Build a Vision Board
Brainstorm. Visualize. Manifest.
If you have a desire, why not use every means possible to pull yourself toward it? Into it? Bitter is the life that falls short. Or perhaps not bitter, perhaps just regretful. Here’s an idea to try that has worked for some people.
Make a vision board.
A vision board is a homemade collage that represents your current goals. It is made of
clippings
photos
words
drawings
quotes.
An Example
Author and translator Wendy Call gave me permission to show you her stunning Vision Board for 2025, below. Do you see her reminder to “Stop procrastinating?”
Why Make One
The purpose of a vision board is to:
visualize your intentions
track your progress
keep you motivated
help you stay accountable
It Worked for Janet
I learned about vision boards from a woman I interviewed who is a true believer.
Soon after she retired in 2018, Janet Westervelt signed up for a vision board class.
“So much of what I had on that board has come true,” she said to me.
Janet had been a Montessori teacher and school administrator for 30 years, mostly in the Atlanta area. In later years she was caretaker for her elderly father. “So many women get tied up with taking care of so many people all the time,” she said to me. “I hadn’t seen much of this country, and I decided, I’m going to travel.”
On her vision board she glued a picture of Arches National Park.
Within months she had purchased a used mini-bus from a daycare that was going out of business, and she began to build it out. By early 2019 she took her first cross-country trip. Soon she found herself at Arches.
Janet highly recommends that anyone create a vision board. “It’s forward-moving,” she said. “It puts ideas out to the universe so that they can come back to you.”
Whoa. Check out that line.
A Vision Board puts ideas out to the universe so that they can come back to you.
If you want to read more about Janet, check out this essay, “How One Woman Gained a New Perspective,” and below is the vision board that manifested a van and a dream of travel.
How to Do It
I’ve never made one, so I’m no expert here. Making one has been on my to-do list, and I’m going to get it done. I promise. Literally my sticking point has been finding old magazines to clip.
How to make one? Collect images and words and quotes and drawings that represent what you want your life to look like in 2025 or for some period. Attach the clippings to a substrate—paper, cardboard, journal pages, board, cork board. Hang your collage somewhere so you’ll see it daily.
Another Example
My friend Laura is an orchardist, food developer, community-builder, and entrepreneur. She allowed me to share her beautiful collage from last year.
Another Example
I want to show you writer Julianne Wilson’s amazingly huge vision board. Check this out! She told me that it took her three months to complete. “I realized shortly after I began creating it,” she said, “that this was not a ‘this year I want to’ board, but rather an exploration of the elder chapter of my life.”
When the vision board was done Julianne hung it in her “welcome room,” which is what she calls her foyer. It hangs above seven crystal bowls that she plays almost every day.
She said, “I love the way the vibrations of the bowls energize the vision board for me, and how different aspects of it draw my attention at different times.”
Let Me Know
Have you created one? How did it work for you? Where did you find magazines to clip?
Nature Journaling School | Journaling the Garden
This is a 6-week course that starts in March and focuses on spring and gardens, literal and metaphorical. I’m teaching it, with a lot of help. Many guest artists are coming in to help me. I’ll tell you more about the schedule later, but if you already know you want to do this course, you can register anytime.
The sessions happen on Sunday evenings 5-6 pm Eastern Time starting March 16, 2025 and ending April 27, 2025, with no session on Easter Sunday, April 20.
Sessions will take place from on Sunday, March 16 | March 23 | March 30 | April 6 | April 13 | and April 27.
We’ll be writing & sketching & listing & coloring & spiraling & bordering & cornering & tooling & seeding & springing—because creativity adds years to your life. So does hope. So does community. So does beauty.
Summer 2025 Course in Creative Nonfiction
I’m offering a summer cohort of my course Magical Craft of Creative Nonfiction. You can get everything I offer from my book Craft & Current, but if you’d like to study with me in person, live via Zoom, and if summer is good for you, then I invite you to join. The course is not inexpensive, but it is worth every penny if you want to write and would like to be a good writer. Sorry to say, but the course is not for dilettantes. You can find more info by clicking this button.
Writing Prompt
In honor of Valentine’s Day, set your timer for 10 minutes and write about a time when somebody spoke your love language.
And a Love Poem To Make You Happy
Almost every semester I read this poem to writers in my courses—”Gate C22” by Ellen Bass. It’s perfect for right now.
I love this! I made one this year for the first time in many years. I used seed catalogs mostly. When I was younger I used "glamour" type magazines and my board was very different haha
The vision board is tantalizing! The examples above are arresting and make my fingers tingle as they want to dive right in to making one. Magazines are hard to come by these days! The mailbox used to be full of them. Reading through the comments reveals others here have good sources. Thank goodness!