This exercise allows you to picture success, which increases the likelihood that you’ll achieve your goals.
The New Year is the perfect time to focus on all the things you want in your life, and visualisation is one of the most powerful tools you can use to make them happen. As Albert Einstein said, “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.”
A vision board is a simple and valuable tool that enables you to picture your goals, dreams and the life you want to live. It’s a map of your path ahead.
My vision board for 2017 is pictured above: at the centre is a happy moment from 2016, when I raced my mountain bike and won my age group. (Because there were only two people in it, but still!) That image is in the centre of my vision board because it reminds me that when life challenges me, I am resilient and I will persevere. This moment was a year-plus in the making: I had broken my wrist on my mountain bike and one of my 2016 goals was to heal my body and my newly developed fear of riding technical trails.
Here’s how to create your own vision board:
Start with Notes
Jot down what you want to achieve or attract in 2017, as well as how you want to feel. Your board can be all about your running goals or it can be all encompassing – whichever you prefer.
Structure the Board
Put the year at the center of the board, along with an inspirational picture of yourself achieving something, if you’d like.
Jenny Blake, career coach and author of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters is Your Next One, recommends then drawing spokes out from the centre with various themes such as health, running/fitness, love, family, work and finance. (If your board is athletically focused, you can make the spokes “running”, “strength training”, “yoga”, or whatever other disciplines you intend to practice in the new year.)
Each of those themes gets its own spokes with concrete ways you might improve in that area.
Put on Finishing Touches
Add images or words you associate with the goals found on each part of your board. Add colour or texture as you’re inspired to, or don’t. The idea is to create a visual map for what you’d like to happen in order to more successfully follow it up with the belief and effort it takes to make those things happen, and if you find a simpler (or more elaborate) board more motivational, follow that instinct.
When your vision board is done, put it somewhere you can see it often to remind you of your goals and what you’re working toward on a daily basis.
Happy New Year.
