The other day I was thinking about everything I’ve accomplished in my twenty-nine years of life– if I am being completely honest, it’s more than I could have ever imagined. In fact, if I told my 19-year-old self the things I’ve done and the places I’ve been, I would think that I was straight out lying.
I could never imagine that I’d go from living in a small town in Wisconsin to moving to Europe at 20 to study Fashion in Italy, then landing a job in my dream city, Berlin, after graduation, traveling to all parts of the world making friendships with people from every continent, to becoming a digital nomad and starting my own business. It’s been a crazy decade, to say the least.
While there’s a lot of hard work behind each box that’s checked off on my to-do list, there’s no denying the importance that Vision Boards & Affirmations played in making my dreams a reality.
Why Vision Boards & Affirmations Work
Now if you’re thinking, there’s no way a vision board could make all of these things happen– it must have been luck or good timing mixed with the efforts you’ve put in– you’re not wrong, but that’s not the whole story.
A lot of things happen because of timing or as a result of showing up to put in the work daily. However, a vision board and affirmations aid in this, because they keep you on track by keeping your goals fresh in your mind every single day.
It’s a lot harder to bail on yourself when you look at your vision board every morning and say your affirmations aloud. This simple ritual can make a world of a difference helping you make decisions that will get you closer to your goal, rather than what will bring you short-term satisfaction.
For example, when I was saving up to move to Italy, envisioning myself spending my hard-earned money on train tickets to explore Europe made it easier to not spend it on lavish dinners out or on a new shirt that I didn’t need.
Plus, layering on affirmations tricks your subconscious mind into thinking these things are already your reality.
That’s because our subconscious can’t differentiate between what’s real and what’s not, all it knows is what we tell it. If you feed your mind with things like “I can’t ever move to Italy or it’s too much work to be a business owner, your mind will believe those things to be true. However, if you tell yourself, I am making my dream of moving to Italy come true, or I am one step closer to building the business of my dreams, your mind will believe that to be true. It’s like Henry Ford said, “If You Think You Can or You Can’t, You’re Right.”
This is the basics of the law of attraction, which boils down to the idea that positive energy attracts positive energy.
3 Ways to Make Your Vision Boards
Visualization:
My journey with vision boards has been an evolution. When I started, I wasn’t doing anything physical, I have a vivid imagination so I was envisioning myself accomplishing my goals in my mind without even realizing that I was manifesting my future.
For example, when I was applying to schools in Italy, I was picturing what my life would be like in Italy as a student. I imagined what it would feel like to get my acceptance letter and pack up my life and get on a plane.
When I started to see the power of visualizations, I wanted to take it a step further so I started making a physical version.
Vision Board/Book:
Rather than making a board, I started collecting things from magazines, or printing pictures from Pinterest and putting them in a sketchbook. Eventually, I started making different sections of the book for different areas of my life: Career, Social, Spiritual, Financial, Relationships, etc.
I loved the book because it was a way to express my creativity along with building the physical reminder of my dreams and goals. However, I did find it limiting because I needed to have the book physically with me to be able to flip through it, and there were periods where I would forget to open it all together, which defeats the purpose. This is when I started to find the appeal of a digital vision board.
Digital Vision Board
Currently, I’ve been working on making my digital vision boards. This has been really impactful because not only do I have them with me at all times on my phone, but I actually have push notifications reminding me to look at my boards.
I’ve been using an app called Perfectly Happy, which makes it super easy to create beautiful vision boards with either images that they supply, or import your own. They also have a library of incredibly powerful affirmations that you can put over your pictures. Then the board plays out like a slideshow, with the affirmations read aloud to you.
While I am normally more of an analog type of person, since switching to a digital vision board, I’ve been more consistent at using my vision board, plus hearing the affirmations every day has been extremely inspiring and motivating for me. If you want to try out Perfectly Happy for yourself, you can use my coupon code: 15GABRIELLE for 15% off.
Tips for Making Your Vision Board
Everyone’s vision board will be a little different, which is to be expected since it’s personal to whatever your hopes and desires are– but there are ways to approach making your board that will help set yourself up for success. Here are my top tips for making your vision board
Make a Different Board for Different Areas of Your Life
You will have different goals for different areas of your life, rather than trying to mash them all together into one board, focus on building your ideal future for each area of your life separately. I’ve found it useful to split my life into these 8 areas: Love, Social Life, Career, Health, Family, Finances, Environment, and Spirituality. You don’t have to follow what I do though, you can split yours into whatever way makes the most sense to you.
Use Pictures that Inspire You
I have made it a habit to save any image that makes me feel inspired to live my best life. On Instagram, I have a running folder under my saved posts that is called a vision board. I save things as I scroll through and eventually move them into my Perfectly Happy app so I can add them to my boards. This has made my boards even more powerful than just generic photos that don’t really motivate me.
Focus on how you want to feel, not only what you want
Oftentimes when we start to build our vision board we focus on what we want rather than how we want to feel. For example, when we think of the area of love, we think of what we want in a partner, i.e. someone tall, handsome, funny, family oriented– and while these things are all great, we also need to add in how we want to feel. For example, in love, we could add that we want to feel understood, safe, or passionate. By adding how we feel we take it a step further and make our vision of our future more complete and aligned with what we truly want.
Add Affirmations and Words of Encouragement
Although a vision board is primarily visual, adding affirmations and words of encouragement is key to making your dreams a reality. Our ego can be sneaky and if we look at our vision board with all these incredible things that we want for ourselves without adding affirmations, our ego can blurt things like “I’ll never be able to pull this off” or “Why would I deserve any of this?” without us even realizing it. The affirmations fight this negativity that comes from our ego and allows us to fully step into our vision and allow ourselves to trust that we are making our dreams a reality.
Tips for Using Your Vision Board:
Making the board isn’t enough, this is long-term active involvement activity. The more you use it, the more you’ll get out of it. Here are a few ways that I like to make sure I am using my vision board to the best of my ability.
Set a Daily Reminder
This is super easy with the Perfectly Happy app since the push notifications are built right in. If you have a physical board you can set a notification on your phone.
Pair it with Visualization
Don’t just look at your board passively, actively envision yourself having everything come true. See yourself in the scenario and imagine how you’ll feel– this really makes a huge difference.
Read the Affirmations Out Loud
Hearing the affirmations read to you is great, but repeating them aloud reiterates to your subconscious that this is your truth. You’ll be amazed how quickly you’ll start to see things shifting in your life when you do this.
Update it when necessary
Don’t feel like you have to keep it the same. You’re human and you grow, as do your goals and desires. Update your vision board whenever you feel like your current one isn’t surviving you anymore.
All in all, a vision board is your roadmap to your dream future. It’s going to keep you on track and motivated to make the life you want to live, your reality– so have fun with it, and make it your own! You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish when you’re aligned on where you want to go.
