Can A Vision Board Help You Get Motivated For Success?

The act of building one can be a helpful way to define your goals, build optimism, and reinforce your motivation to succeed. We’ll discuss how you can create your own vision board and why it might help you work toward what matters most to you.

Making a vision board can force you to get specific about what you want and encourage you to set ambitious goals.  Evidence from psychological research suggests that  can be an important way to motivate high performance. 

At the same time, your vision board can link your desires with emotionally powerful images, potentially helping you push past self-doubt. Your creation can serve as a tangible reminder of your big-picture aims that you can refer to and interact with daily.

What is a vision board?

You may have questions about what we mean by a vision board and how it works. That may be partly because there isn’t just one way to craft one. Different guides may give different advice about how to make a vision board and what to do with it afterward.

At its most basic, a vision board is a collection of images that form a visual representation of positivity, success, and specific goals or items you hope to gain or achieve. The most well-known version is a poster board pinned with photographs of personal goals. 

A vision board is typically displayed in the space where the user lives or works to constantly remind them what they’re seeking. There are many variations on this idea, though. —You can create a digital vision board that you can view online or create a vision journal that you slowly fill with meaningful images and phrases.

The images you choose can also vary a great deal. Possible options include:

• Pictures representing a desired lifestyle
• Visual representations of particular goals
• Images evoking emotional themes like determination, confidence, or inner peace
• Personally relevant symbols of success
• Photos of inspirational individuals
• Meaningful quotes
• Physical keepsakes such as photographs, business cards, or tickets

Do vision boards work?

Many people are skeptical of vision boards because the practice can sometimes be presented in terms of pseudoscientific concepts.

 If you’re hoping that this article will explain how a vision board can magically let you live your dream life without much work on your part, you may be disappointed.

Studies indicate that this kind of wishful thinking will likely decrease your motivation, hindering your success rather than promoting it. For example, a 2011 paper reported that people who fantasized about positive accomplishments reported reduced energy and less achievement during the following week.

On the other hand, there’s evidence that the right kinds of positive visualization can help you attain your goals. Sports psychologists, for instance, have repeatedly found that athletes who imagine themselves practicing before physically carrying out their actions show better performance.

The difference may lie in the focus on action over results. In a 1999 experiment, a study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers discovered that college students who visualized studying hard performed better than those who simply imagined getting a good grade. This suggests that to make your vision board work, you might craft it to inspire action.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you should completely exclude images of results on your vision board. Some researchers have found that setting more challenging goals may lead to bigger behavior changes than choosing small ones. 

Your best bet might be a combination of both approaches. You can create a visual representation of your lofty ambitions and then surround it with reminders of the grit and determination you’ll probably need along the way.

Psychological benefits of vision boards

If crafting a vision board doesn’t automatically draw success your way, what exactly does it do? Psychological research points toward a few possible benefits:

Setting specific goals

Selecting particular images to create a vision board can force you to think about what you’re trying to achieve, possibly helping you narrow your focus on a particular task. Many studies on goal-setting have shown that specific aims are better than vague ones at driving productive behavior. 

Engaging emotions

Researchers have found important links between motivation and optimism. When you’re highly motivated to achieve something, you may also be more likely to believe it’s possible. Choosing physical or online images that evoke strong emotional reactions could help you enhance your motivation and decrease self-doubt.

Maintaining focus

If you tend to get distracted or lose steam easily, a vision goal board might help. There’s evidence from neuroscience  showing that your brain filters out thoughts and sensations that are less emotionally engaging. By linking your intentions with images that evoke strong feelings, you may get the mental charge you need to sustain attention toward your work.

How to make a vision board

As you get ready to create your first vision board, know that it may take some tinkering to get the optimal version of your board. Here are some suggestions that may help you get started.

Consider your medium

Do you want to make your board out of tangible materials or digital images? Many people find building a physical vision board to be more emotionally potent since it engages the body as well as the mind. It may also be a more effective reminder since you’ll see it on your desk or wall even when you’re not online. 

On the other hand, it may be harder to find physical pictures that connect with your goals and tap into strong emotions. Working with online images can make the search much easier. A hands-on collage may also cost more to create and require more effort to update and modify later.

If you choose a physical board, you’ll likely need a blank base, such as a corkboard, whiteboard, or poster board. You’ll also need some way to attach pictures to it, such as pins, tape, or glue. And you’ll need a source for inspiring images. —Magazines, newspapers, and even illustrated books are common choices, though you can print out online images. 

If you opt for a digital image board, you can choose from dozens of apps and websites to choose from, or you can create a simple document or slideshow on your computer. When it comes time to choose images, you’ll have the entire internet to choose from.

Choose active images

Successful individuals who use vision boards often stress the need to focus on the process as much as the results. As we discussed earlier, fantasizing too much about your desired outcomes may make you complacent instead of motivated.

To combat this effect, it may be helpful to create a board that strongly emphasizes what you need to do to reach your goal. You could lay out your vision board like an action plan, with pictures representing important milestones on the way to success.

It might also help to incorporate images and phrases that make you think of helpful personal qualities, such as grit, determination, and resilience.

Start simple and expand

You may not want to fill up your board right away. Many people like to tinker with their creations as they get closer to their desired outcomes, adding mementos of the successes they achieve. This can help you create a sense of tangible progress, building your confidence and helping your dream life seem more achievable.

Flexible vision boards can also be reminders that you’re engaging in a process rather than shooting for a static result. Modern research on goal-setting suggests that it may be often best to structure goals around learning, improving, and acquiring skills rather than simply getting certain tasks done.

This may prepare you better for the temporary setbacks you’ll likely face—perhaps more so than obsessing over the binary outcomes of success or failure. Allowing your vision board to change and grow with you may help you keep this learning-focused perspective.

Starting simple can have another significant benefit: it often enables you to get started immediately. If you insist on making your board perfect right out of the gate, you may end up spending hours searching the web for vision board ideas rather than tackling your real goals.

Therapy may help you improve your motivation

Vision boards can be useful tools for reminding you of your big-picture goals. However, their effectiveness may be limited if you have mental and behavioral habits that get in the way of potential success. Working with a mental health professional may help you develop better strategies for getting what you want out of life.

Online counseling may be a convenient way to do this, especially if you’re working so hard to achieve your goals that you’re unsure whether you’ll have time to attend therapy in person. Attending sessions online is often much easier since you may not have to travel anywhere. You might also have an easier time finding a compatible therapist, as you can search beyond your immediate geographical area.

The research suggests that online therapy can be just as effective as more traditional forms of treatment. One study published in ClinicalMedicine found that online therapy was at least as effective as in-person therapy. If you think you could use professional help getting motivated for success, seeking treatment over the Internet might be beneficial.