Consider the Possibilities –
Vision Board

Since I included a photograph of my vision board in my post, Choose Joy, yesterday. I thought I’d talk a bit about vision boards.

One of my greatest pleasures is sitting down with magazines and picture books, scissors, library paste, and poster board to create a collage of every picture that jumps out at me. In fact, finding words that I can group together that fit how I envision my life feels so good that I often keep a file of words to play with, using them the next time I revamp my collage.

I hang the collage, best known in personal growth and development circles as a vision board, on my bedroom door. This allows me to see the possibilities that I’m playing with first thing in the morning, whenever I look up, and last thing at night.

Dr. John Waddell, SARK’s beloved fiance, long time psychologist, and Law of Attraction expert, calls vision boards cognitive focusing devices. In his Law of Attraction presentation on WOW NOW, SARK’s program for creatives, John talked about vision boards, visualization, affirmations, and journaling:

They all of them help you focus on your vision….When you do your vision board, you are focusing on what you want. When you do visualization, you are focusing on what you want. Writing is very good because writing things down requires a stronger level of focus than just thinking about them. So, anything you do that helps you focus on what you want, as opposed to what you are feeling a lack of, is going to help.

How I  Use My Vision Board

Putting together a vision board is a time when I can let my creativity and imagination run wild. I choose photographs that excite me. I use meaningful words to reinforce the  feelings I have when I imagine what I want.

In fact, Tolen and I are famous for the New Year’s Eve Vision Board parties we have every year. We invite our friends over for a pot luck dinner and supply boxes of magazines we collect over the year, scissors, library paste, extra poster boards, markers, and so on. We laugh, talk about our hopes and dreams, listen to great music and watch the Peach drop, and focus on possibilities. What a wonderful way to start a New Year! I hope that you adopt this powerful way to celebrate life!!!

Once the New Year is over, it is easy to get bogged down in the mundane details of life and start focusing on the lack of what you want. So, I teach and use a technique called, “Ideal Day,” which is a form of mental rehearsal that reinforces focusing on what you want. A post about how to create an Ideal Day focus tool is on its way!

Vision Boards Are Organic

There are no “rights” and “wrongs” about how to create a vision board. After all, they are a visual interpretation of what you imagine you want. Just remember that your vision may change over time. For example, for the last few years I focused on finding a new mentor. So, much of my vision board during that time featured photographs of teachers I wanted to study with and seminars I wanted to experience. After sampling that life, I made several shifts and knew that my best mentor was me. So, I removed most pictures of others who influence me and put a photograph of me in the center of my vision board. I then decided I want to experience more joy in my life, as I feel it’s a good vibration to create from. I looked for pictures of people, animals, and experiences I enjoy or imagined I could enjoy.  I also looked for my joyful words and included them. I took a photo of my current vision board with my camera in the hopes that the photo will be upright in all posts. 🙂

Summary

Creativity, imagination, and focus are strong components of the actualization process. You can create a vision board and use it as a cognitive focusing device that supports you continuing to imagine what you want. I’ll be writing about how to create your Ideal Day in tomorrow’s blog. Plugging into your vision board and Ideal Day are powerful predictors of actualizing the future you want to create. So, visit the blog tomorrow and see how you can exponentially increase the effectiveness of your focus by using your Ideal Day with your vision board.