How to Make a Vision Board That Actually Works

A vision board (also known as a dream board) that actually works is one that you look back on at the end of the year and say “yeah, I’ve done all of that!” Here are actionable steps to turn your vision board from merely beautiful to actually functional. Your vision board can, and will, be a tool that helps you achieve your goals!

Here’s the deal – if you set the right goals, in the right way, and create a kick-ass visual display of them, you’ll achieve them. Oh yeah, and sprinkle in a little hard work here and there. This article will cover all of the questions you should ask yourself in order to figure out what your vision board should represent. And, you’ll learn to prioritize these goals for the best results. Plus, we’ll get into the fun stuff – actually making that beautiful board! Creating a vision board that actually works is simple if you follow the steps below.

Define your goals

Table of Contents

Define your goals for the year including a list of things that you want to experience or achieve.

What do you want to achieve?

Do a review of your previous year’s goals. What goals did you enjoy working towards and might want to take a step further? For example, maybe you enjoyed setting a goal of running 3 miles every week. So this year you’ve decided to set a goal to run two 10k races.

At the same time, there may be goals you didn’t achieve, or maybe didn’t take to the extent you wanted to. Consider whether these goals deserve a spot on your goals list this year. Couldn’t find the time to hang out with your out of state friends once a month? Make a renewed effort this year.

What do you want to experience?

It’s important to have goals, but it’s also important to make sure that you’re not relentlessly pursuing goals without taking the time to enjoy and experience your life. Close your eyes and imagine all of the:

places you would love to visit next year
friends and family you want to spend time with
skills you want to learn
the activities you’d like to do

Then, make a list of these experiences you want to have, and break them up into the four categories below.

Four Categories

Below are the four main categories that I personally consider when I make my goals each year, and when I decide which experiences I want to have. Don’t edit yourself when you’re writing out your goals, just do a brain dump for each of these categories onto a sheet of paper. For each category, I’ve included vision board examples of the types of goals you could set. I’ve also included vision board ideas for experiences you may want to add to your list. These examples and ideas should jumpstart your creativity so you can set goals and write down experiences that align with your priorities and values.

Health

Usually, goals in this category revolve around creating habits or creating a healthier identity. Additionally, you may find it helpful to break this category into the subcategories of Health – Body and Health – Mind. Body health goals often revolve around exercising more and eating right. Healthy mind goals instead focus on emotional health, mental health, self-care, mindfulness, spirituality, and self-esteem.

Health Goal Examples

Exercise 5 times per week
Attend a yoga class once a week
Buy fresh fruits and veggies at the farmer’s market every Saturday
Cook at least 4 dinners at home each week
Meditate for 5 minutes each morning
Block out 30 minutes each day for alone time

Health Experience Examples

Run a 10k
Rent a paddleboard
Hike with friends
Try to make smoothie bowls

Freedom

Freedom can mean different things to different people. It could refer to financial freedom, freedom to travel (such as having a location independent job), time freedom to spend with family, etc. The experiences you choose in this category may be one-time tasks to bring you closer to freedom, or maybe an experiment in the freedom-filled life you wish to live.

Freedom Goal Examples

Pay off $10,000 of student loans
Fully pay off mortgage
Buy an RV to travel in
Start my own business
Start investing in my company’s 401k

Freedom Experience Examples

1 hour consultation with fee-only CFP
Read Your Money or Your Life
Attend FinCon
Take a RV trip

Happiness

Happiness is a highly personal matter. So I will share my personal sub-categories, but of course you should base your goals off of what makes you happy. For me, happiness is related to my hobbies, travel, minimalism, and relationships (with my partner, friends and family). I find that this category tends to lean more towards experiences rather than goals, however you can set goals that reflect how often you’d like to practice a certain activity.

Happiness Goal Examples

Set up schedules so I can go on work trips with my partner (and vice versa)
See my best friend at least once a month (she lives far away)
Call my parents at least once a week

Happiness Experience Examples

Learn how to surf
Go on at least 3 camping trips
Travel to Ecuador
Take a digital sabbatical

Purpose

Even if you haven’t found your “calling” yet – many people have not- you can set goals that move you towards discovering your purpose. Additionally, thinking about this category will help you try different things to see where you can make the most impact in the world. For me, purpose relates to my self-education (skills), career, business, productivity, and environmental impact.

Purpose Goal Examples

Supervise an employee at work
Get more publicity for my business so I can help more people
Complete a new building project to work on craftsmanship skills

Purpose Experience Examples

Get a library card so I can borrow more audiobooks
Learn CPR / get AED certification
Volunteer at an environmental organization

Prioritize

Figure out what is truly important to you, and focus only on that.

Now that you have a huge list of all of the experiences and goals you’d like to pursue, it’s time to edit. Often, you won’t need to remove many experiences from the list unless there are two or more that are totally at odds with one-another. In that case you will have to choose the experience that is a higher priority for you at this point in your life.

Now, prioritizing goals is a little more difficult. I’d recommend selecting only one goal from each category to focus on. This will be the MOST important thing for you to achieve in this category. If you truly can’t decide, you could choose to select two, but the strong focus that you can have when you are only working towards one goal is really valuable.

If you split your energy and attention between a hundred different goals, you’re unlikely to achieve any of them. But if you focus all of your time and energy on one to four critical goals, you will get the results you are looking for.

One tactic that can make prioritizing your goals easier is figuring out which goal, when achieved, would make achieving your other goals easier. Often this will be habit-based goals that create a positive feedback loop and make forming other healthy habits easier as well.

Make your goals SMART

Creating SMART goals will give you a framework for achieving them.

S.M.A.R.T. goal setting is a framework that helps you set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. By setting goals this way, you are setting yourself up for success because you’ve set the right goals, and are able to measure when you’ve achieved your specific objective! Read these posts for additional information:

Search on Pinterest

Search on Pinterest to find attractive pictures for your vision board.

Searching for photos is the really fun part. Now that you’re done dreaming, you’ll start to put together a visual representation of your goals and dreams. I like to use Pinterest as a search engine that will help me curate images for my vision board, which really acts as a goal board.

To make this easier, I will take my main goals and experiences and write them down in one column. Then next to that list, I’ll pick a word or two that I could search for to find a photo that would visually represent that goal. For example, if my goal was to start a blog, my keyword might be “laptop.” Or, if my goal was to travel out of the country and I love the idea of going to a tropical island, my keyword might be “girl on beach.”

I’d recommend saving a few pictures for each keyword because you will want the photos to look good together in a collage. For a collage that looks like mine, you will need 12 different images total. These photos may include some beautiful typography or calligraphy of the year, a few inspirational quotes that you want to live by, or a picture of your friends and family. Creating a vision board that is beautiful is my favorite part of the whole process.

Create a Collage

Use a collage maker to put the photos together in whatever format you like.

I used the free trial of PicMonkey to create the grid of photos you see above. You can also use the free website Canva for this. I’ve created tutorials on how to use both of these sites to create your vision board collage.

Move the photos around into different formats to make sure the dream board looks balanced. This might mean switching a brighter photo with a darker one to make sure there aren’t too many dark colored pictures next to each other. The same idea works with colors. If you have two images with a bright red in them, you will want to place them on opposite sides of the board.

Display Your Vision Board

Print the vision board and keep it somewhere you will see it every day.

This step is crucial to making your vision board actually help you achieve your goals. Looking at your vision board every day will keep your goals in the front of your mind, and you will subconsciously start working towards them. You could hang a copy of the board in your cubicle at work, in front of your desk at home, or on the fridge. You could also include a copy in the front of your planner, planning binder, or journal so when you go to make plans for the day or the week you have a reminder of your goals right in front of you.

If you see your goals every day, this gives you a chance to work consciously towards your goals on a daily basis. And consistent, daily action towards you goals is what is going to make them happen. This step will make sure that your dream board actually works!

It will work

Some call it a dream board, some call it a vision board, but they’re the same thing – a visual representation of your goals. This visual representation is supposed to be proudly displayed and will act as a frequent reminder of what you set out to achieve and experience throughout the next year.

Creating a vision board that helps you achieve your goals is pretty straightforward. What you want to avoid is having just a dream board that is a reminder of all the stuff you wanted to do but never got around to. Therefore, you need to set the right goals (in the right way), present them in a visually pleasing manner, and most importantly, display them somewhere (or multiple places) that you will see them on a daily basis. That way, you will be motivated to take daily action towards your goals, which will lead to the achievement of your goals.

Your Turn:

What is your top goal for this year? Did you have fun creating a vision board? I would love to hear about your process and see a pic of your board; please share in the comments below.