If you love the idea of creating a vision board to help focus on your goals but don’t have dozens of old magazines lying around, simply create a digital vision board using online resources. This mission is the same: Prioritize what is most important in your life and choose which goals you want to achieve this year. Then find photographs that represent those goals and dreams. The only difference is you’ll find photos online and you don’t need glue or tape.

Tip #1: Choose Your Medium

Digital vision boards can be made using Microsoft, PicMonkey, or Pinterest.

• Microsoft offers a free desktop app called “Vision Board” which makes placing your photos much easier and more visually appealing than just importing them into Word.
• PicMonkey is a paid platform with a free 7-day trial period and they offer very detailed advice for creating a vision board using their platform template in this blog post.
• Pinterest is an easy way to search for photos of your ideal lifestyle and simply pin those to a secret board. If you want to make your vision board public at any time, it’s a simple switch under Settings.

Tip #2: Choose Your Photos

Using digital photos for this project allows you to search from the millions of photos online, which is a vastly larger selection than a few old magazines your mother collects. In this respect, creating a digital vision board is easier and quicker than the “old fashioned” way.

• Unsplash.com offers completely free, high-quality photos which you simply download to your computer.
• Stock photo houses offer high-quality photos for which you pay a small fee to use.
• Google Images offers access to millions of images ONLY if you plan to keep your vision board for personal use only and NOT post it online. If at any time you think of publishing your board online in a blog post or Instagram post, rethink using the Google Images as you never want to be accused of copyright infringement.
• On Pinterest you don’t run any copyright risks because you’re pinning those desired photos onto Pinterest, not directly onto your website.

Tip #3: Use Photos that Spark Emotion

Vision boards are just as much about emotions as they are about material things. Do you REALLY want to earn the sporty BMW roadster convertible, or do you just want that freedom and the carefree life the photo symbolizes? Vision boards are not solely about material things; find those photos that make you FEEL any positive emotion. Consider adding words, quotes, or affirmations that speak to you.

Tip #4: Keep a Screenshot Handy

No matter which tools you use to create your digital vision board, take a screenshot (or two if it’s large) and save it as your wallpaper on your laptop and phone. Make a point of looking at this every day and meditating on what steps you’ll take to get closer to those goals. Consider if you need to break these large goals into smaller goals; map out those action steps. Also reflect on your progress every night before you go to sleep; visualizing prior to sleeping helps you feel motivated to get up in the morning and start working toward those goals.

In the end, achieving your goals is completely up to you and the actions you take. Your vision board – either traditional or digital – is simply a tool to help you stay on the path toward your ideal life.

WAIT – DON’T GET OVERWHELMED JUST YET!

Not Interested in Going Digital? Own it … You’re Not Crafty … No Worries!

5 Ways to Make Vision Boards Work for You Without Being Crafty

Vision boards are meant to be a tool to focus on what’s important in your life – focus on your family, business goals, or living a carefree lifestyle. How you create your vision board or what it looks like aesthetically doesn’t have any bearing on how well it will work.

If you have the Martha Stewart crafty gene in you, make your vision board as can be. Add pieces of fabric, paint an abstract background with your favorite colors, or dig out your long-lost scrapbook supplies and utilize those beautiful printed papers and fun stickers. However, if you don’t have a crafty gene nor have the desire to develop a crafty side – or if you’re male and want a more masculine look – have no fear: you can still make a no-frills vision board that suits your style and that will work!

1. Cork vision board. Buy an inexpensive cork board and use thumbtacks to attach your photos. Using tacks makes it especially easy to move your photos around or to take some off after you’ve reached your goals.
2. Vision books. If you have multiple goals for different parts of your life, then creating a vision book keeps all those goals on separate pages but still compact in the same book. A simple journal or a larger scrapbook serves the purpose. However, make a concerted effort to look at your book every day or find a unique way to keep your vision book where you can see it often instead of closed on your bookshelf.
3. Digital vision boards. For those who can whiz around the internet at the speed of light, digital vision boards are time savers. Search for a free template or use Canva’s grid template. Simply upload your photos and quotes to your chosen template and save. Save it as your wallpaper on your computer and phone. Go one step further and get it professionally printed on photo paper at your local photo shop.
4. Hang a single photo. In a 60 Minutes interview, Beyoncé said that she hung a photo of an Academy Award near her treadmill where she saw it every day, just to keep that goal at the back of her mind. She reached that goal in 2013 when she received the Oscar for her song from the James Bond movie, Skyfall.
   
5. Write a vision statement. For those who are born wordsmiths, forget about the pretty pictures and write out your goals instead. However, write it as a letter to yourself, 10 years into the future. Describe what you’re doing and where you’re living, among other things, as if you’ve been living that life for 10 years and are giving an update to your long-lost friend. That’s exactly what Luvvie Ajayi did as a training exercise for her job. She went from being laid off from the job she loved to be a NY Times Bestselling Author! You can read Luvvie’s story here.

So much time is spent describing traditional vision boards but as you can see, creating a non-traditional vision board or writing a vision statement is just as powerful. The most important point is voicing your goals and taking action to achieve those goals. How you package up your vision is completely arbitrary.

Bring your vision to life – in one way or another!

LT xoxo