The magic of vision boards

How you can create a powerful tool to spark a light in you and your life

Lara Doherty,Founder of the Motivation Clinic

For a lot of women, with or without experiencing peri/ menopause symptoms, our confidence, motivation and spark for life wanes during midlife and in certain major life situations. If we are not careful, this loss can then lead to feelings of low selfworth and mental health issues.

The things we once wanted are no longer what we want in our lives. We are no longer satisfied. Perhaps in a job you don’t like, a boss you can’t stand, a relationship that needs to end, the need for a new home, putting everybody first.

We can end up feeling stuck and lacking purpose, direction and most of all, haven’t a clue how to change the way we feel or what to do about it….leading to feelings of overwhelm and frustration. We want to change but don’t know where to even begin or whether it is possible.

But fear not, there is a solution: a very powerful tool and process which is relatively simple (and also fun) that you can use to get you unstuck, feeling more confident, motivated and able to get that spark back in your life again.

I have been been using Vision Boards for the last 4 years personally and professionally with clients. Following a traumatic relationship breakdown a few years ago, I vowed to change my life and happened upon Vision Boards and went on to create my first board. Just 4 months later, I was facilitating group workshops and overcoming my greatest fear, which was public speaking.

Since then, I have helped to transform the lives of 100s of individuals using Vision Boards, write a book “The Mighty Book Of Motivation Magic”, featured on the radio, launched a podcast, and manifested a space to use for workshops and run a successful coaching business. I have ticked off most things on all the Vision Boards I have created over the past 4 years, including saying yes to many adventures (a few less during COVID) and living a fulfilled and happy life - a huge change from the life I used to have.

What exactly is a Vision Board?

A vision board can be described as a powerful tool that brings your goals and aspirations to life. It can be a board, a piece of paper, a piece of card, a pinboard, foamboard of any shape or size, or you can create your very own scrapbook. The process I use to create a vision board plays with our right brain to invoke creativity and imagination through various exercises, extracting aspirations, goals and perhaps long-forgotten dreams from our subconscious.

The board ends up being a physical representation of a goal or goals that you’re aiming to achieve over the next year, pushing you towards all the pictures, words and phrases that end up on your board.

The brain remembers images 65% better than words, so looking at a vision board daily keeps you on track and heading towards your goals way quicker than just writing a list.

Your brain is sorting through thousands of bits of information every second of every day, similar to how Google works. The brain then decides, based on thoughts and emotions, what it gives its attention to and what it lets go of.

A vision board is an extremely clever tool because when you look at all the pictures, words and phrases on your board, this directs your brain to what it needs to remember and focus on. The neuroscientific term

The Magic Of Vision Boards

for this is ‘value-tagging’. It is like telling our brain who is boss!

How you can create your own Vision Board at home

1. Collect 10 magazines, a board (minimum size A3), have a notebook and pen handy, a pair of scissors and a Pritt stick.

2. Schedule at least an hour out of your life to firstly get clear and think how you want to be in life, what you want to do and what you want to have in your life over the next year. 3. Write down your thoughts in a notebook until you can’t write any more.

4. Flick through the magazines, picking out images and text that resonate with you and that are associated with or represent the things you have written down - your goals - the more accurate you are the better. 5. Place a photo of yourself in the middle of the board and then arrange all the images and text you have found into different sections of the board, each representing an area of your life (health/recreation, work/career, finances, home environment, personal growth, travel, family and friends, community, spirituality/religion) 6. Stick everything onto your vision board and place it in a prominent place in your home where you’re going to be able to see it multiple times a day.

Finally, write out your finalised goals by stating “Today is (1 year from now). Then describe your perfect day with all the things on your vision board in mind. Do it in the present tense as if it is already happening and only use positive language.

For a more in-depth dive into Vision Boarding, you can find Lara at www.themotivationclinic.co.uk