Vision boards
Vision board workshops, and how to make one that actually works
Most vision boards are lovely and change nothing. The difference is what happens before you pick up the scissors, and what happens in the months after.
Why most vision boards do not work
The usual approach is to flick through magazines, cut out things that look appealing, and stick them down. It is enjoyable, and it almost always produces a board full of things you have been told to want. Bigger house. Beach holiday. Someone running at sunrise.
Then it goes on the wall, you stop seeing it after a fortnight, and nothing changes. Which is not a failure of vision boards. It is a failure of the thinking that should have come first.
A vision board is a summary of a decision you have already made about how you want to live. If you have not made that decision, the board is just a collage.
The method
How to make a vision board that changes what you do
Start with the year behind you
Before you decide what you want next, look honestly at what has just happened. What worked, what drained you, what you need to let go of. Skipping this is why most vision boards end up full of things other people want.
Get clear on your values
Not the aspirational list. The actual ones, the things you feel it when you compromise. Your board should be built out of these, otherwise you are decorating someone else's life.
Choose images that mean something to you
A beach is not a goal. A picture that makes you feel how you want your Tuesday mornings to feel is worth ten stock photos of success. Specific beats aspirational every time.
Put it where you will see it
In a drawer is the same as not having one. On the wall, in the planner, as your phone background. It has to be in the path of your ordinary day.
Review it on a schedule
This is the step that separates a vision board that works from craft. Monthly is plenty. Ask what has moved, what has changed, and whether it is still what you want.
For groups and teams
Vision board workshops
I run vision board workshops for groups, workplaces and community organisations. They work particularly well for teams at the start of a year, and for groups of friends who want to do the thinking together rather than alone.
- Guided reflection first, so the boards come from something real
- A values exercise before anyone touches a magazine
- Materials and structure provided
- Everyone leaves with a board and a plan for reviewing it
- In person across the Waikato and Bay of Plenty
Prefer to do it properly on your own?
The wrap-up and reset sections of the Live Well Life Planner walk you through exactly the thinking this page describes, before you build anything. It is the same method, in a book, for the whole year rather than one afternoon.
See the Life PlannerWant to go deeper?
A Vision & Planning Day is a full private day doing this work properly, one to one, with a plan at the end of it.
Vision & Planning DayVision boards: common questions
What is a vision board?
Do vision boards actually work?
What do I need to make one?
Do you run vision board workshops for teams?
Want a vision board you'll still be using in six months?
Whether that is a workshop for your team, a planner to do it yourself, or a day with me, the thinking comes first.