Ep #18: How to Create a Vision Board

Unlock Your Life with Lori A. Harris | How to Create a Vision Board

Do you have things that you would love to do, be, or have someday in the future? Do you find yourself dreaming about these things but not knowing where to start in getting them? These dreams are important nudges and clues to your heart’s desires, and a great way to bring them to life is through a vision board.

It is said that 1 in 5 small business owners have used vision boards as a way of creating their business. And of those small business owners, 76% indicated that they had achieved all they had envisioned on their board.

In this episode, I’m showing you how to create a vision board and why doing so can help you bring clarity to your dreams. This powerful tool can help you realize what you are longing for and bring it to life, so I’m showing you how to learn what really lights you up and take action to make something happen in a way you didn’t know you were capable of.

If you’re enjoying the podcast, I’d love to hear from you! Please share the show with a friend or even better, leave a review to ensure others can benefit from the podcast.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

  • Where to start when it comes to creating a vision board.
  • How a vision board can help you build your dream life.
  • Why it is not enough to simply “want” things in your life.
  • How to tap into your subconscious and see what you truly desire.
  • Some tips for creating an effective vision board.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.” James Allen.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast. We are continuing to talk about the power of ritual and harnessing the power of ritual to bring our dreams alive. This week we’re talking about vision and vision boards. Let’s get it going.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast, a podcast for highly successful visionary women who want more out of life. If you feel that ache of unfulfillment in your soul, you’re in the right place sis. Join life mastery consultant Lori A. Harris as she teaches you how to stop living for others and finally put yourself first. Let’s dive into today’s show.

Hey there, hey. What are your somedays or your one days? Are there things that you catch yourself saying to yourself that you would love to do, be, or have sometime in the future. One day I’d like to do this. Someday I’m going to do that. Do you listen to yourself and your self-talk? Because those conversations that you’re having with yourself or with your friends that these phrases just roll out of your mouth without thinking are really important nudges and clues to your heart’s desires.

So this week I’m happy to report that I reconnected with a dream and a vision that I’ve had for a very long time. When I was a young girl, and I’m talking sixth grade, I had a dream of living in the mountains because it reminded me of happy times when I lived in the upper peninsula of Michigan. I have since reconnected with that dream and made welcome the means to have that dream a reality in my life.

So I’m really excited about it because I took action and I made something happen or made it welcome in a way that I didn’t even know I was capable of. I will tell you more about this new venture that I have coming up really soon, but I completed a transaction this week. I’m thrilled to be able to share it in my community. More information will be coming soon. Stay tuned.

So we’ve been talked about the power of ritual and using the power of ritual to create a life we love living. Dream building, dreaming to have a life that brings us life. We’ve used various tools along the way. Last week we talked about the power of using a journal.

All of our work here in this community is about building greater awareness, self-awareness, so that we can be, do, and have the life that we want to have. All of that comes from noticing our thoughts, exploring, interrogating, and being deliberate about the life that we’re living rather than just going through the motions or putting in paces or just doing the same thing repeatedly over and over again without thought.

So journaling as a sacred ritual, journaling as an altar was an exercise in self-exploration so that we get accustomed to checking in with ourself.

So this week we’re talking about the power of vision. We’re talking specifically about employing the tool of creating a vision board. The very first time I did a vision board was with my dear friend and [inaudible] and colleague from college, one of the first people I met when I went to college as a freshman many moons ago. Her name is April Wheaton.

A few years ago, April was a newlywed, and we were having our own little mini reunion of the handful of black women who went to my college. So we all got together, and we were going to church together. At this particular church service, April shared that she had a practice of doing a vision board. I, at that time, wasn’t familiar with vision boards. So she showed us her vision board and talked about the impact it had had on her life and how it was surprising to her that it was very fulfilling and satisfying. So that was her reason for wanting to share it with us.

April, to her surprise, reviewed her vision board and found that most of the things that she had put on her vision board had become part of her reality, part of her life. Including getting married and meeting the love of her life and traveling and engaging in the kind of work that she wanted to do. All these things had happened, and some of the things were even surprising to her. Because she worked with the vision board. She created the vision board. Then she went about creating her life.

When she returned to the vision board and revisited it, she noticed that wow, a lot of these things have already happened. That was her motivation for sharing with with us.

Now it’s said that one in five of all small business owners have used vision boards as a way of starting and creating their business. Of these small business owners who shared that they created a vision board and used a vision board as part of their startup of their organizations, 76% of those small business owners indicated that they have achieved all of their visions on their vision board. It is a very, very powerful tool, which is why I’m sharing it with you today.

So how do you do it? How do you get started with doing a vision board? Well, first what you want to do is gather magazines or online images of things that interest you. You want to use these images of things that you’re attracted to and affix them to a board. Literally glue them to the board.

It can be as eclectic and heavy laden as you want it to be, but the point of this is to gather actual pictures to help you form an image of what it is that you would love to have in your life, love to make welcome. So what we’re doing is developing a greater clarity on what you would love.

So the first thing in any vision exercise is just to allow yourself to notice. Allow yourself to notice what’s on your mind. What are you thinking about? What would you love to bring in? What are you longing for in your life? Like I said at the top of this episode, I had been longing for a while to have more nature in my life. Return to the woods. So what are you longing for? What is it that you would love to make welcome in your life?

Then look at those areas in your life where you notice there’s some discontent. Perhaps you don’t exactly love your living space. Then look for things that light you up that are more in alignment with the living space that you would love to have. Don’t love your bathroom? Cut out pictures of bathrooms and look at what is it about these bathrooms that really light you up? If there is a vehicle that you’ve noticed out on the road and you’re like, “Oh, I would really love to have that vehicle.” Slap that on your vision board.

Now what you want to do is have images that bring clarity to your vision. Clarity to what you would love. So you know that when we’re talking about creating a life that we love, the shorthand that we use is four quadrants. We have health, relationships, what we’re doing for work, and what we’re doing with our time, and what we’re doing with our money. Time and money freedom, work, relationships, and health.

So think about it this way. You want good health. If you were to describe the kind of great health that you want, it’s not enough to say, “I want to have vibrant health. I want to be strong in my body and have a strong back.” What are you going to do with it?

So perhaps you see yourself riding a bicycle and doing yoga. So perhaps you would cut out images or silhouettes of people doing yoga. Or with your great health, you see yourself doing things with your family. Having adventures with your family.

It’s not enough to want great health. You want to form a picture within yourself of what you’re doing with this great health. Put yourself inside the frame of this photo. Put yourself in it. Allow yourself to know what good health feels like and what you’re doing with it.

Now if we’re going to move over to the area of relationships, what is it that you want? Perhaps you’re not in a romantic relationship right now, but you would love to have one. So what would you love? Allow yourself to have a whole vision. Pour everything you want into this vision. Let yourself have clarity.

So maybe you don’t know exactly what the person looks like that you want to have this beautiful relationship with, but you can find lots of images of silhouettes of people. Allow yourself to think of, “I’m in a beautiful romantic relationship.” Build a picture where you allow yourself to really think of a beautiful relationship.

What are you doing? Are you going on hikes? Are you walking along the river? Are you walking in Paris? Are you on the gorgeous bridges? What would you do if you were in a beautiful relationship? What would that look like?

Think about your relationships with your family? What kind of activities would you see yourself having and doing? Maybe you want to have gorgeous and fun family gatherings. So you cut out photographs of people at family gatherings. Maybe they’re on picnics. Maybe they’re around the Thanksgiving or a holiday table.

What other kind of relationships would you love to have? Perhaps really strong colleagues and team building or fun friendships, great girlfriends where you go on girls’ trips and do fun things. Have lots of adventures. Maybe just sit around and watch TV and play board games. What would light you up in the area of relationship? Cut out pictures that support that vision.

So here’s how you’re going to get started. You’re going to gather lots of magazines and then set a timer. Cut and gather images from all these magazines or from the internet, and cut out things that you seem attracted to, that spark joy. Maybe they’re things that make you think of travel, and you cut out those images.

So give yourself a time limit, maybe 10 to 20 minutes just gathering information, gathering images. Then the next 30 to 40 minutes, spend that time affixing these images to the board. See what you’re really attracted to, what lights you up. Put everything down.

Try to get some real specificity so that you have a clear image of what you would actually love. So rather than just cutting up a picture of a plane, maybe you can find images of a specific place that you would like to go. If you want to go hiking, find images of the locations that you would love to explore. So you can build on these images so that you get a clear picture of what it is that you would love.

Then after you’ve assembled your vision board, then you want to stop and reflect and take stock. What has your subconscious mind revealed to you? What are you learning about what you’re longing for and what areas of your life that you’d love to improve? So maybe there’s some areas of discontent and you discovered more clarity from the things that you cut up and affixed to your board. So do that and work with your board.

Now the beauty of this, this time that we’ve been creating rituals, is you can combine all of this together. So let’s say that you did do the journaling exercise. You could even take images from your vision board and add them to your journal. You can combine visioning with your journal activities to have it be more reflective of what you would absolutely love. You can do these things as part of your daily practice.

So when you check in with yourself on your regular mindfulness practice, and perhaps you’ve created a journal as part of this month of activities. You’re doing the journal and the altar. You can bring them all together and work with your vision board on a regular repeated basis. Check in with it. See where your vision board is and where you are in relation to achieving that.

If you’ve said you would love to have greater health and you noticed that you put yoga or running or playing soccer on the board, then check in with yourself. Say, “What am I doing to support this vision? Have I done anything to bring that about?” Ask yourself, “What are some of the things that I could do that would support this vision?” Perhaps you can come up with some ideas that would bring that about.

So come up with a set of ideas. Pick up ones that are the best ideas. Then act on them. You’ll find that your vision will be coming to life not by just passively cutting out pictures and leaving them on the board but staying in touch with the vision and reminding yourself, “Oh yeah, I love that. That really does light me up. What could I do? Who do I need to call? What can I do to bring this forward?”

Make it little. Make it tiny. Make it easy. What could I do in the next five minutes that would be likely to help me bring that vision about? Maybe if you’re talking about in relationship, maybe you could check out going on an online dating site or calling all your friends and saying, “Hey did you know I’m ready to start dating again.”

Maybe you could find a meetup group that has something to do with your health goals. Let’s say you said, “I really would love to be stronger in my health and I love playing tennis. Let me see if I can find a meetup group where I can play tennis.” You never know. Maybe you’ll find someone that would fulfill the relationship quadrant and find a really, really good friend.

So the point is allow yourself to learn what really, really lights you up. What is the area of desire? What is the place in your life that has a need that’s not yet being met? Cut out the photos. Assemble the photos. Make your vision board. Then work with it on a regular and repeated basis.

Let this be an experiment, and then check in with yourself every 90 days or so. Say, “Hmm, how am I doing with this vision?” I guarantee you will have more life revealed to you by merely checking in with yourself and allowing those visions and dreams to come alive.

Well that was episode 18 of the Unlock Your Life podcast. This week we were talking about vision boards and making a vision board as part of incorporating ritual into our own lives and creating a sacred practice. We learned that we can combine our visioning and vision boards with our journaling activities? We can even bring it to the altar, and it can be part of our mindfulness practice.

The great way to get in touch with creating a vision board is to set a timer, allow yourself to gather old magazines or images from the internet, cut out the ones that light you up, that spark a little bit of fire, excitement. When you feel that excitement, that’s a thing that you might want to go towards. Cut it out, assemble your board. Don’t take a whole lot of time with it. Let yourself move through it intuitively. Then review what does your board have to say to you?

Then keep in touch with your vision board asking yourself, “What’s one thing I can do within the next few minutes that would bring this vision to life? How can I move this vision forward?”

I thank you for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you have enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Or even better go to loriaharris.com/podcastlaunch and leave a review. You can find all the instructions on how to leave a review at my website. I hope that you’re enjoying the show and getting a lot of value from it. Give me a review. Even if it’s not a five star review, I want to hear what you think. Let me know what I can do to make this show even better just for you. It’s your life. Make it a great one.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you want more information on how you can transform your life and do it quickly, visit loriaharris.com. See it on the next episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast.

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