How to Create a Vision Board + Why

***Updated from original post published on January 17, 2018.***

Photo Credit: https://jessicacollins.photography

"What is a vision board?" you may ask. Simply put, it is cut-and-paste collage of your desired intentions for the year to come with the goal to create something relevant to your passion + purpose without the expectation of organized perfection or gallery worthy presentation. It is essentially a creative, practical visualization of your desires/goals/hopes & visual inspirations all in one place - one big creative brain dump on a poster board! Simple, right?

However, I know the concept can be a bit intimidating depending on your particular bend (insert the trending enneagram conversation.) For some, there is a real foreboding in tackling a creative task such as this, while others are already sifting through a sea of magazines, quotes, and inspirational images in utter glee. Therefore, before we move on, let's kindly address the anxious creative or nonbeliever in the purpose of such things.

Creating a vision board for your new year and/or endeavor, whether it is a vacation, job change, entrepreneurial venture, or personal pursuit of any kind, is a worthy tool, especially for those that have a hard time visualizing big picture concepts. For the professional dreamers out there, it is passionate creation, and can be one of the best first steps in approaching the next season of life with inspired confidence. To help you get started, we have put together some helpful tips + visuals in a FREE printable HIVEhome Vision Board Kit. In doing so, we would love nothing more than to be a part of beginning your year with joyful inspiration & intentional pursuit. Within our kit and instructions below, you will find everything you need to personalize a board of your own. Now, let's get started, shall we?!

How to get started:

I would suggest asking a few questions. Would it surprise you that "What do I want to do?" or "What do I want to be?" do not make the cut? I would argue that greater foundation will be found in the substance of WHO and HOW rather than WHAT, because it measures you by a scale of character rather than achievement. (Read that again; it’s good for the soul.)

In other words, friend, let me ask you WHO do you want to BE, and HOW do you want to FEEL this year?

It’s not that the topics of achieving or attaining cannot be represented on your board. For example, travel and adventure are assuredly on mine, but not because I want to simply do the measurable action and check it off my measurable list (more on that here)… but because I want to BE adventurous. Notice I did say “feel adventurous.”

The feeling comes from a deeper place. It is attached to creating memories, histories, aromas, tastes, and relationships - aspects of living that give me JOY, and that, my friends, is what I want to feel this year - JOY, and in essence, who I want to be as well - a vessel of joy. These aspects are represented in our printables, and I hope that you find it not only helpful but encouraging as I promote joy this year. Is this not the best job ever?

“This year, I am encouraging others to have joy in all things as I strive to do, I mean be, the same.”

All this said, this isn't magic. Answering these questions and pasting inspirational quotes + unicorn images will not unlock your future or attract all the positive energy in the universe to your whim and whinny. (See what I did there?) What this can do, however, is align your heart to your cause and give you a visual representation revealing that your passions + purpose matter. Say it out loud, "My passions + purpose matter." It's true. Believe it.

And frankly, it looks darn good on paper. Why not? Why not take your year and envision an intentional pursuit to feel something like... JOY, for example, in your passions + purpose? It's real, ladies, this thing called joy, and it's attainable, but there's not a new job, car, or relationship (beyond one Holy) that will give it to you.

You were made and designed for a specific purpose + poetry that only you truly know how to envision and enjoy, so Iet me encourage you that if no one else in the world wants to share that vision with you, I do. I want you, my friend, to envision and realize a joy unspeakable, a joy only explained by the contentment resolved in a soul well-tended with the fires of truth, compassion, and selflessness, bent on living out vision without compromise - how ever imperfect it may be.

It's you + a purpose, and that's worth visualizing according to the Creator himself. You are here, are you not? So, once again, "HOW do you want to feel?" (I choose joy and gratitude!), and "WHO do you want to be?" (Exactly who God made me.) Start here.