How to Make a Vision Board to Inspire a Cultivated Year

If you could envision your most cultivated year yet, what would it look like? When you think about next December, what do you want to have accomplished? How do you want to feel? How do you want to have spent your time? Who do you want to have spent it with?

If you can visualize what's ahead, you're more likely to live it. Once you have your PowerSheets goals for the year, think of your vision board as another way to reinforce your path - if you can see it clearly, it will be easier to find your way!

Today, I'm happy to share our best tips for how to make a vision board - but first, I need to admit that I have not always been a fan of them. (And that's saying something, because I'm now a HUGE vision board cheerleader!) In my mind, the danger with creating a board like this is that you can look at it (at the end of the year, or the middle), and say, well, my life sure doesn’t look like that. It’s not that clean, or beautiful, or color-coordinated.

Once I switched my focus from pulling images that just looked pretty or went well together to pulling images that meant something to ME, that were relevant to MY year ahead (not someone else's), and that in many cases were of places I love or things I'd done in the past, it clicked - and vision boards have been a powerful part of my life as a goal getter ever since.

Here's how to make your own digital inspiration board!

• Create a Pinterest board. Open up your Pinterest account and create a new board. You can title it anything, but I usually call it [YEAR] VISION BOARD. You can mark it as secret in the settings, if you'd like.
• Search for things that inspire you. This is the fun part! Start pulling inspiration from everywhere. Did you see a pretty image on Instagram? Save it! Search for goal keywords like "fitness" or "finance" in the Pinterest search bar. Browse the boards of favorite accounts you follow on Pinterest. Search for inspiring phrases, your word of the year, or favorite quotes! Use your yearly goals, your plans for the year ahead, your big-picture vision, and your yes/no list to guide your search for images. Pin away without worrying about narrowing them down just yet!
• Open each pin individually and take a screenshot. Or right click to save! Don't worry about perfect quality here. Save all the screenshots to a folder on your desktop called "[YEAR] VISION BOARD" so they're easy to find later.
• Add bonus images. To your folder, add scanned tear-outs from magazines (there are free scanning apps you can download for your phone to make this easy) or saved images you've taken with your own camera - maybe of your kids, your home, your friends, or a travel destination you're planning to visit in the year ahead.
• Use Canva to build your board. You don't need to have expert design skills! Create a free account with Canva, and put your board together! I upload all the images in my folder and then start arranging them on a simple white background. If you have access to a fancier design program like Illustrator, it of course works just as well! Tip: A quick Google search for "Canva vision board tutorial" will bring up quite a few YouTube videos for more training!
• Save it, print it, and display it! A household printer will do just fine, or you can send it to print through a service like FedEx or OfficeDepot. Print in full color on white cardstock to make it a little sturdier for display throughout the year. The most important part is to keep it somewhere you'll see it regularly! I like to print a copy for my PowerSheets Prep Work and another to post on my refrigerator. Other team members use theirs as their desktop background!