I know. You spent hours looking through magazines, finding words and pictures to put on your Vision Board. But now that it’s all together, none of the items on it manifested for you. You’re starting to question the value of Vision Boards and starting to ask what do I do when my Vision Board fails?
Why Vision Boards Don’t Work
So what should you do? First, we need to determine why it failed. Did you define your goals or just put pretty pictures on the board? Are you using words and phrases that you don’t connect to? Did you put pictures of things that would please other people but not you? Did you determine your learning style to figure out if pictures or words are more important to your Vision Board?
If you didn’t work on any of the above, then we need to do some troubleshooting to get you back on track.
Redefining Your Vision Board
Making a Vision Board isn’t about slapping some pretty pictures on posterboard and calling it a day. There is more planning than those involved.
Goals. First, you need to define your goals. And I’m not just talking about decided that you want a big house or a fancy car. It’s time to determine what you truly want out of life. If you’re looking back on your life when you’re 90, what do you want to have accomplished? Is having a specific career more important to you or is family? Or is it some combination of the two? Then what are the steps you need to accomplish in order to get to your goals?
You can review some of my previous posts for help with the goal planning stages:
How to Plan Goals for Next Year and Beyond
Learn How to Plan Your Goals Better
Learning Style. Another key piece to making a Vision Board that works is knowing your Learning Style. If you are an Auditory Learner, then creating a Vision Board that is mostly pictures isn’t going to work for you. You’ll need to incorporate Affirmations and written goals onto your Vision Board.
And someone who is a Tactile Learner needs to have things to touch or manipulate on their Vision Board. Anything that makes your board interactive, like doors or flaps that need to be opened, will meet your need to learn through doing.
Take this Learning Styles Quiz in order to find out what’s the best Vision Board for you and suggestions on how to make your Vision Board better. Should You Have a Vision Board gives an overview of how to use your Learning Style to create a better Vision Board for you.
Content. Now that you know your goals and your Learning Style, it’s time to looks for those words and pictures that support those goals. Keeping in mind your learning style, remember that while a visual learner will always benefit from a Vision Board, there are ways to make it work better for other Learning Styles.
An auditory learner will need more affirmations and written goals to read. A tactile learner will need to manipulate the Vision Board either through doors and flaps or different textures to run their fingers over or even by creating a Portable Vision Board.
Putting It All Together
Now that you have this information it’s time to recreate your Vision Board so that it will work for you. But don’t just slap pictures down. Since your first Vision Board wasn’t working for you, you need to take a little time with this one. Find a place you can layout your Vision Board and then leave it overnight undisturbed.
You will place all your words, phrases, and pictures on your Vision Board but don’t glue anything down yet. Instead, walk away. Don’t look at it again for another day or two. When you come back, look at it and determine if your new Vision Board actually makes you think of your goals and what you need to do in order to your goals into reality.
If it doesn’t, time to look at it critically again. Do you have too many pretty pictures that aren’t specifically showing goals? Are your words and phrases specific to your goals or so generic that they don’t have real meaning to them? Since nothing is glued down yet, you can easily remove them and replace them with something that does connect to your goal.
And don’t forget, if you can’t find the exact words and phrases, specific written goals, etc., you can easily create them on your computer and print them out to add them to your Vision Board. Once you’ve finished tweaking it in this manner, then it’s time to glue it down.
Once you’re done, don’t forget to place it where you can see it every morning or before you walk out the door. Look at it, look at your goals, read your affirmations and quotes. This is your visual reminder of what you’re working towards. Remind yourself every day before you walk out the door.
I hope this helps you to create your best Vision Board, the one that will work for you and your goals.
