Creating Your Vision Board

The Single Diaries Step-by-Step Guide to Vision Board Building

Growing up it was a tradition in my family to spend New Year’s Eve writing down our individual and family goals for the coming year. We’d meticulously tick through all of the important topics—health, travel, education, career… until we’d exhausted our lists. I kept my list in an old school notebook while my parents captured theirs on a loose piece of paper they’d pin up on their bedroom mirror. At the culmination of our list building we’d pull out our list from the year before and check off each of the goals we’d successfully completed.

As time went on our list-building exercise evolved into vision board building. Rather than simply tucking our goals away on paper that drew little attention throughout the year, we captured them with pictures glued to a poster board. My parents kept the board posted up so we could see our goals every day. The idea was that the more we saw our goals, the more likely we were to see them realized.

I always loved this annual ritual of ours especially revisiting the prior year’s goals and seeing how many things and seemingly, magically, come true. Books like, The Secret, and even Oprah Winfrey preach the practice of vision board building… attributing the “magic” that helps our goals come to fruition to a physical law of attraction that draws what we put out into the universe back to us. In this case, the act of putting our goals into a vision board is the act of letting the universe know what it is we want to attract.

Towards the end of college, I picked back up my family’s tradition and began building my own vision board at the beginning of each new year. Though it takes some planning ahead, the practice helps me start my year imagining all that is possible and getting focused on making it happen. And surely enough, every time I revisit previous boards I see that most of my visions have come true. Call it magic, the law of attraction, or whatever you will, I do believe there is power in articulating, capturing, and keeping your goals in front of you that allows them to actualize.

Intrigued? Read on for The Single Diaries’ guide to creating a vision board of your own.

What You’ll Need

– List of Goals

– Magazines & Scissors

– Poster Board & Rubber Cement

How to Build It

Step 1: Be Clear on Your Goals

Write down your goals for the New Year. Be thorough and specific. Really think about what it is you want to focus your year on. Avoid generalities like “Look like a super model” or “Win the Lottery.” Make your goals ownable and personal to you. For more tips on writing your goals, check out Catherine’s Guide to New Year’s Resolutions.

Step 2: Capture Your Goals with Pictures

With your list of goals nearby, open up your magazines and begin looking for visuals and words that depict your goals. Let your imagination run free and remember that images don’t need to be literal translations of the words you’ve written down. Cut out whatever speaks to you whether or not it makes sense at first. This step of exploring images is important because it helps you’re wheels start turning. As you’re cutting out pictures you’re also taking the first step to mentally engaging in making your goals come to life.

Step 3: Lock Your Pics in Place Use your rubber cement to stick your cutouts to your blank poster board. Don’t feel that you need to plan your collage out to perfectly before you begin gluing. This is another opportunity to let your imagination run free and to go with what your naturally drawn to. You may be surprised how things make sense of themselves when you aren’t trying to hard to force them together. If it totally isn’t working out, rubber cement is great because it allows you to easily remove pieces and re-glue them to the page with no damage.

Step 4: Take Your Vision Board In

When you’ve completely covered up your board with visuals and words, take a minute to breathe in your creation. As you look at it, ask yourself if it captures all of the goals you’ve written on your paper. See if there is anything that is missing that needs to be added. Then let yourself reflect on it. See yourself accomplishing all of your visions in the coming year.

Step 5: Set it and Forget It

The last step is to set your vision board up somewhere you can see it every day. Then forget about it. Yep, I said forget about it. The idea isn’t to study your vision board in detail every day burning your goals into your brain and carefully crafting specific plans to make them happen. The idea is for your vision board to be a reminder that you have intentions for the year and that you are putting forth the positive energy needed for them to come true. This might seem counter-intuitive but it helps open up different ways for your goals to come to life in ways that you might not initially be thinking of. When you’re too focused on one path or way that things will happen you could unintentionally be closing off windows of opportunity. You might think you want to take a vacation to Africa, but instead you might be offered a chance to go on a service trip there. The reality is not exactly as you may had imagined but still a reflection of your goal. Makes sense?

Step 6 (optional): Pin It to Win It

Ok, there is one more little step (or the first step for those of you who prefer digital!). Share the inspiration for your vision board on The Single Diaries Pinterest page. We want to see your visions come to life, so pin to win the best in winter hair survival (valued at $250). Let the universe bring your dreams to fruition, and let The Single Diaries provide the products that will get your mane ready for the good to come. Click here for full contest information.