Alright! We’ve spent the time to find out what a vision board is and how it works. Then we dove in and created one for ourselves. But how do we use a vision board? How do we build the ideal life we see when we look at them?
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At this point, you either have a physical vision board or a digital one on your phone/tablet/PC. Now we need to put it to work. The first thing we are going to do is to put it in a place where we can easily and frequently view said vision board. We want to be able to view it often and take in the feelings and inspiration we get from that activity.
The reason for this is you want to flood your thoughts, both conscious and unconscious, with “visions” of your ideal life. If you’re only being hit constantly with the negativity the world has to offer, it’s hard to imagine your life getting better, or having the energy to make your life better. But if you’re glancing at your vision board all day, you get inundated with positive emotions and inspiration to work towards those goals. Remember, we are trying to reprogram your mind to think about your ideal life constantly, and therefore allow you to believe you can achieve it, helping you get the energy/motivation/discipline to work towards it.
If you have a physical vision board, you will want to put it in a place where you are frequently. If you have a home office, and you work from home, it seems natural to place it there as you will spend large amounts of the week in those places. If not, you’re welcome to place it anywhere where you can view it frequently throughout the day. Some ideal places in my mind would be the kitchen (a person’s gotta eat), the bedroom (so you can see it first thing in the morning and last thing at night), or another frequently used room in the house. Anywhere you can get the views in is where it needs to be. Feel free to make multiple boards with the same content so you can post them up around your living space for constant reprogramming.
If you have a digital vision board, there are two things I’ve done to make it highly visible and easy to find. The first, and most obvious, is to place the image as your background. This makes it easy to minimize your applications and take a breather while giving some attention to the things that you’re focusing on to build that ideal life. That also usually adds it to your lock screen as well, which is just another way to get those views in.
On a phone it’s a little more difficult, for two reasons. If it’s your lock screen background, it’s only visible in very short bursts. Lock screens only stay on for 20-30 seconds at most. That’s a very short period of time and likely won’t allow you enough time to do your visualization task (more on that soon). If it’s your regular background, it’s most likely covered with app icons, not really allowing you to see all of your hard work. How I got around this is to create its own photo album in my photos app. This allows me to find it easily, and I can just tap the screen every few minutes to keep it on.
The Visualization Task
The second thing you need to do is spend some time every day doing some visualizing. What you want to do is imagine yourself in the images on your vision board and absorb the emotions that brings. This sounds kind of corny, but I believe it’s a major part of reprogramming your mind to manifest your ideal life. It reinforces the strong positive feelings and inspiration the board gives and keeps your “eye on the prize”.
One way to do this is just as it sounds. You take time and visualize yourself in that image. You imagine what it’s like to work that dream job or how you go about your day in that new home. You imagine how your interactions with your loved ones go when your love and communication with them has improved. You imagine staring and your dream car and how that makes you feel. You imagine washing it, taking it for a cruise or to a car show, or driving on some canyon roads. This simple imagination task will reinforce the belief that the ideal life that’s on your board is achievable.
Another way I’ve heard of doing this is by what’s called scripting. Scripting is a type of journaling where you write out a scene that evokes the ideal life on your vision board. You could write out a scene of an ideal interaction you would have at your dream job. Another scene could be about what your life looks like with more income. Yet another could be about the places you travel to and what you see and feel when you’re there. I’m personally not doing this, as I can get where I need to be through the visualization task, but if you want a little more in depth look at scripting, here’s a video you can watch.
Most suggest that the visualization task be done two times a day: first thing in the morning and last thing before you go to sleep. I believe this is a good exercise for the reprogramming process as the strong, positive emotions start and end your day. Imagine if you could start each day with visions of your ideal life. You would likely have a better mindset throughout that day and be able to shrug off any bad events as they come your way. Imagine erasing the bad day you had with thoughts of your ideal life. I would think you would sleep better and wake up ready to take on the day more often. Kind of sounds like a win-win to me.
The Outro
If you’ve made it this far, I’m hoping you have the information you need to create your first vision board. I tried my best to compile all of the information I was looking for into one place where the majority of the questions I had when making a vision board were answered. If you like what you see, feel it could be improved, or have more questions than answers, reach out either through the comments section below or the contact form. I’d be happy to get advice on how to improve this to benefit as many as possible. Thanks for reading, and I’m looking forward to seeing your ideal lives come to fruition!