How to Make a Vision Board
A vision board is a collage of pictures, words and ideas to help illustrate your vision for the year ahead. It can be a helpful artifact, especially for visual learners to see an overview of their goals and wants. I’ve always wanted to make one of these, and have finally decided to make one for the first time. In this article I’ll walk you through how to make one, and my own personal process.
1. Write up a list of 10–20 things you want to accomplish this year
These could be big things, small things, ideas, quotes, places. This part is broad and in your control. I set a 10 minute timer and made my list on my notes app for this step.
2. Find your images
Head over to pinterest or even google images to find pictures or quotes that represent your goals. If you are making a physical vision board, look through old magazines and newspapers for inspiration.
The images don’t have to be literal images of your goals. They could spark a feeling or an idea. They could just be pretty images that you enjoy! That’s the cool part of a vision board, it’s all about what you see in the images.
Save the images or print them out if you are making a physical vision board.
3. Arrange them as you see fit.
Drop all of the images into a google slides or powerpoint presentation. Figma or inDesign are also great tools to create a vision board. I’ve even seen people make less “collage-y” versions in Notion. If you are making a physical vision board, take out your paper and start tearing, cutting and gluing those images on.
I decided to group like images together for mine and have them all overlap. I also added a couple of words that I want to define my year.
4. Keep the vision board somewhere you can easily access or see every day
Mine is currently on a Notion board that I visit every day! You could print it out and put it on a cork board or put it on a wall in front of the toilet that you sit on every day.
5. Reflect on the activity
I always encourage reflection on any activity. Did you enjoy the process? What might you change about it? Would you do it again? Just a couple of questions to ask yourself.
I found this exercise to be really satisfying, partially because I love all things collage. I also think it’s a neat way to be able to visualize your goals. It’s also important to acknowledge that goals are constantly changing, and what I want now might not be at all what I want at the end of the year and that’s OK. I also think that if you feel that you don’t have specific goals right now, you could fill the board with things you like and want to surround yourself with this year to help you feel grounded. Vision boards are typically made at the beginning of the year, but I could see this being a quarterly thing for me.
This was a fun activity and I would definitely do it again!
