What you Focus on Becomes Your Reality: Using a Vision Board to Reach Your Goals

This is my vision board for 2012.

A vision board is a collection of visual images pasted or pinned to a board that represents things that you want to bring into your life.  My board, created on a framed cork board that hangs above my desk, represents the reminders of goals aspired to and goals achieved in a particular year.  Creating and regularly focusing on a board like this can be instrumental in reaching one’s goals.

A vision board uses the law of attraction to help you reach your goals.  Wikipedia defines the law of attraction as “the name given to the belief that “like attracts like” and that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, one can bring about positive or negative results.”  A vision board allows you to attract the positive (what you want) into your life by giving you a continuous reminder of that positive.  What you imagine, you become.  What you focus on becomes your reality.

For example, I decided at this time last year that in 2012 I would make it my goal to walk in my first half marathon and marathon.   I took all of the steps to register for the races, but most importantly a visual reminder was posted to my vision board, in the form of a map of the Columbus marathon.  I looked at that map each time I was at my desk and imagined myself walking through Ohio Stadium, which was part of the marathon route, and crossing the finish line.  Looking at that map also reminded me of the importance of keeping up with my regular training leading up to these events.   When the races were completed, I posted my participation medals to my board as a reminder of my accomplishments.  These medals and another map of the Columbus marathon with my goal time for 2013 are the first items I added to my 2013 vision board.

Creating a vision board forces you to get really clear about what you want in your life.  My board has finite boundaries, reminding me that I have finite resources, in the form of time, energy and funds.  Without my board, my list of goals would most likely border on the infinite.  Because the board reinforces the idea of boundaries, I am more realistic in my goals and more focused in determining what is most important in any given year.

I also appreciate that my vision board allows me to get creative with displaying my goals.  I couldn’t easily find images to represent two of my goals for 2013 and took out my art supplies and created them, honoring my value of creativity.  Creating my board by pinning images to cork board, as opposed to gluing images on a pieces of cardboard, allows me to easily add or change out images representing a particular goal, or to remove images related to a goal I choose to abandon.

I look forward to completing my vision board for 2013 and also look forward to hearing how you might use a vision board to bring more of what you want into your life.