How to Make an Effective Vision Board

How to make a vision board and my personal story

Vision boards are just absolutely awesome. Besides being fun to make and interesting to look at, they can drastically increase your chances of reaching your dreams and goals. And it is actually in line with Biblical concepts.

The Bible says in Habakkuk 2: 2, “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets ….”. So you see, it’s really important for us to not only have a vision but to document it somewhere – a goal book or vision board is perfect for this. I discuss this further in my FREE ebooklet on vision boards.

I first heard of the concept of vision boards or goal books when I was in high school in the 1990s. I was reading a book called “Chicken soup for the soul” by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, and in it was a story where the author described what a goal book was. I was greatly intrigued, especially since she described the awesome the results that she got from using a goal book/vision board.

The start of my vision boards

Immediately I went to work and made one for myself. Back then I put mostly images to do with the future studies that I wanted to pursue and the career I dreamt of having etc. in my goal book.

Well, it worked, because when I was done with school I didn’t have a cent to pay for my studies, nor did my parents have the money to pay for tertiary studies. And although I worked hard at school, I didn’t get a scholarship. Those are few and far between here in South Africa. But I believed that I would be able to go and study and so it came to be. A relative offered to pay for my studies. I was ecstatic and thus able to graduate debt-free.

Over the course of the next few years, my dreams and goals changed and so I adjusted and updated my vision book/board. I threw the old one away (a move I still deeply regret, because it is always encouraging to go back and see how far you’ve come). This time around I put a picture of two little girls in the book, a house, and a car and quite a few other pictures that resonated with me.

Now the car had more to with the fact that I wanted a driver’s licence, than actually owning a car at that stage.

“It’s about being authentic to your true self. That is the secret to making vision boards work for you.”

The picture of the little girls just ‘spoke’ to me. God has since blessed me with two little girls! I got my driver’s licence and a car! And my husband and I bought a house.

Bottom line – vision boards work! And so I have been making vision boards/dream books ever since. I always update them as I grow and dreams are realized.

There is no magic in the board itself, but rather there is something about keeping your dreams and goals in front of you consistently, that helps to keep your faith strong and helps to keep you focused and actively working on achieving your dreams and goals. And somehow God works out the rest to make it happen.

I would look at my goal book (as I call it) as regularly as I can and when I look at it, I thoroughly visualize myself being, having and doing what is in my goal book. ‘Feeling’ the image when you are looking at it and visualizing it is of the utmost importance because that is when your faith is working at its best.

It’s about being authentic

Now, not everything that I have placed in my goal book/vision board has come to pass. Why? Because certain things were out of the will of God for me or they were not what I really, really wanted. In other words, I wasn’t being true to my authentic self when I placed those pictures on my board. That is why it’s important to try and be as clear as possible about what it is that you want and to be true to yourself.

Not everybody really wants the big mansion on the hill or the Porche – they think they do, so sometimes people are tempted to just place these types of images on their boards, because they think that this is what they should want, when in actual fact what they maybe truly want is a more simplistic life – a cottage at the beach or something. That’s why it’s important to be true to yourself and not to live by the world’s definition of success, but your own.

Get Clarity

So before you go off and make your vision board, get clarity first, then go ahead and make your vision board. Once again I’ll mention that Habakkuk 2:2(NKJ) says “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets…” Write down what it is that you really, really want. This is so important and it is the reason why a lot of people fail when it comes to making effective vision boards.

Without absolute clarity you are sure to fail, because your efforts won’t be concentrated in one area. One day you’ll think you want this and believe for it and start working towards it and the next you’ll change your mind and you’ll go of after that. It keeps changing. Do you see there’s no consistency there? And so nothing of significance gets accomplished. The Word of God says that a doubting man is a double-minded man and is unstable in all he does and will not receive anything of the Lord( James 1:5-7). That is why clarity is the first important step.

I discuss the entire process of making an effective vision board that is in line with Biblical principles in detail in my FREE mini-guide.

Grab your FREE copy of the Vision Boards ebooklet/guide and start the journey to actualizing your dreams.