Creating a vision board

A vision board can help you move forward in your search for your dream life. Do you recognize the feeling that from day to day you just do whatever? You live your life as you have always done and don’t really have anything to work toward. When you look at your future, maybe you see a house, dog and a child or 2. Maybe you see a future full of travel. Maybe you see a job where you make a lot of money? Either way, it remains a vague idea, the future. It’s a future you’ve copied from someone you know or something you’ve seen passed by online, or an expectation from someone you love. Is this image of the future something that suits you?

Often your current vision of the future is still vague, you are not really working toward a specific goal. How you could picture it is a stage with lots of lights and a stage with a spotlight.

One spotlight vs many spotlights

Maybe you can already guess what I want to say with this. If you put one spotlight on a stage, then you can focus on what can be seen in that one spotlight. You are not, or hardly, distracted by the factors outside that one spotlight. If you light up the entire stage and everyone on it with one spotlight for each person, it is extremely difficult to know what to pay attention to.

In itself, that’s not a problem. If you just want to see what happens when you live life as it comes, it is fine to leave all those spotlights on. If you want to start living your dream life this is not the most effective strategy. If you don’t have any focus you will be distracted by everything that comes your way. If you know what you want then you are infinitely more likely to get it. Because how can you get what you want if you don’t know what it is?

It doesn’t have to be completely clear yet to be useful

It’s fine not to have a clear vision for your future. In fact, this picture will probably change every year, every month, every week, every hour. That’s totally okay! But sit back and think about it…. Close your eyes and look at your future. What would you like? A nice house in nature? A good job that pays well? A bookcase full of beautiful books? A house full of colorful paintings? You can probably think of something. Now put that somewhere. I use Pinterest for that myself, but you can also cut and paste. Lay, put, hang that somewhere where you can see it clearly. When you look at it, see yourself living in that picture. Imagine yourself already there. See yourself sitting in that house full of paintings.

Update your vision board regularly

Notice that the image no longer feels right? Then you are probably another step closer. The closer you get to your core, the clearer it becomes what you want. After all, you also have to discover what doesn’t feel right. Totally fine! Refresh your vision board to something that does suit you right now.

One of many ways

A vision board is one tool to get closer to your dream life. But there are many more. See what suits you. Don’t feel comfortable using a certain method? Then by all means don’t! Try something else! In the post “What if your job doesn’t match your passion?” I discuss other methods.