Vision Boards and O Dream Boards

Since the start of a new year tends to make us reflect on how we spent our last year, and what we intend to accomplish in this one, it is the perfect time to talk about...

Vision Boards

If you have never heard of them, vision boards are a tool you can use to help you visualize your goals.  You simply identify your goals and look for pictures and phrases that help you imagine having your desired outcome.  You then hang the vision board in a place where you will see it often.

The idea behind creating a vision board is that thoughts precede actions, and that you must believe before you can achieve.  

Every time you do something, a thought caused your action, whether it was a conscious thought or not.  If you turn on your bedroom light before entering, even if you did it on autopilot, you thought of turning on that light, and your body then acted on that thought.  The purpose of using a vision board is to put thoughts and images of your goals in your mind, so that your actions will follow these thoughts, whether consciously or subconsciously.    

Seeing images of the life you would like to live also serves to change your belief system.  Instead of focusing on what you don't have or can't do, you are putting the focus on the positive, on having the object of your desire.  A vision board directs your mind towards a purpose with intention.  Looking at the images over and over stretches your mind and gets it used to idea of having what it is that you want.  You need confidence in your ability to achieve your goals, or you will be hesitant to take action, miss opportunities, and stall your own progress.  A vision board is a way to fill your mind with images of success.  

Some common ways to create a vision board are using paper, glue, photos and magazine clippings, or pinning pictures to a memo board.

This is a really old vision board of mine.  It has been hanging in front of my treadmill for ages.  I made it using magazine pictures that I glued to a large poster board. 

As you can see, the main themes in this vision board were love, finding a good career, fitness, and travel.

A really cool resource for creating vision boards that I sometimes use is 

O Dream Boards on Oprah.com.  Once you sign up for free with your email, you can use their templates to create vision boards.  They have a library of stock photos you can use, or you can upload photos from your computer.  You can add text, save, or print your board.  For the past couple of years I have used this to create small focused vision boards.  Sometimes I set one as my desktop background, other times I print them.  Keeping to the new years theme, here is a "fitness" O dream board I created. 

So, have you ever used vision boards?  Did you find them helpful?