One of my favorite activities at the beginning of each new year is to create a vision board. Because I choose a new word as my theme, a new symbol and song, a vision board becomes a vital visual representation of what is possible in the new year. I place my completed board in a prominent location so that I can see it daily. The old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words” holds true here. Those pictures not only stir my imagination, they also stir my soul. And the emotions evoked are even more important. For what I feel is more powerful than what I see, creating a compelling intention that flows outward.
I learned about vision boards years ago from Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books and the best seller, The Success Principles. He says, “Creating a vision board is probably one of the most valuable visualization tools available to you. This powerful tool serves as your image of the future – a tangible representation of where you are going. It represents your dreams, your goals, and your ideal life.”
It is simple to create a personal vision board. I think about where I am headed during the upcoming year and what brings joy to my heart and lights my face up when I talk about it. If goals are important, those can be included. I used to add my goals to my board. Two years ago I quit doing that and focused more on where my passions are and what inspires me. Places I want to visit, things I hope to accomplish, people I hope to meet, and areas of my life that I hope to shift all get represented by pictures and words that I clip from magazines or print out from the computer. My trip to Scotland has been on my vision boards for years. Last year, I had the privilege of taking that trip. This year, New Zealand and Italy will occupy space on my board along with a visual reminder that I would love to live in Edinburgh, Scotland part of the year.
I don’t complete a vision board in one evening. This is a process, one I enjoy and take my time with. Tonight my sister Linda and I met at my mom’s house to begin clipping pictures and words from magazines piled in stacks on the dining room table. This is a precious and cozy way to create the future! Because of the frigid temperatures outside, my gracious mom made us all cups of steaming hot chocolate. I loved that she served our drinks in mugs that had the word “Cherish” on them. We chatted as we flipped through pages of articles and glossy photos. We discussed our words for the year, our dreams, and the places we’d love to visit. And we laughed over shared stories and talked about the mysteries of life. It was a wonderfully supportive and fun way to capture our hopes for 2015. Just talking about them created the foundation for realizing those hopes and helped us to define what it is we truly desire most.
We started the process of creating our boards tonight. We will gather again in a few days to clip more pictures and words. Our visions of the future will have sharpened even more and with new determination we will seek that which best represents those visions. I look forward to that shared time and to hanging a new board in my home.
2014 Vision Board
Going Beyond 