by Cricket Wingfield, MD
If you want to achieve new heights in your career, you’re not alone. Whether you’re looking for a promotion or you're one of the 50 percent of workers who wants a new career altogether, achieving your desired level of career success can seem like a daunting process.
How do you begin? How do you stay motivated?
While we can’t speak for what it takes to succeed in every industry, we do know that there is always one good place to start: a vision board.
Creating a vision board — also known as a dream board — will allow you to channel your inspiration into a visualization tool to keep you focused and motivated. Curious to learn more?
Here’s how to create a career vision board to achieve your long-term goals.
The Vision Board Creation Process
Creating a vision board should be a relaxing and fulfilling process. Below is our six-step vision board creation process.
1. Make Your List Of Goals
Creating your vision board will require you to think about the career goals that you would like to achieve in the next year. Are you aiming for a promotion or pay raise? Maybe you’d like to leave the 9 to 5 and start your own business.
Your vision board will be more effective if you know what you want to accomplish. Spend some time with yourself to become clear on exactly what you want. Sometimes playing with images and words can help bring clarity.
What do you want the next 12 months to look like? What about the next 12 weeks? 12 days?
2. Collect Magazines for Your Goal Board
The first place to start gathering some great materials for your vision board is a bundle of old magazines or catalogs. You’d be surprised what inspiration can be found there!
From feature stories to aesthetic advertisements, magazines are a great source of well-curated visuals that are a great foundation for a vision board.
Look for magazines that fit your goals. For instance, if you want to start your own fashion brand, looking at magazines like Vogue and Bazaar will be effective for you. Say you’re a web developer — you’ll want to look at different sources.
3. Find Other Inspirational Materials
Aside from magazines, you can find inspirational sources pretty much everywhere. From finding passages in old books to looking at old pictures, anything that represents your goals and speaks to your heart will be a great addition to your vision board.
You’re not limited to two dimensions, either. Add textures and fabrics to your vision board - maybe your career goal this year is to move into the corner office. Add a fabric sample of that couch that you can already envision in the space.
And you don’t need physical objects or exact literal interpretations of what you want. Focus on how you want to feel. Can you imagine the view, the smell of the flowers on your desk, the taste and feel of a warm cup of tea.
Or, say you want to find a new position this year that lets you take Fridays off to travel. On your vision board, you could include pictures of planes and beautiful landscapes to remind you of the opportunities out there - you don’t need a picture of an exact location or trip date, but the more specific, the better.
4. Add Affirmations For Hopeful Feelings
Your vision board for your career shouldn’t only be focused so much on the exact outcome you’re trying to accomplish so much as on how you would feel once you reach that goal.
Focusing on your feelings will help you accomplish that career goal — one way to help this process is by adding motivational affirmation words.
Take time to think about words that describe how you want to feel, like “abundant,” joyful,” “powerful,” “strong,” financially free,” and “respected.”
You can look for these words in magazines, find them in other printed sources, or even design them yourself. Your own handwriting adds your personal touch and your own energy signature.
Adding motivational quotes will generate similar energy as affirmations do. Think of people who have accomplished the career success that you wish to attain. What are some of their quotes or life practices that you can write down to include on your board?
5. Make A Collage On Your Board
Once you have collected enough materials, it’s time to construct your vision board! If you don’t have your Living Vision Board, we recommend using a poster board or similar material that allows you to move materials around easily.
Arrange your materials onto your background in a way that speaks to you. Some people may prefer a more orderly display, while others want something that is free form. Keep adjusting the way your materials are arranged until you are happy with the outcome. Don’t forget to add a picture of yourself right into your vision
You can then glue your materials to hold them in place.
6. Hang Up Your Board Somewhere Visible
Your vision board is both an intentional tool and a way for you to constantly remind your subconscious of what you’re trying to accomplish.
Hang up your vision board somewhere visible so you interact with it every day, even if you’re glancing at it as you walk out of your office.
Look for a location that is private enough that you feel like you don’t have to share or explain your goals, but visible enough that you are still viewing the vision board frequently. It’s a way of reminding yourself to keep your dreams alive and top of mind.
7. Contemplate Your Board Daily
You should be intentionally interacting with your mood board every day as a means of self-reflection. Your vision board is a great tool to leverage the Law of Attraction, which states that you will attract into your life whatever you focus on.
If you’re taking the time to contemplate your career success vision board every day, you will align yourself with what you want. If you find yourself with resistance, take a look at that more closely so you can clear out whatever is in your way.
Think of it like this: when you view your career vision board, you will be inspired. This will motivate you to work to align yourself with what you want, bring your full presence to each moment, which will help you to create a pattern of success.
Accomplishing Career Success with Vision Boards
Achieving career success will be closer than you think when you use a vision board. If you're a bold woman looking to take the next step in her career, contact us to learn about the Living Vision Board Creation Course and Mastermind Community where women are upleveling in every area of life!