Bringing positivity back one Vision Board at a time

I think at some point in our life every person wanted to make a Vision Board. You know the ones with the cute magazine cutouts and outfits you adored, but then we sort of grew up and our idea of Vision Boards basically became our wall calendars with our work and school schedules, and that volunteering event we promised we’d go it. I think when we get wrapped up in this bizarre routine of work and school we almost lose ourselves in this idea of who we should be, but not who we actually are.

What do all those events say about you? Or the goals you want to accomplish in the next weeks, months, or years? That’s where the Vision Board comes in. It helps you organize and prioritize what’s important to you, and allows you to be real with yourself about what YOU can achieve. I think that’s why I was so eager to make mine… It’s almost like a giant, more colorful, and creative checklist of things I want to accomplish. And your girl loves some checklists, so it’s a win-win.

Here’s what I did to create my Vision Board:

1.WRITE IT OUT

It’s easy to say you want to this elaborate thing and jump right into it, but these types of projects take a bit of self-reflection so they can serve their purpose. Ask yourself “What do I want to accomplish?”

When I did this I broke things down into sections:

• Affirmations
• Quotes
• Goals
• Dreams
• Breaking Habits

Under each of those, I listed things that I wanted to accomplish in each category.

2.TRULY THINK ABOUT WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU

Again self-reflection. What is something that has been hanging over your head for awhile that you want to get done, and you have the time and energy for? When I was thinking about my goals it was pretty simple to get things written down because for me the whole premise of creating this Vision Board was to be able to see and visualize my goals each day I looked at it. So under my goals, I wrote:

• Financially Comfortable
• Be Fit
• Debt Free
• More God Time
• Graduate
• Read More

Then under those I put small ways to accomplish them. For example under ‘Read More’ I put ‘Read a book a month’ and under ‘Be Fit’ I put ‘Exercise weekly’. I know myself and if I give myself too heavy of goals I’ll keep putting them off until I don’t do them and convince myself that it was the goal that was too hard, not my procrastinative nature.

I wanted to keep my affirmations short and sweet. That way when I read them it’s a few words on my mind like “Follow through” or “Be unapologetically me” instead of a long poem or quote. I think the small affirmations are the driving force behind Vision Boards. You’re able to create these small little tidbits to carry with you throughout the day that help you to be a better you.

3.TYPE IT OUT

This part was fun for me. I was able to choose the fonts and formatting of what I wanted to look at for the next year or so. I used Canva to get the shapes with the words, and my headers down. Unfortunately, unless you pay there’s only about 50 or so fonts to choose from and some of them are definitely not super creative. Another option would be to browse dafont.com and download any of their free fonts to be used on Word and create it that way. I personally work with Canva a lot, so I know my way around the neighborhood.

Have fun with it! You’re going to be staring at it for the next however many months!

4.GET YOUR LIFE TOGETHER

Just kidding, but this is the part where you get to get creative with how you arrange it on the corkboard. I recycled a corkboard someone gave me as a gift a couple of years ago and repainted it white so that the entire thing had a neutral background and I had more freedom to do what I wanted. I did this step a little backward so do what you want with it, but I cut up my little sections and started arranging them on the board then got tack happy. My first draft looked something like this:

Yeah not the most ~appealing~ thing in the world, but for a few days it did the trick. UNTIL I realized that the only thing that looks good in all black and white is me, and black and white is not how I see my goals in life.

I ended up commandeering about 10 or so magazines from my Mom’s house (thanks, Mom) and basically tore them to shreds. I went through first and found quotes I really liked and headlines I thought were rad, and cut those out. Then I thought this thing still needed some color so I went through again looking for images that could be backgrounds or bright spots that make me feel happy. I also went through my hoarding stash of planner supplies and found some fancier paperclips and Heidi Swapp quote cards. And if you have the right eye you’ll notice the Erin Condren details on there too ;).

The final product:

I actually posted this on my personal Instagram and was shocked with the positive responses I got. Things like this are hard for me to share with people I know since this gives them an inside look into who I am/ want to be, but like I said. It went surprisingly well.

Vision Boards are for YOU. YOU are the one who’s having to look at it every day. You’re making it for you, so be sure to add a little flavor to it (not just salt and pepper) to really make it your own. Tag me in your Vision Boards (@marissajwatkins)! I want to see what incredible things you come up with!