How to Make a Simple Vision Board

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3 How to Make a Simple Vision Board: my method in 4 steps

4 The Visualization Board is not enough to achieve its objectives

The “vision board” (or “vision board”) is a visual representation (images, photos, text, quotes) of the future to which we aspire.

It increases your chances of getting where you want to go, by regularly sending the brain the idea that you want to go there.

The purpose of the “visualization board” is to materialize his goals, desires, and dreams, to keep them in mind and remind his mind to go in that direction.

This idea is based on the observation that, when we visualize something that we want, we are already starting to put ourselves in the condition to obtain it.

By representing the future professional to which we aspire on our visualization board, we, therefore, increase our chances of achieving it.

Vision board benefits

The vision board can be applied to all areas of life.

However, since my goal is to help you be more fulfilled at work, I decided to orient the exercise around what you aspire to for your future professional life.

The main question to be answered is: “What will my dream professional situation look like in a year?”.

You can choose another term if you prefer (two, three, five years…).

Choose the date when you imagine a change from your current situation.

This deadline should not be too far in time. It must be close enough so that your actions today can have an observable impact on this future professional situation.

It is a painting (in principle, a large A3 sheet) on which we will visually illustrate (mainly with images) a future that inspires us and towards which we want to go.

If you want to see what a visualization board looks like, I made a selection on Pinterest. Click here to see the selection of visualization boards on Pinterest.

And take the opportunity to subscribe to my Pinterest account for more thematic boards.

Learn more about Vision Boards

How to Make a Simple Vision Board: my method in 4 steps

In this article, I present to you my four-step method for making your visualization board. I had made two attempts to create my own but was not satisfied with the result.

It didn’t look like me enough.

Thinking about what had caused the problem, I imagined a method to overcome that.

Rather than rushing headlong into looking for images, photos, texts and quotes to create the painting, I think it is better to first think carefully about your vision of your future profession.

First to become aware of it, then to be precise enough, and finally for the table to be relevant and help to move in this direction.

If the vision is too blurry, the picture will be too blurry, and we risk not using it in the end.

This method can be applied on the same day, but you should plan around a couple of hours for the preparation (steps 1 to 3) and 2 hours for the realization (step 4).

Step 1: Intuition

The goal of this first step is to play on your intuition, on what you are not necessarily aware of but which is there deep inside you.

Materials: get magazines

To do this exercise, you will need to provide yourself with magazines or other support that contains various images.

If you don’t have magazines at home (which I did), you can ask your friends to give you some, pick them up in waiting rooms where they are offered, or buy used ones. (they are 0.50 euros at Boulinier for example) or new.

Cut out the images that inspire you

Once the magazines have been collected, make yourself comfortable (don’t hesitate to put on a nice little music, to serve yourself a tea… because you should allow about thirty minutes for this step).

Leaf through magazines quietly and, as soon as an image seems to inspire you with something related to your future professional situation, cut it out. Don’t think too much about the “why”, let your intuition guide you. Cut out anything that inspires you.

Gives meaning to cropped images

Once the thirty minutes have elapsed, gather all the images on the same surface so that you can see them all. The goal now is to “rationalize” what you just did by intuition.

You can do this part of the exercise on your own, ideally out loud to hear yourself say things. Or you can requisition a friend and explain it to him.

For each cropped image, explain why you chose this image: what does it inspire you and what does it make you think of about your future professional situation?

So much for step 1. We don’t go further than that on intuition. This first step is the one that is mostly offered in personal development exercises to achieve your visualization board. However, while testing it,

I was frustrated that the images I found did not exactly represent my vision for the future. I had to deal with what was offered by magazines. That’s why I imagined other steps after this one.

Step 2: Visualization

The goal of this second step is to bring out the most important elements for you in this future professional situation. The format is supposed to allow us to “reconnect” to what we want deeply.

No hardware needed

No material is needed this time, just you and five minutes, for a “visualization” exercise. I take this step from a workshop by Charlotte Scapin of 1to100project.

This exercise allowed me to see clearly where I projected myself in my ideal professional situation. It was following this exercise that I decided to bring my big trip forward by two months and start my life as an international digital nomad in June 2018.

The visualization exercise

Allow five minutes for this exercise. If possible, set yourself a five-minute stopwatch so you don’t have to check the time while you exercise.

Sit on the edge of a chair with your back straight (not touching the backrest), hands on your thighs, and feet flat on the floor.

Take three deep breaths:

Inhale as much as possible through your nose for five seconds, starting with inflating your stomach and ending up in your lungs.
After five seconds of inhaling deeply, exhale all that air through your mouth five seconds.
Take a two-second break
Then the inspiration begins again.
Complete this cycle three times.

After these three great inspirations, ask yourself this unique question: “Imagine yourself in your professional life at one / two / three / five years (depending on the chosen deadline). What do you see ?”.

Think about it until the stopwatch strikes.

When it rings, write down somewhere what you imagined yourself, where you projected yourself.

What you saw corresponds a priori to what has the most important for you since it came naturally to you by asking yourself the question. To complete these elements and clarify what you are considering, I imagined step 3.

Step 3: Completion

The goal of step 3 is to obtain a more precise vision of the future professional to which you aspire.

To deepen what came out in the previous steps, I suggest you ask yourself six questions. For each, write your answers somewhere.

Question 1: What am I doing?

The first question you can ask yourself is: “In the ideal professional situation that I imagine in a year (depending on the chosen deadline), what am I doing?”.

Implied as a job, activity, position…

Are you on the same types of tasks and missions as today? If not, how has it evolved? What changed?

Do you have only one activity or several? For example, have you added a side project or a volunteer activity? Have you specified your field of action if you are freelance?

Or on the contrary, have you widened your field of intervention?

Question 2: What am I doing it for?

The second question you can ask yourself is: “In the ideal professional situation that I imagine in a year (depending on the deadline chosen), what am I contributing to?”

How much is your monthly income? Why this figure? How much do you need to feel good? Do you want to have a high salary so that you can afford beautiful things and go on vacation for?

Or do you see yourself accepting a lower salary for a job that you like more or to start a project, or have fewer responsibilities and hours to do?

Question 6: Who am I?

The sixth and last question you can ask yourself is: “In the ideal professional situation that I imagine in a year (depending on the deadline chosen), which person have I become?”

Which three statements best describe you at this time? Have you become “an understanding and flexible manager”?

Are you someone who “inspires” others? Are you conciliatory, proactive in federating, and able to communicate without getting upset …?

The answers to these questions are supposed to have given you a more precise vision of the future professional situation to which you aspire.

Now take a moment to reread everything you have written, and the images you have chosen.

Look for inconsistencies to come up with a clear and consistent view of what you want.

Once you have it, the preparation phase ends and we will be able to move on to the painting phase.

Step 4: Collection

This fourth and final step is where we will finally materialize the vision of this future professional to which you aspire.

To avoid being restrained because of the lack of space, I suggest that you start by looking for the content of your table.

And only then to choose the medium. Give yourself the freedom to wear whatever you want to wear.

However, be careful not to choose too many images as this may blur the clarity of your vision of your future. It is better to choose only one image/sentence per idea.

Make a list of what you are looking for

Finding images is a task that can be very time-consuming if you let yourself go and look for the perfect image.

To avoid spending a whole day on this, I recommend that you make a precise list of the elements you want to illustrate.

This list should contain:

Images/photos/texts that illustrate the answers to questions 1 to 5 of step 3
The 3 sentences that represent you (question 6 of step 3)
A quote that reflects your state of mind or your vision of your future professional situation (you can write it yourself)
Optional: a photo of you looking happy
You can also add images that inspire you, even if they don’t represent a specific idea; or images that represent “sensations”

Collect images

You can use the images cut out from magazines if they suit you.

Or you can go look for them on the Internet (Google Images, Pinterest, Unsplash, Pixabay…) and then print them.

Build the board with all this content

Gather all your images and texts that you want to appear on the board.

Now that you have all of this on your eyes, choose a suitable medium. You can simply tape white A4 or A3 sheets together to create a larger medium that will fit all your content.

If you want a really beautiful, well-done painting, you can make a rough draft of what your painting will look like before doing it “for real”.

So you can try different ways to represent ideas and distribute content.

Once you know what you want, you can start pasting the pictures and writing the texts. does not hesitate to personalize it even more by adding colour, and small drawings.

The goal is for you to be proud of the result, that it inspires you and makes you want to watch it every day.

But you can also go there “by feeling” and stick things as you see fit.

Hang up your painting in a place where you’ll see it often

For the painting to have the desired effect, you need to look at it often (every day).

Hang it up in a place where you can’t help but lay your eyes on it: in front of your desk, next to your bedside table, in your toilet, on the kitchen fridge …