How to Create a Vision Board – 7 Easy Steps to Create Yours

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Updated: 18 July, 2025

Vision boards are amazing tools for visualizing goals. Though it is not scientifically proven, many people – including yours truly, attest to the fact that vision boards work. Creating a vision board increases the chances of achieving your goals significantly.

But before we answer the question of how to make a vision board, first let’s look at why vision boards are important.

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Why Should You Create a Vision Board for Your Life

According to the Oxford dictionary: a vision board is a collage of images and words representing a person’s wishes or goals, intended to serve as inspiration or motivation.

In other words, it is any kind of board or surface on which you display images or words that represent what you want to have or be in your life. The simplest way I can answer “why create a vision board?” is using this quote by Abraham Lincoln.

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln

A vision board basically functions as a tool to help you visualize your goals and give you a sense of clarity, focus, and direction. By creating a vision board, you turn your vision into reality on paper, making your goals feel tangible. It is easier to chase a goal if you can envision what the end looks like, and that is what a vision board does for you.

1. Direction

“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” – Zig Ziglar

If you do not know where you are headed, you will not know when you have arrived. A vision board serves as a visual marker of the direction you need to take to accomplish your goals. Having a sense of direction in life and in goal setting is imperative. As you actively engage your mind in determining how the outcome of your goals will look like as you create your vision board, you will inevitably engage your mind on how to get there.

2. Clarity

Do you know exactly what you want? Has it occurred to you that the reason why you do not have what you want could be that you do not know what it is that you want?

As you take time to visualize your goals, you will be surprised that there are things that you thought you wanted but you don’t really want them. You may find out that though you have been thinking about finding a new job, what you would really find fulfilling is having your own business or vice versa. Take time to create mental pictures and maps of what you want to achieve, and how you want to get there.

A vision board helps you clarify your goals. By visualizing your goal, you have to picture clearly what you want to achieve, how it looks like and create images of the final product of your desires.

Take some time off, declutter your mind and think about what you really want to achieve or become in life. What does success mean to you? Think about what you want to achieve in every area of your life. Think about the goals you have for your relationships, career, finances, health, education, spirituality and any other area of your life that is important to you. These will vary from person to person and all you need to do is find out what that is for you.

3. Focus

A vision board helps you to focus on your goals. There are so many distractions in life pulling you in different directions and sometimes it is hard to stay focused on your goals. Having a vision board provides you a visual target which helps you filter out distractions and maintain focus on what matters to you most.

Every time you glance at your vision board and see the images and messages that you have placed on it, your mind is steered back to your goals. Images are powerful. The more you see your visions and dreams on a tangible surface, the more real they become to you. We attract what we focus on, and what you focus on expands.

Napoleon Hill said, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” It is important to realize that to achieve something, you first have to conceive it in your mind. If you have not visualized your goal in your mind, it is highly unlikely that you can achieve it in the physical realm.

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

Napoleon Hill

What Do You Put on The Vision Board?

The most important thing to remember when creating your vision board is that there are no rules. There is no right or wrong vision board and one person’s vision board may not work for another. Anything that inspires you motivates you, and is in line with your goals can go on your board. Whether it is a picture, a motivational quote, a map or a painting it doesn’t matter so long as it inspires you.

You can find pictures from magazines, on the internet (Pinterest has plenty) or even family pictures of memories that you want to relive. You could use a picture from your last vacation if one of your goals is to go on vacation more. I have a picture of London on my vision board because one of my goals is to visit London. Every time I look at my vision board I am reminded of that goal and I get excited to work towards it. If you are an artist you can paint an image that inspires you or helps you to focus on a certain goal.

Feel free to use affirmations; words and phrases that express your desired goals and affirm your intentions. When your mind is fed with positive words, the subconscious is triggered to work towards making those statements come true. By all means include words, phrases, and statements that appeal to you on your vision board. These will help you counter the negativity and that inner voice that all so often discourages us from becoming all we can be. Every time you see your vision board, you will be exposing your mind to positive energy. This energy will work to turn those positive mental pictures into a reality and propel you into achieving your goals.

Related article: How to set and accomplish your goals.

Is Creating a Vision Board Worth It?

The benefits of creating a vision board are definitely worth the effort it takes to create one. However, it is key to remember that the vision board in itself is just a board. The power of the vision board is not on the board; it is in YOU the vision bearer. It is in your ability to transform that motivation into action. You have to believe the affirmations and allow them to empower you to become the person you have envisioned. The person who has what it takes to work towards that goal and accomplish it.

Next, lets delve into the different types of vision boards that you can create. I am sure you will find one that works for you.

Types of Vision Boards

There are different versions of vision boards that one can create and a variety of materials and tools that can be used to make a vision board. It all depends on your preference and what is easily accessible, and what is most appealing to you.

Some more common formats of vision boards include:

1. Poster boards
2. Vision books or portable vision boards; you can use a blank art book or a fold-book.
3. Cork board or bulletin board – use push pins or thumbtacks to attach images to the board
4. Inspirational wall– you can tape or pin inspirational images and messages directly to a wall.
5. Small planner vision boards – this planner contains a page for a vision board and a mind map, and I love it for all my goal setting needs.
6. Online vision boards – you can use design software online such as Canva or make a vision board using Pinterest boards. These are especially great if you work on the computer all the time. You can set your vision board as a wallpaper or screensaver where you will be able to see it as much as possible.

How to Make a Vision Board

The general principles of creating a vision board are quite similar regardless of the format or size of vision board. In this post, I am using the poster board for reference but most (if not all) of the guidelines apply to all the other formats. However, feel free to tweak the process to meet your individual needs. There is really no wrong way to do it.

What You Need:

1. Time – set aside at least 1 hour for this exercise (it is totally worth it)
2. A pen and paper, or a book.
3. Poster board/ cork board
4. Old magazines, computer printouts
5. Scissors
6. Glue sticks, tape, push pins or thumbtacks
7. Markers (optional)
8. Sticky notes (optional)

7 Easy Steps to Create Your Vision Board Effectively

Here are seven easy steps to make an effective vision board:

1. Reflect and refine your goals

The first and most important- step when creating a vision board is making your goals very clear and purposeful. Most of us have a general idea of what we want in life. Unfortunately, sometimes these goals are too vague to generate any real results. Vague goals lead to vague results. Take time to reflect and refine your goals, make sure you have a very specific target for all the goals you have. Ask yourself what you are passionate about, take time to visualize it and make it crystal clear in your mind.

Vague goals lead to vague results

Next, examine your goals and ask yourself why you are aiming at each goal. Why do you want what you want? What is ‘your why’? Does it fit into the big picture of the vision you have for your life? Is ‘your why’ resonating with your value system? Refine those goals.

As you do this exercise, you will realize that some goals are not worth pursuing because ‘your why’ was flawed. I personally find this exercise to be very powerful in helping me decide which goals I should chase and which ones I could be wasting time on. If ‘your why’ is peer pressure for example, that is not a goal worth pursuing.

2. Write a goal action plan – make a list of activities and tasks

I have to confess, I am really big on lists. I make and remake lists all through the day to help me focus. On the days that I don’t have a list, I am literally all-over-the-place. It is, therefore, a no-brainer for me to recommend lists for this step.

You have already identified your goals and are very clear on them. So at this point, you write down what you will do to make them a reality. If you want to improve your relationship with a child, what activities do you want to do with them? How much time are you going to spend with them? Do you need to read a book on parenting? Ask yourself these questions and list your responses. Do this exercise for all your goals.

Make the list as long as you need to. The aim here is to make sure that you have a clear list of tasks and activities that are essential for achieving your goal.

The first two steps are the most important and once you have completed these, the rest of the process will be much easier.

3. Choose the focus of your vision board

Having decided on the action plan, now you need to choose what your vision board will focus on. You can decide to make separate vision boards for various goals or do one vision board for all your goals. Decide what works for you and focus on that.

4. Gather the materials; images and text

Take the old magazines and flip through to find images, quotes, or phrases that inspire you to take the actions you listed earlier. Cut out the images focusing on one area at a time. For example, you can decide to focus on health goals first, cut out everything that relates to your health goals before you move on to the next goal. Do this until you have enough for all your goals.

If you don’t have magazines, head over to Pinterest or search for images online and print them out. Obtain as many as possible that are in line with your goals and then select the ones that appeal to you the most.

5. Paste the images and messages on the board.

Once you have all the images you like, use the glue sticks, tape, push pins or thumbtacks to place the images on the board.

Use the marker to label on the board or to write phrases that you like on the board. Feel free to write additional messages on sticky notes and add this to the vision board as necessary.

I use sticky notes to add messages to my vision board according to the challenges I am facing at a particular point in time. For instance. I realized I was struggling with indecision and decided to add a message on a sticky note to my board. It’s amazing how much difference it has made!

Related read: I am out of the comfort zone and loving it

6. Place the board where you can see it often

Choose a location for your vision board where you can see it daily, or several times a day. Whether this is in the kitchen, hallway, or bedroom, you need to be able to see it regularly. If you cannot see it often, it is not serving its purpose.

7. Commit to making use of your vision board

Now you have created a vision board, how do you make it effective? Commit to using it, really. Don’t put up a vision board and never look at it. Take time to look at your vision board every day, look at those images and allow yourself to visualize the meaning behind them. Allow them to excite you and fire you up. Finally, get on your feet and do the work required to make your dreams come true.

I’d love to hear from you. Let me know how you created your vision board. If you have created one before, did your vision board work? Leave me a comment below.

 P.S. My vision board worked. A few years after this post was originally published on January 2018 where I mentioned having London on my vision board, I eventually visited London. Actually twice within a few months!

Yeap, that’s me on the Tower Bridge in London👇🏾

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