From Vision to Fruition: Vision Boards!

I first heard of the concept of a vision board from some friends in a personal development group I have attended. These women described how they had cut-out pictures, drawings and words related to the things they wanted in their lives, or the people they wanted to become and had pasted them onto a board, be it a piece of cardboard, a foam-board or a cork-board, hung the board in their room, and after a year or more, noticed that everything on that board had materialised in their lives in some shape or form.

I was amazed by this yet somehow it seemed pretty logical; the law of attraction does state that we attract into our lives anything that we give attention to, regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Thus the more I focus on my dreams, the characteristics I’d like to see in myself, the principles I’d like to live by, and things that inspire passion and energy within me, the more likely I am to attract these things and manifest my deepest desires into reality.

One such friend had put the continent of Africa on her board. She is extremely passionate about Africa after spending some time working on a refugee camp there a few years ago. Ever since she returned she has been desperate to go back there insisting that her heart lies in Africa and nowhere else. She specifically wanted to go to Uganda and Kenya so she designed her board to make those places a key focus. Within a few months, she was in Uganda. Out of nowhere, she had received a large sum of money from tax returns which funded her trip to go. She couldn’t believe it! Nor could I, really!

Kenya came into the picture even more magically. This woman has been applying for jobs for nearly two years now. She is determined to work in politics, conflict resolution and/or humanitarian aid in Africa. In January this year, she was losing hope. She couldn't face any more applications and rejections yet she didn’t know what else to do. One afternoon a friend and former colleague, who works for the Commonwealth, told her of a job opportunity in Kenya and urged her to send her CV. At the time, she didn’t think much of it, why would this be any different to the hundred or so applications she had done over the past two years? She eventually sent the CV, after her friend called her up and pushed her into it. Needless to say, she got the job and spent two weeks working in Kenya as an observer for the political elections this year!

Energised by her story and the many others I decided to create my own board.

I started out by flicking through a bunch of old magazines (Psychologies, Marie Claire, Yoga Life...) and cutting out anything that evoked a positive emotional response from me. At first I had words such as, happiness, power, spirit, create, balance, smile, imagination, adventure, sparkle. I found myself getting creative mixing and matching words and ended up with some phrases which really speak to me, and the stage that I’m at right now in my life, “No Limits”, “Throw out the Rule Book”, “Let it Be”, “You can”.

    

Get Snip Happy!

I gleaned as much as I possibly could from these magazines, mainly text, and then moved on to images. None of my magazines had anything that inspired me visually so I pulled out my laptop, thought of things I really want in my life, brainstormed images that I knew would trigger powerful thoughts around those things and searched for them on Google. 

For example, one of my dreams is to be a performing singer/songwriter. The words ‘sing’, ‘perform’ or ‘song-writer’ have little effect on me, even a picture of someone singing would have little effect on me but I knew a microphone at an angle that looked like it was inviting me up to the stage to sing would trigger thoughts of me on stage performing. That’s what I needed. The more I can visualise the scene and tap into the feelings I would have in realising my dream the more energy I am putting out to attract that in my reality. 

Another one of my dreams is to live in America so for this, I printed off an image of the map of USA. This was an easy one. ;)

I also want love and romance in my life. How could I best represent that? I brainstormed on that and eventually ended up with a variety of colourful images of couples who are in love, from a couple walking hand in hand on a beach by sunset to a couple kissing and are clearly leading into foreplay. I emphasise the word colourful as the more colourful the images are the more alive and vibrant they are. It was all about finding the imagery that would activate feelings of being in love, of being in a relationship.

Once I had images of every dream printed off I spread them out on a piece of white cardboard, pulled out my scissors and glue and got creating!

Pasting Images                                              

It can be particularly powerful to choose an inspiring environment and atmosphere in which to create your vision board. I decided to do mine in a bright sunny, spacious room that overlooks a garden full of flowers and the ocean. I considered playing music that inspires me too but chose to go for a peaceful setting instead.

Rather than finish it in one sitting, I gathered words, phrases and images over the course of a few days and did an hour or so of pasting onto the board when I felt drawn to it. This is what worked best for me as it allowed me to mull over it in between times and sometimes led me to add different words or images and scrap others.

I plan to place my board in my bedroom as I spend a lot of time there and it is a bright, happy space for me. It’s best to strategically place a vision board in a location that gives me maximum exposure to it so that the subconscious mind is constantly immersed in its energy which will lead to the realisation of dreams in a shorter space of time.

Overall creating a vision board has been such a FUN experience for me and I am even more excited to see how these things become a reality!! If my next blog post is from America don't be surprised ;)

Almost finished product!