Now that we are officially past the New Year we all have some goal or New Year’s resolution. Unfortunately, many of us will forget to progress on our goal unless we have consistent motivation. Cue in a vision board. It is a powerful tool which has the potential to help you meet your own goals and objectives. It is not merely a collage, but it is a constant reminder of the thing which is most important to your life…your goal(s). They also have a positive improvement in your confidence in achieving your goals.
Denise J. Hart says vision boards help:
- Transform your thinking.
- A visual reflection of your goals.
- It helps you clarify, focus on and achieve your goals.
These points helped her change the way she thought. She focused on positive energy and received great results and you can too! She also suggests that you can have 1 or more vision boards. However, 1 is enough, but if you feel like inspired to have more than more power to you. Another suggestion is to leave free space on your board and later add images as you think of new ideas.
First things first, if you haven’t already done so, write down your goals. When coming up with goals, you should look at the long-term effect of the goal. Especially in fitness goals, people might say “I want six-pack abs”. Although this goal is achievable, some people like myself have developed a taste for food that would not allow that goal to be sustained for years to come.
I can, however, change my goal to “I will eat healthier food” then I can choose pictures that represent a healthy lifestyle. With that said, you want to make sure your goals are realistic and attainable. If I say I want to live on Mars tomorrow, then I know for a fact that it will not be possible. However, back to my healthy eating habits, that goal is attainable. Goals should revolve around lifestyle change because success comes when you make a lifelong commitment to change.
This wouldn’t be a vision board if there were no images especially since studies show that visual cues provide superior recall of information than text only. The more you look at it the more reminders you have about your goals. Taking it one step further, Julie Lagoz from Playfully Practical suggests getting into the digital age and having them on your desktop or phone wallpaper. Now we really have no excuse to execute these boards.
If you have 0% action then you will have 0% chance of achieving your goals. Click To TweetAs we look at our boards we have constant reminders about the lifestyle change we hope to have. This will cause our positive energy help propel us into the direction we aspire to be in. Some critics such as, Throw Away Your Vision Board, argues against vision boards because the author believes boards cause people to dream or to think about things they want which causes unhealthy inaction.
Conversely, a vision board is a tool used to take action and visually convert your goal thus creating a constant reminder with visual appeal. In order to prevent a vision board from only becoming a nice decoration, we must also act on it. We cannot look at the images and hope our vision will manifest itself. If you have 0% action then you will have 0% chance of achieving your goals. Let’s not forget even the smallest step will get the ball rolling in the right direction. After all, the only way to accomplish a long journey is to take the first step.
If you are a group therapy provider you can use this idea to spark up great vision boards as well. Don’t forget to share your thoughts and comments below!
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rockymountainhigh/6893097917