All aboard for vision boards!
Vision boards provide psychological benefits, sparking hope and serving as powerful motivators.
Imagine hundreds of Lego pieces scattered before you, with no clear image of what they are meant to create. Organizing them by colour or shape might help, but attempting to assemble them could result in a very nonsensical structure. However, if given a picture of what the Lego blocks are supposed to build, piecing them together becomes a much easier and more comprehensible task.
Vision boards work the same way. Careful selection of unambiguous ambitions, such as those pertaining to a career, travel, or relationships, is an essential part of a vision board. This places a clear image of a desired dream in the mind’s forefront, allowing you to work backward from your end goal and determine the steps needed to achieve it.
As the new year offers a clean slate for many people, this valuable tool sparks hope for setting new goals and establishing an improved lifestyle by using it as a reminder of one’s priorities. A collection of images and objects, equipped with words or symbols that evoke feelings of inspiration and motivation, are arranged onto a board—physical or digital—to manifest the specific aspirations.
The concept of manifestation has recently gained popularity on social media, which is the idea that you can attract your ambitions by simply thinking about them. With more than 51.9 billion views under #manifestations on TikTok alone, social media users have been promoting the creation of vision boards to manifest their dreams. However, achieving your objective is unlikely to occur by simply whispering them into the universe or sleeping with them written on a piece of paper under your pillow.
Vision boards are not magic. When paired with hard work, they are the foundation that boosts your confidence to achieve your goals. Think back to the Lego blocks example: having a clear image of what the blocks create helps ease putting them together. But they will not magically assemble themselves simply because you know what the end goal is. The manual is still needed to build the final structure diligently. This part is often overlooked as social media users display their aesthetic collage of magazine cut-outs and quotes written in calligraphy without focusing so much on the effort it takes to accomplish the visualized successes displayed on the board.
Hence, vision boards are best kept as a motivation to avoid losing sight of what your aspirations are for the new year, helping you recognize opportunities as they appear and work toward your goals. Studies in the Journal of Creativity in Mental Health show that vision boards strengthen a person’s self-efficacy by empowering them to put effort into creating their desired lifestyle.
This visual reminder is often kept somewhere often seen, such as on a mirror, so it is the first thing a person sees every morning, or in a particular room that is used frequently. As mentioned, vision boards can be digital as well, making the wallpaper of a computer an ideal place to keep it. The sky’s the limit when it comes to designing your vision board, and the new year serves as the perfect time to let your creativity spill over into the journey of fulfilling wishes.
