The concept of a vision board has never really appealed to me. I've had a couple problems with them:
1. Hippie-Dippie-Meditation Stuff: Staring at a board of pictures and visualizing myself attaining those goals seems weird. I've never been a meditation person. I just can't sit still and stay focused to meditate. (This is something I need to work on. I know. I'm looking into it.) I'm just not a very cerebral person. I'm much more of a doer than a thinker.
2. Materialistic - I also had this idea that all vision boards consisted of pictures of mansions and expensive cars. Silly material possessions that people were obsessing over to give them motivation to work hard. I'm lucky enough to understand that money and possessions do NOT make happiness. Sure, those things are nice, but the singular pursuit of material gain can lead to a host of problems. I've seen it, Up close. Not doing it. Not for me.
A NEW Vision Board a la Jeff Sanders:
But then I heard this
podcast from Jeff Sanders' 5AM Miracle and I kind of changed my mind. Maybe a vision board could work for me. Maybe I had the wrong idea about what they could be and how you can use them...
Sanders gives his idea for a NEW type of vision board. Instead of coming up with this huge, almost unreachable goals, you think about the every day actions that are going to get you closer to your ultimate goals. You put those actions on the board, or things that remind you of those actions.
To me, it's more of a focus board than about a long-term vision. Keeping me on track for my priorities and my short-term goals. Reminding me what I'm doing on a daily basis and why I'm doing it.
I used an app called Wishlist to put this together. It's a free app, a little putzy but good for free. Any collage app could work, but Wishlist makes searching for images a little easier.
What do you do with it?
The whole idea behind this is the law of attraction. We attract what we pay attention to. You know how people talk about self-fulfilling prophecies? Same concept. Here you are creating your prophecy in a visual form: "This is me. This is what I will be. This is what I will do."
If you're a meditation person, you could meditate with it, I guess. For me, simply having it in a visible place (my phone) does the job. I try to take a look at it each day to remind myself what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I have a big problem with focus. This reminds me, each morning, of what I should be focused on through the day. Kind of a recharging of my willpower.
How to make your Vision/Focus Board :
1. Make a list of your BIG goals. Like the ultimate, super-sized ones. This isn't the place for the "lose 5 pounds by next month" goal. Your list should have the almost-unreachable ones on it. 3-5 of them preferably. And they need to be POSITIVE. No negative Nancies.
2. Now write down (scribble the side, doesn't have to be neat) the smaller actions or steps that are going to get you to those goals. Here's some questions to ask:
- Are there identifiable steps or levels to this goal? What's the next one?
- What daily/weekly actions do I need to do to reach this goal?
- What character attributes would help me reach this goal?
- WHY do I want this goal?
3. The small steps, daily actions, character attributes, and WHYs that you identified in #2 are what you put on your board. Find images from the internet, your own pictures, quotes, etc. that represent these things.
4. ARRANGE! You may want it on your phone, like I did. Or, if you have an office or special spot at home, you may want to print these things out and pin them to an actual board. Whatever's going to have that vision board readily accessible to you when you need a reminder to stay the course.
Do you have a Vision Board? How do you use yours? Comment below!
