Before diving into this post, I just have to say that I’ve been a bit antagonistic towards vision boards, although I’ve made them plenty of times. For me, the results of creating a vision board have often fallen into two categories: a bunch of feel good platitudes that do nothing for me practically or pictures that remind me of all the things I’ve failed to achieve.
The reason why I keep getting roped into this vision boarding thing is because I’ve joined the programs of other creative entrepreneurs who encourage creating vision boards, so I end up creating a vision board just because it’s part of the itinerary.
But for the longest time I’ve felt that although the process of creating a vision board is fun, it’s not very useful. However this year, all of that changed! So I will be sharing that change here today, and what is actually working—at least for me.
So I hope you find my experience here helpful, even if you’re a vision boarding skeptic (I totally get it!).
By the way this post is also a companion to my podcast episode The Craft of Digital Vision Boarding. So if you don’t feel like reading, you can listen to it here.
So What Is Vision Boarding?
Vision boarding is a method of reaching your goals by giving them visual representation. In the past when there were magazines everywhere, people would cut out pictures that represent their future vision and glue them onto a board until they have this collage of hopes and goals. Then they would hang that board up somewhere they could see it every day. This would be their vision board. I feel kind of weird giving this “once upon a time” description of vision boards, but to be real, it’s been years since I’ve pulled out a stack of physical magazines to create one, and I’m sure my experience isn’t unusual.
But, despite all of that, having a clear vision of what you want in life can make it easier to achieve, especially if you’re reminded of that vision daily.
A vision board can have anything you would like to accomplish as its focus. If you have a place where you would like to go for vacation, you can collect a bunch of pictures of this place and glue it to a posterboard to create a vision board, outlining what you would like to see or visit. Similar things can be done with goals for the year or even financial goals.
You could even create an ikigai diagram and use the results from that to build a vision board that reflects your current life’s purpose. I go deeper into what an ikigai diagram is and how to use it effectively in my post I Used Ikigai to Find the Purpose of My Creative Business. This is What Happened.
Obviously, the focus of this post here is how to create digital vision boards, not physical ones, so let’s go into that.
What Do I Use My Digital Vision Board For?
My current vision board serves a very specific purpose/lifestyle goal, and I think that’s why I’ve been seeing more of the images and words used in my vision board becoming a part of my reality—which is really weird. I’ve never had this happen before.
So the current focus of my vision board is creating a lifestyle that is regulating to my nervous system.
It’s not about reaching numbers goals, hustling more to pay off debt, or doing more in any way.
It’s about building a lifestyle that centers around the things that calm my nervous system. I use my vision board to bring me closer to a way of living that grounds me instead of overwhelms me, despite the challenging reality of life. By the way, my digital vision board is currently set as the wallpaper of my phone screen, so I see it all the time.
What Helped Me to Get Started?
It’s a long story, but basically it’s these two journal prompts that helped me move towards accepting my actual lifestyle that has helped me to create my vision board.
The first prompt is: What kinds of lifestyles have I been trained to admire?
I feel like over my life I’ve been trained to admire lifestyles that are glossy. Fashion, gym memberships, expensive make-up, a perfectly curated home, etc… Even more realistically, I’ve been trained to admire lives that involve having steady work, reliable healthcare, a well decorated home, and some money for going on vacation once in a while. There’s nothing wrong with these things, and I think everyone wants a good job and some vacation time.
While responding to this prompt, I tried to think about lifestyles that feel a bit out of reach and lifestyles that fall into more realistic hopes and expectations. But either way, these are lifestyles that I’ve been trained to admire.
Then the second prompt is: What kind of lifestyles actually regulate my nervous system?
And the answer to this question really brought my true life goals to light.
For a lifestyle that regulates my nervous system, I put down things like journaling, going to the beach and the park, having enough time to take a bath instead of a shower, eating less sugar, allowing myself to take naps, and painting for relaxation. Some of the things on my list were a bit bourgeois, like getting regular massages, but the majority of things weren’t completely out there. Even “buying things way within my means” made it on the list.
So after making this list of things that regulate my nervous system, I used that list to inspire my vision board. And I’ve found that for me, this is the only vision board that is truly working.
For example, on my vision board I have a picture of a girl throwing paint onto a canvas. This year, I’ve started art journaling for fun, something I haven’t done since forever. I also have the words “Clean and Declutter” on my board, and I ended up making the decision that the best thing I can do for myself creatively is to reduce the number of blog posts, emails, projects, etc…that I put out by 80%. Major clean and declutter. I also did a deep cleaning of my studio/office space that really needed to happen.
Also on my vision board for this year are the words “Taking Care of Yourself is Productive.” In February of this year, I managed to finally finish getting my Master Self-care Coaching certification. I’ve been trying to get this certification for years, but kept experiencing blocks in the process.
Just for fun, I added a picture of Sailor Moon to my vision board, although I haven’t enjoyed anything Sailor Moon related in a very long time. Well this year, I was introduced to how to make the most out of Internet Archives, and I ended up coming across these Sailor Moon movies that are currently out of distribution, so that was an unexpected pleasure. And then I remembered, oh—that was on my vision board.
My favorite app for making a vision board is Pinterest Shuffles. It’s quick, easy and artsy. All the words and images needed are easy to find using search, it doesn’t take much skill to arrange the graphics, and once you’re done, downloading it as a phone wallpaper only takes a button click. It’s crazy easy.
Other Hacks, Tips, and Tricks for Creating Digital Vision Boards:
If you want to create digital vision boards to print out, I highly recommend using Google Docs. You can add any image from the internet to a Google doc by copying and pasting. Arrangement isn’t as fluid as with Pinterest Shuffles, but bringing together a variety of pictures from different sources is so easy when using a Google doc—to me the experience is almost as close as one can get to cutting and pasting from a magazine.
I can’t talk about digital vision boarding without mentioning Canva. Canva is great if you would like for your vision board to be a desktop wallpaper. They have plenty of desktop wallpaper templates to choose from and arranging images is very easy.
If you prefer working with paper, you can also make your paper vision board digital. Create it traditionally using magazines, pictures, ephemera, etc…, snap a picture of it, and then set it as your phone wallpaper or desktop background. Done.
Don’t use AI to create your vision board. It has more impact if you let your body and mind pick images and words from a pool of resources. Your intuition and personal taste is an important tool in this process. Don’t outsource it. Also if there is an image that is crying out to be added to your vision board, just add it, even if it doesn’t make sense at the moment. You might discover later that one image added the balance your vision board needed.
Thanks to this process, I now have a vision board that is inspiring and effective, and I hope these tips will help you to create a vision board that actually makes a difference.