How To Make A Vision Board for 2021 That Actually Comes True
Have you've ever looked back at a past year and felt like you were busy the whole time and you did things but it didn't really get you any closer to where you're trying to go in the long run?
Chances are you've never sat down to really get clear on your vision.!
Creating a vision board for the year ahead that relates to your goals is a powerful way to take what's in your head (or in your project management system) and make it tangible and visual.
It is your vision that really guides everything forward and steers the ship for the year ahead for your entire business and team.
That’s why I am sharing my four-step process to creating a vision board!
Step 1: Get clarity on the vision you have for the year ahead
When it comes to gaining this clarity, you might be at a loss for where to start. How do you even uncover what you want to be working towards for the next year? Well, I recommend you either start with pen and paper, or if you're a tablet person you can go that route but either way I think taking it off of the computer and on to a more paper-like situation is so helpful for uncovering what you really want.
I'd love for you to grab either a piece of paper or tablet and answer the following five questions to get your brain thinking on what you want for the year ahead question.
What experiences, do you want to have in 2021?
What achievements, or milestones, do you want to accomplish in 2021?
How do you want to feel on a daily basis?
What do you want your home, your workspace, and your life to look like visually on a daily basis?
How do you want to show up on a daily basis what actions or habits do you want to be doing every single day?
Hopefully, by taking the time to journal out some thoughts on those five questions you can start to gain clarity on the vision you have for the year ahead, including some goals and milestones as well as those intangibles of what you want to be feeling, thinking, and how you want to be acting on a daily basis.
Step 2: Collect and find inspiring images
What we want to do is take the words that you've written as we're answering those journaling prompts and start to identify how we could visually represent or reflect what you want for 2021. An old school way of doing this would be to get some magazines or books and cut out images and get really hands-on if that's your style please feel free to go ahead and do that!
My favorite way to actually find and collect these images is to go to Pinterest and create a secret Pinterest board, just for my 2021 vision and I keep all of the images saved there that I find throughout this process and then when it comes to actually finding images, I love using Pinterest and Instagram.
I find that Pinterest is a little easier because you can actually search for specific keywords, but sometimes on Instagram by using hashtags, or following inspiring accounts, I will also find images that reflect what I'm working towards in the year ahead so like to use both, they're both visual platforms so I think that makes sense. Whether it's a screenshot from my phone or an image I say directly from Pinterest, I am saving all of it to a Pinterest board that only I can view that I can start collecting all of the images.
It's really important when you're at this step to not over, analyze the images that you think are inspiring and reflect your 2021 vision.
I want you to view this Pinterest board in this step as just grabbing anything and everything that represents your vision, once you've done that, we will do some editing later.
Step 3: Take your images to create your vision board
Since we're doing this all digitally and electronically, I love creating my vision board in a graphic design tool called Canva. Canva makes it really easy for you to upload images from anywhere so once I have my Pinterest board ready to go. I open up Pinterest, I open my Pinterest board, and I start downloading the images that I really liked the most that I want to incorporate into my vision board. Then I can easily upload those to Canva and start adding those as a little collage to a graphic inside of Canva.
This is where you can just get creative, add all the images, rearrange, crop, change the layers, play around with it until you are happy with the vision board you've created. You may end up adding five different images that represent a specific part of your vision and seeing if you want to leave a couple of them there, take them all out, or only pick one. You'll start to see it all come together so I want you to leave perfectionism behind and let this be an exercise of creativity and inspiration.
The ultimate goal is that you have a vision board that inspires you and not only inspires you, but excites you and motivates you.
So while we have an idea of what we are hoping that this vision board will reflect at the end of the day, if it inspires you excites you, motivates you, and reflects what you want for the year ahead, it has done its job. Don't stress about being perfect or checking all of the boxes, I want you to spend some creative time, maybe put on some good music, maybe light a candle, get a drink, and allow this to be a fun part of the process.
Step Four: Save and display
Now that you have this beautiful vision board on your computer in Canva, t's time for us to take this and put it in the real world so that you can see it on a daily basis. I don't want us having to open a specific file on our computers or have to dig somewhere to find this vision board. In order for this to be really effective, I want your vision board to be somewhere physically around you that you are seeing on a regular daily basis.
My favorite way to do this is to actually print out my vision board so from Canva. You can either print it out at your home computer, you can send it to a place like staples, or Office Max to be printed. Whatever makes sense for you but I love printing it, framing it, and hanging up in my home office so that I see it on a daily basis every single time I come in and out of my office. I can't help but be reminded of the vision I'm working towards.
You can also choose to save the graphic as the wallpaper or background of your phone or your laptop. Again, it's a great place for you to be seeing it on a regular basis without having to take additional action steps to find it. And of course, you can do all of these things, a variety of them come up with other ways, as long as it's going to be in your environment somewhere that you're going to naturally and organically see it on a daily basis, then you are all set!
Ultimately, we want to make sure we wrap up this exercise by taking that Canva graphic and making it something tangible that you see all the time.
I want to show you, my vision board! As we all know, 2020 was a crazy year, but I am still surprised at everything that came true for me based on my vision board.
I got pregnant with a baby girl!
We moved into our dream home
I read over 50 books
I spent more time with my husband
I bought a Peloton
I cooked more
My business had our biggest year in business when it comes to revenue to date
I had a few press features and speaking opportunities
I created an amazing community on Facebook and in my program, Empowered CEO, which is a high-level mastermind.
Grew my team and transitioned my contractors to full-time employees
All of these things came together where I really feel like I'm leaving 2020 with meaningful valuable high-level relationships in place that weren't there at the beginning of the year, and I even have a photo on here that to me at the time meant, building a team and hiring my own team and as we wrap up 2020.
This year, and I just want to remind you that when it comes to creating a vision board and looking at 2021 in the year ahead, what you achieve in the year ahead doesn't have any reflection on your worth, as a person, your goals your vision is only there to inspire you to excite you put you in the right direction, and help you make progress towards what you want in your life and business to look like. I don't want you to get so caught up in having every single thing on your vision board become a reality because that's not the point.
I didn't accomplish everything on my vision board! It's okay if you don't hit a million dollars, even if you had it on your vision board if it helps you show up in a bigger way and make bigger picture decisions that are going to make you a million-dollar business sooner. That is the whole point.
Don't forget to allow yourself to just be inspired, even if it doesn't all make logical sense. I would love to hear from you now and hear a little bit about your vision for 2021, so leave a comment below with either a description of part of your vision for 2021 or something that inspired you as you were creating your vision and your vision board for the year ahead if you thought this was helpful!
Don't forget to share it with a friend, I hope you have an incredible 2021, and I can't wait to see your vision become a reality!
