Use Vision Boarding to Help Manifest What You Want

To have inner vision and imagination is freeing, but to experience, harness and live within the life force of love is freedom.

—Deanna Husk

If you haven’t heard of vision boarding, raise your hand! I’ve learned to ask, because I have found many people who have yet to hear and/or experience its true power as a manifestation tool to bring us closer to who we are now, who we want to be and what kind of life we envision for ourselves. Some people don’t know that they can question and, if desired, alter the course they are on or alter their own position and role in their life, and that life will integrate the changes they’ve made. Then there are some who know they can take the reins but don’t know how or are insecure about the process. Vision boarding can be helpful for everyone and in uncovering interests and passions, dreams of old and new, and in giving a visual representation of what we want to bring into our lives. Making vision boards is fun, using collage techniques from various supplies such as cut pictures and words from magazines, our own photos and drawings, glue, tape, markers, pens, paints and really whatever you would like to use.

Having a clear vision is what will bring our dreams into focus. Taking action toward living that dream is what begins the process of manifestation into the physical reality, while compounding the actions creates momentum. But what if we don’t know what we want? What if we know just that we want something, more of something, less of something or just something different from what we are experiencing right now? First, understanding that the creative energy that we each have inside of us, our life force, is always creating and expanding, driven by our feelings, thoughts, beliefs, words and actions. Despite whether we are aware of it and whether we have a vision, we are involved in the creation that is our life.

The question is, do we want to participate in steering our lives and choosing where we want to go and what we want to see, hear, say, do and be? Life is constant expression; therefore, we are constant expressions. What are we expressing? If our lives are not reflecting growth in the direction that we have envisioned and desire and/or know as our core truth, then it’s a good time to take a look inward and take action steps to begin changing course. Vision boarding helps with this by creating a visual representation of the internal energies that resonate with our core truths so as to remind and guide us to our desired outcome.

It’s not uncommon for people to say they are not sure what they really want in life or even for the next year. If we do not have a clear vision of what we want, then we can make creating goals and dreams our vision until we figure it out. This is a very temporary goal, as long as we take steps toward making it happen, just as we would if our dream was to buy a new house. Every day, we would take some simple actions—such as holding our intention or flipping through magazines and/or going online to see what stands out and excites and moves us—every day to activate the process of manifestation. Just by observing life around us while being aware of how we feel can lead us to clarity about ourselves. I have had a couple of people come to a workshop not expecting to make a vision board because they didn’t know where their life was heading and were surprised and inspired when they went home with a vision board in hand.

We want to focus on being present and aware, receptive and open, to whatever we might experience such as feelings, epiphanies, thoughts, inspirations and shifts within our life, etc. These are things we want to be implementing in our daily lives for personal development, which is what this is all about. Vision boarding is a tool, an action of taking those vibrant seedlings of creative and energetic ideas that we envisioned in our mind’s eye and planting them in the physical reality. I think that’s when the real fun begins, of actively living more mindfully and designing and enjoying our lives more and more. I’m not saying it’s always easy, but that’s why we do things like vision boards, to keep us resonating with the very things that motivate us in life.

You can see in the picture of my last vision board that I am looking for more time outdoors in nature, more rock climbing, road traveling, more time with friends and more self-expression. I added affirmations and inspirations to support lots of love and inner strength and motivation. In this vision board style, I chose to fill up all spaces on the board, overlapping images as I went along. I also think it is fun to try different styles and see what comes of it. I have many vision boards, and they look very different next to one another. Some have themes such as business for when I was finishing shiatsu school and wanted to do a board to have a clear vision of how and where I wanted my business to go, and some were just free-flowing inspiration boards. Have fun with it. I do recommend being mindful of what we put on our boards and what we are attracting because it will manifest on some level. We are often using images of advertisers promoting things that may not resonate with us, so work around or without those things. Collage is a creative process, and we are all creative beings, so I know you can find a way to use an image or cut, paste and rearrange a quote or parts of quotes to make them work for you.

When doing the workshops, I start by giving an intro on vision boarding and different experiences I have had personally. This includes an interest I had in wanting to get more involved with essential oils. I put a book on my wish list (a form of virtual vision boarding) on Amazon, and it sat there for a year while I forgot about it. In August, I decided to incorporate essential oils into my business, and the most recommended book to use was the very one I had sitting on my wish list. The funny thing is I ordered the book from another company without recognizing the title and forgetting completely that I had the same book sitting in my account. For me, it wasn’t just about the book; it was that I had a vision to work with essential oils and I made a move to bring it into reality, and less than a year later, I have incorporated it into my work.

Another is an example of two women who came to a workshop just a few months ago. It was toward the end, and we were going around the room, sharing our boards, when one woman pointed at a picture on her board of a nice clean closet and said how she really needs to organize her closet. Immediately, a woman a couple of tables away says: “That’s what I do! That’s my business. I organize closets!” Everyone was excited and encouraged to see an immediate response and how simple the actions were to get a result. Just to be clear, the vision board is a tool, and there are many tools. But, that being said, it is a powerful tool, action and step to take to shift your life into a position of less resistance. Take note here: It’s what we do with the vision we have and the boards that we make that matters. If the one woman decided not to share in that moment and the other woman did not speak up, the connection would not have been made in that moment. And if we go home and put our board behind a shelf, yes, things may manifest from it because the seeds were planted, but it is much more effective to leave it where you can see it often and use the power of visualization to the fullest.

We are using the pictures, words and colors on the boards to provoke the very feelings and inner visions that compelled us to put them on the board in the first place. The board is a tangible expression of our visions and feelings, a physical manifestation that we can use to mirror back within ourselves the fact that our visions exist already not just within us but in the physical realm now, too.

I started leading workshops after my friend, Arnold Kauffman, showed lots of interest in joining me when I was making my annual vision board. I invited him to do a board with me and thought there must be other people who would be interested, too. That is when I decided to start a vision board class. There is a lot of momentum that can happen with our visions when we work together. To experience a supportive community networking and pulling together to help one another however they can is what a lot of people are craving in their lives today. This is what tends to happen in the workshops. There are many times I hear people saying how they are looking for a picture of a beach, for example, and suddenly there are five or more people helping you in your search.

People all over are enjoying and benefiting from vision boarding. There are different ways to have fun with it, too. You can make one on your own at home, with friends, go to workshops, parties and now you can even get apps for your phone and do a virtual vision board. Now that we are at the year’s end and soon to be at the beginning of a new annual cycle, it’s a great time to get some magazines and supplies and music, if you want—and get your vision on board!

Check out Deanna’s transformation story!