pictures that were pasted or pinned on a board that can be hung or put somewhere we can easily see it every day.
This board creates a quick mental note that carries an emotional impact every time one sees it. A vision board also serves as a memetic device or that tool that people utilize to aid them in memorization, the board serves the same purpose except that it is a collection of images rather than a list of words or numbers.
The board also serves as a quick map of what you want your ideal life to be like and how to achieve it. It shows what lifestyle or environment we want to live in in the future when we achieve our goals without the limits of financial or social limitations. Because we can easily get a bigger picture of our dreams we can now have a hint on the specifics of what that lifestyle would be like from the objects we want to buy to the dresses or a kind of house or place we want, this tool is indeed a helpful way to achieve future success.
The practice of creating a vision board is popularized by MLM or Multi-level marketing companies. Because this type of marketing relies heavily on word-of-mouth advertising and recruitment, the recruited members are coached to do goal-setting by being motivated to sell a product and to practice visualization by making a vision board. This creates an atmosphere of a support group system that not only promotes financial independence but also the improvement of other areas of life as well like relationships and health.
Types of Career Vision Boards
A vision board can illustrate anything that you want your goal can be, like images of the car, people, or places that inspires you to achieve but if you have a specific profession that you do every day you might as well create a separate career vision board for your inspiration.
Entrepreneurship Vision Board
This vision board is for the business owners or would-be proprietors to aid in achieving a boost in sales and other business goals and plans. It is usually composed of images of checks or cash, people buying a product lining up in a store, or a clear picture of a return of investment. You could be someone that wants to launch a business venture someday, you can start by collecting magazine article images of the type of business you want to make or the pictures of successful entrepreneurs you are inspired to imitate. Nevertheless, owning a business is a popular goal for many people nowadays.
Fine Art Mood Board
It’s not surprising that visual artists already had a vision board because they are already doing that long before creating dream boards became popular. Most visual artists are also visual learners meaning they are apt to respond effectively to images rather than auditory messages or sensory experience by touch. For painters of many sorts, you can build a unique vision board of the art movements you are inspired to make from renaissance frescoes to post-modernist designs. You can also include pictures of your favorite modern artists and their work, you can also pin some magazine images of the galleries you want to showcase your pieces into.
Culinary Vision Board
For people who long to be an executive chef, a vision board would be helpful to achieve their aims by continuous study and practice. You can include images of the chefs that inspire you and their achievements, one can also include the pictures of the international cuisine you want to make for your job, a place for recipe cards would also be a nice addition to this board. For people who want to open a restaurant someday, include a menu list that you want to make, the dishes that inspire you, your favorite style of the restaurant interior, or a picture of the city where you want your restaurant to be built.
Interior Design or Architecture Mood Board
Interior designers and interior decorators are prized for their skills to create an aesthetically pleasing and practical space for their clients. Aspiring designers should root on images that convey what sort of style they are specializing in, what type of spaces, and individual pieces they want to include in their projects. Same with the visual artists they can also include pictures of art movements that inspire their interior spaces from classic-traditional to rustic-bohemian to modern-minimalist, these images help them achieve their goals in their career.
Teaching Vision Board
The academe is full of striving teachers that hones the minds of young individuals that in the future will be a thriving city. Making a board of this sort can be fun and inspirational. You may include some inspiring educators and philosophers of the classical world, a quote from famous writers, a picture of busy children hungry to learn. You can also be personal with it by including a photo of your family and friends, things that relax you, your goal vacation, or whatever your heart desires. The important thing is that you value your goals and you are setting out in the world to achieve them.
Crafts Mood Board
For people who are doing crafts and sell them on online markets like Etsy, products like bracelets and figurines are considered collectibles. Your goal may vary from time to time but making vision boards can be fun if it aligns with your career. Add some magazine images of things that you want as a potential additional product, inspiring stories of successful designers and their businesses, new materials that can be utilized to create a new product. The sky is only the limit of your imagination, feel free to be creative.
Science Vision Board
For aspiring scientists, a vision board can be helpful to flesh out ideas and theories and test them to achieve success. You can include images of your favorite scientists you consider as a hero in your chosen field, diagrams of formulas to easily solve a problem (students of science degree programs can benefit from this as well), images of scholarship programs you want to apply to in college that houses your dream laboratory space and images of books that inspire you to write about your scientific findings. Goals that include evolution in science change over time as the race for scientific discovery and invention of new devices rises every year.
Literary Inspiration Board
Modern writers are always evolving as new generations of writers continuously reinvent some genres and produce new ideas and subjects in writing. For writers be it fiction or nonfiction, it is essential to root an inspiration to some of the successful writers from different eras, your board must be a reflection of your writing style, you can achieve this by creating a collage of the specific genres you are interested in, are you a mystery novel writer? A cyberpunk science fiction short story writer? Or a young adult post-apocalyptic drama novelist? Pin some clippings of your favorite book titles and their writer and you can be inspired to achieve your literary goals.
Graphic Design Vision Board
Graphic designers like traditional visual artists create artworks that can be categorized by style and form, but unlike traditional art, graphic designers create works that can be reproduced for commercial and promotional purposes. To be successful in this field, pin some inspirational color palettes that you like and can be used in your projects, another is some of your favorite typographies, you can also include annual design trend inspirations for your next projects. You can also pin some of the types of logos or creative processes that inspire you to improve your creative craft. You can also create a digital vision board that you can create in Adobe InDesign and make a wallpaper that fits your laptop or mobile screen.
Fashion Mood Board
For creative fashionistas and designers, you can start by collecting images from your favorite fashion magazines. If you aspire to create your own RTW clothing line in the future, be bold by getting inspiration from the annual fall/winter collections of your favorite fashion brands. For designers of haute-couture, pin some new fabric combinations that inspire you, color palettes that create themes for individual collections, and also some images of your modern fashion heroes from different fashion capitals of the world like Milan and Istanbul.
Spirituality Vision Board
For New Age spiritual warriors, be it Wicca or Neo-Hellenist you can also benefit from making a vision board and achieving your spiritual goals. You can pin some images of your religious practices, pictures of your ultimate spiritual goals such as enlightenment or nirvana, images of your favorite spiritual figure that inspires you to achieve your goals. Nevertheless, a spiritual vision board is filled with inspiring images that give an emotional impact on your being by reminding you of achieving your material goals that in parallel with your spiritual goals. New age spirituality has many practitioners around the world and continuously evolving through time as the rise of technology changes the face of traditional beliefs as well.
Steps on How To Make a Vision Board
Decide On What Board To Make
First, decide on what type of material you want to make as a base for your board. A corkboard is a popular choice for the materiality of making vision boards as it is cheaper to buy. You can also decide the specific size of your board that fits your needs as you envision the contents of your board. You can also buy some pins for your cork to pin your images and cutouts. There’s a whole lot of variety to choose from on your pins like metallic pinhead ones or the traditional plastic head one that suits the office standard. I suggest that you choose a much thicker and sturdy cork to prevent wear and tear in the future because over time the pinning can damage the cork surface and the adhesive can wear over time and make your cork surface uneven.
Another material that you can use is a magnetic board that has magnetic pins. It is also expensive but easier to maintain. Magnetic boards also allow you to easily move and arrange elements quickly to your desired overall look, no fuss, no muss. If you are a techie and the busy type and have no time to construct a traditional vision board, in this modern age you can now create a digital vision board online to remind you of your goals. Apps like Corkulous for iOS devices and Jack Canfield Vision Board app for Android devices can now be easily downloaded for busy people who want to attract their dreams.
Decide On The Emotion
A vision board can invoke a sense of feelings from a collection of images. This also varies from personality types, a choleric one can invoke strong motivational emotion. For melancholic types, conservative but quiet realizations can occur, phlegmatic variants can experience a sense of peace motivation, and finally for sanguine types invokes a loud and almost manic elation. Whatever you decide, emotions aid in the fulfillment of your goals, so if you choose images that don’t match the emotions that you want to experience while looking at your board you will not feel motivated to achieve your goals.
Decide On The Theme or Concept
Every vision board has an overall theme or concept, if you have already tackled this in your early creative process then it’s going to be easy on what images to choose to include in your board. You can decide on your theme such as: minimalist, bohemian, colorful, Asian, avant-garde, futuristic, high-fashion, 90’s inspired, black-and-white, or classical. Your over-all concept unifies your visual aesthetic and defines your unique personality as you go along. Themes also help in creating visual stimulation to your eyes because a convoluted vision board with contrasting themes is an eyesore. A unified theme helps to create a single direction or goal for your board and defines your lifestyle and what do you want to achieve.
Collect Elements
The first thing to do is to do a quick research of what you want to put on your vision board. This step will help you to decide on what images you want to put on your board. The internet is a powerhouse of inspiration for your board, you can have a quick Google image research and download images that you feel you must include in your board. Another thing is you can research on Pinterest for inspiration. Pinterest is a really powerful app that caters to a lot of images that you can choose to inspire you of creating your board. It is easier to find images by typing your chosen theme too.
Collect The Items
Now that you are done with your research, you can now start to collect your images. Buy some magazines that have the type of images that you want to pin or take it from what you already have in your possession. You can cut or tear the pages that include your dream goal and put them aside. A quick tip is that choose the images that evoke strong emotions to you to achieve a goal instead of just tearing pictures that you think just look good on the board. There is no time frame for collecting the items that you want. You can spend a whole day, a week, or even a month if you like, the important thing is to collect the images that spark your soul and are important to you and not just pieces that just fill your board but don’t ring a bell to you.
Categorize Each Item
Before you decide to pin the images on your board, categorize first the items based on what you think is similar in the category. One example is, separate the images of people, then images of objects such as gadgets or accessories, places that inspire you such as beaches and mountains, artworks, book covers, movie posters, or ads. For written words, you can also segregate the quotes that inspire you or print an abstract word that best describes your goal such as Freedom or Love and you can place it in the central part of your vision board and it can serve as your mantra for achieving your goal.
Assemble The Board
After you collect and categorize your items, you can now start assembling your board. Start with the central part of your board, this will serve as the core of your vision board and it is also the part that you will see the most. That is why this part should be the most important section of your board. You can put a large main image that represents your main goal, you can also put a word or a quote that serves as your mantra to inspire you for the day or an image of the person that you admire the most that will motivate you to enhance your skills. Next is the surrounding sections of your board, put in there the things that support the core of your vision board. The technique is to work from the inside out. Finally, check your board and see if it fits your overall aesthetic.
Put The Board
The last step is to put the board! Put it in the place where you see it every day to remind you of your goals. A well-lighted wall is a perfect place for your board, you can also put it on the desk of your office or in your bedroom, what’s important is that it speaks to your goals.
Conclusion
What is a vision board? It is a tool to remind you of the desired goals that you can visualize by looking at it every day. Creating a vision board is easy and fun and helps you to achieve your dreams by working harder and smarter.
