Vision Board Guide: How I Manifested My Engagement

A vision board guide that really works, from yours truly, a humble vision board enthusiast.

I didn’t realize it at first, but I made my first vision board in a 4th grade art class where I put a quote from Christina Aguilera’s hit Beautiful in the center of countless body positivity images and hung it up in my room. Then throughout college I used to decorate my mirror with positive quotes to help me feel happy, motivated, or reach any other goals I wanted to achieve.

It was around then I discovered the hands-down queen of vision boards, Amber Scholl. I couldn’t write this post without mentioning her since I watch her videos every year and they are such an inspiration. In fact, she actually inspired me to make my actual first vision board towards the end of 2021.

And believe it or not, many of those wishes true. The following year ended up being the year I met my fiancé, the year I traveled most, wrote a lot of music, and started this blog.

So I wanted to take you all on this year’s vision board-making journey with me!

First Thing’s First: What Makes a Successful Vision Board?

• Being specific: Knowing exactly what you want
• Being thoughtful and careful in your choices: You don’t want to put things on there that don’t align with the inner you
• Self awareness
• Having a good energy and intention: I’m a strong believer that this goes without saying for anything you create. When you create something in this world your energy goes into it, and you want it to be a positive one.

Now that we got that covered…

Here are the steps that I take when making a successful vision board that really works:

Step 1: Connecting With Your Inner Self

This is THE MOST CRUCIAL step in crafting a successful vision board. Really. Let me say it again: MOST CRUCIAL STEP. Ok, I think you get the point.

The purpose of a vision board is to help you help yourself move in a positive direction and live out your dream life. This means that you will have to listen to yourself very carefully. It can be a tough task. Nowadays with our endless distractions, not many of us dedicate time to be with our own thoughts. We don’t have to anymore. It’s essential you set up a date with yourself before creating your vision board, because:

• You will declutter your thoughts, and separate false desires from what the “True” you desires that aligns with the path you want to go down on
• You will gather your thoughts, making sure you don’t miss any important details
• You will understand your path, which may give you clarity if you don’t already know what you want
• It helps you be specific

In short, you will have to connect with your inner self in order to correctly outline your goals for the next year.

There are multiple techniques you can use to connect with your inner self. Here’s a brief overview of a few that I like. You can use one (or a combination) of these techniques to do so.

Technique 1: Meditation

Meditation is a really broad word, as there are many different types of meditation. To figure out your goals, I recommend using a guided mindfulness meditation to answer your question.

1. Write down or say out loud something along the lines of: “I want to define my goals for the next year” or “I am using this meditation session to help guide me on my True path this upcoming year”. This will set the intention for your meditation.
   
   Alternatively, if you have a big goal that you want to accomplish over many years, you can set that as your intention to figure out what steps you need in order to get there. For example “I want to outline the steps I need for living in my dream house”. This will help you break down a big dream into smaller goals that will be less overwhelming.
2. Find a position that is comfortable and stay there for a set amount of time. You can be flexible and take more or less time and stop whenever you feel like you have a good understanding of the answer. I’d say for beginners, try and start at 10-15 minutes, but ideally I like to spend anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour as I find it really creates a brainstorm-session-like environment. It’s hard to get into focus, but I believe in you!
3. (Optional) You can find relaxing or focusing music that you like with no words to play in the background.
4. For the first 5 minutes or so relax your breathing. You can breath in fully and then exhale completely or use another breathing technique.
5. Now try to focus on the task at hand that you mentioned in step one. See what comes to mind. If your thoughts wander somewhere off-topic, re-focus yourself on the intention you set in step 1.
6. Once you feel like you’ve got your answer, you can open your eyes and write everything down. A helpful way may be bullet point form.

Technique 2: Journaling

Technique 3: Self-Dialogue

If you don’t connect to meditation or journaling, another good technique is talking out loud to yourself. This might sound crazy, but hear me out. What you are doing here is basically just meditating out loud. As with the above two techniques, start out with setting your intention out loud. Then speak about it out loud. If you start having any good ideas, make sure to write them down so you don’t forget.

You could also alternatively, record yourself and listen to your recording again, jotting down any notes, but that will take longer.

Technique 4: Through Your Dreams

Step 2: Lay Out Your Goals

Now that you’ve taken time to get re-acquainted with yourself, you want to make a list of everything you discovered. Jot it all down somewhere. It may be helpful to start with the goals that are most important to you until you hit your least important one.

You can think of your goals falling under different categories:

1. Tangible things — a new car, a house, a bag, etc.
2. Intangible things — habits
3. Feelings
4. Vibes for the year

So keep those different categories in mind when outlining your goals. It’s also important to think specifically about goals you want to accomplish this year, rather than something more long term.

For example, if you want to live in your dream house– you can put it there as a reminder for what you are working towards, but make sure you also put the steps you want to accomplish along the way this year to get there.

Step 3: Establishing Your Mantra

Last year my mantra was “go get what you dream of”.

Pinterest is a really great tool for looking for a mantra. You can browse inspirational quotes and other images and phrases that may spark an idea. Just choose something that resonates with you! I like putting my mantra in the middle of my vision board, but you can really put it anywhere you like.

Optional Step: Deciding on a Color Palette

This may not seem crucial, but not only does color theory impact our inner psychology, a cluttered and clashing vision board may be a source of discomfort and stress in our home. And we don’t want that.

But at the same time, don’t stress too much about it. If there’s something outside of your color palette it’s fine, just as long as it’s not going to be something that gives you bad vibes.

Color Psychology 101

This is just an overview of some feelings that certain colors may awake in us. Keep in mind though that one of the factors that influence how colors influence us is culture and upbringing. So these labels might not necessarily be true to you.

• Red: Passion, intensity
• Orange: Energy, warmth, fun
• Yellow: Happiness, optimism, youth
• Green: Success, healing
• Blue: Stability, calm, loyalty
• Purple: Royalty, spirituality, wisdom
• Pink: Femininity, love, gentle
• Beige/Tan: Natural, organic
• White: Purity, innocence, cleanliness
• Black: Intelligence, sophistication, power

The idea here is that in addition to helping you visualize your goals, you want your vision board as a whole to feel cohesive so that it gives you a good feeling when you look at it. So choose any color or colors that give you good vibes!

You can read more about color psychology here (1, 2) and you can find color palettes you like using this tool.

Step 4: Finding Photos

Now that you have your goals written down (and maybe you decided on a color palette as well), it’s time to get your Dora senses on and go explore photos.

There are two main ways I see to find photos:

1. Pinterest <3
2. Photoshop

Pinterest is a great way to find vibey photos that will manifest your dreams. You can make a board with all the pictures you resonate with and then choose from there.

Photoshop is a good way to visualize your concrete goals. Things like how much money you want to see in your bank account, items you would like in your home, or any other goal you have that is specific and can be photoshopped.

Like I mentioned above, an important thing to keep in mind is aesthetics, so if any image gives you a bad vibe, drop it. We only want good vibes here.

Step 5: Placement

Ideally, you want to look at your vision board every single day if possible. Think of places that you face often, or somewhere where you can easily get to to look at your vision board in the morning. I like to hang mine up right above my mirror since I always use it before I leave the house.

Step 6: Creation!

Ok so there are two ways you could go about this. Option 1 is for my type A queens, while option 2 might be a better fit for type B goddesses.

Option 1: Virtual Planning Route

If you’re like me and need everything to be picture perfect, this is the route for you.

1. Get an appropriately sized paper. Make sure you’re happy with the size because this will be the base for your vision board. You want to get paper that is sturdy so that it could hold up all the images you will put on it. I recommend going to a craft store and getting paper there. They should be able to cut it to whatever size you desire.
2. Measure the paper you have (or take note of the dimensions). This is important for the next step, which is planning.
3. Plan out your vision board for free by using Canva. Create a graphic the size of your paper and upload all of the images you found. Now you can plan the placement of the images and make sure they all fit perfectly.
4. Print the pictures in the sizes they end up being based on your planning.
5. Get crafty and use your plan as a guide as to where to place your photos on your piece of paper. You can also add other things such as stickers, chains, drawings, you name it! Make it yours.

Option 2: Scrapbook Style

If you don’t care so much about everything fitting or maybe you like the scrapbook-y look, this option is for you (it takes less planning).

1. Prepare your raw materials. Get paper and get your photos printed. Make sure the paper is sturdy and a good size, although you can always have the images go off the edges if you want. This is also a good time to get stickers or markers or whatever else you want to decorate with!
2. Get crafty! So in this method, there is a possibility that not everything will fit. Get started by placing your photos over the paper without gluing them. Once you’re satisfied with the result, glue them all down.

Pasting Your Photos Down: The Ritual

Every time I stick a photo to my vision board, I like to state out loud the goal behind it and the reason it’s on my board. So charge the photo with your intension and send it on it’s way. Proclaim to the universe “hey universe, this is what I want!” as you place each one of your dreams on the board.

And You’re Done!

You’re all set to having a successful vision board that really works! What are your experiences with vision boards and what will you put on your vision board this year? Let me know in the comments down below!

And until next time,
Take a shans!