Making a vision board is a powerful exercise to help create career clarity and to help you over time to actually shift into the work you truly desire and sense as your next level of great work. If you are new to the concept of vision boards, consider this: a scrapbook is a collection of photos and words that describe the past and where you've been; a vision board is a collection of images and words that demonstrate where you want to go. By the very exercise of making a vision board, you clarify what feels most aligned to you. You make choices of the images and words to include that show your dream career come to life and help to evoke the feelings you desire to feel once you have actually stepped into that work.
Once your vision board is complete, you keep in a place where you'll see it regularly. Looking at your vision board regularly is a practice to help bring your dreams into reality. You look at the board and focus on feeling the emotions you will feel when you are actually doing those things you want to be doing and as shown on the board. As you do this, you align your body, mind, and soul with the career you most desire to create so that although it is not yet true today, you believe in it and get inspired to continue working towards it. The positive feelings you cultivate while looking at your board affirm your desires and wash away your doubts. They can also spark inspiration for action!
Before making a vision board around your dream career, I recommend creating a written career vision. The process of contemplating your interests, experiences, and passions and then making decisions around the direction you will pursue and how to motivate yourself into continuous action helps create clarity and focus. Putting all of your best ideas into a written plan creates your commitment. Then, taking these commitments into the process of making your vision board helps you create a vision board that is not just pie in the sky ideas but instead comes from your inner guidance system as to what you are meant to create in the year ahead.
To take the guess work out of how to create your career vision, I have created a Career Vision Guide. It shows you how to create a simple 1-page career vision by working through my signature process of answering 4 key questions. The guide includes a template for your career vision plus 7-pages that walk you through my process step by step. You can access the Career Vision Guide HERE and it is totally free! Placing some or all of the information from your written career vision onto your board can also help you keep focus in making your board and throughout the year as you use it.
To learn more about making a vision board and using my Career Vision Guide, watch my TV segments on Creative Living with host Jane Monzures, which is now airing on the Yurview channel through Cox Media:
Segment 1: Create Your Dream Career (3:53 minutes)
Segment 2: Create a Vision Board (3.56 minutes)
I have practiced career visioning and making vision boards for over a decade. These practices have helped me to totally reinvent myself - from lawyer to nonprofit executive and also from nonprofit executive to entrepreneur and career coach. Even when not in a time of drastic change, these tools have helped me to grow to my next level in confidence, in leadership, and in joy. As you utilize these practices for yourself, here are my wishes for you: May making your vision board and career vision open your heart and dreams with joy and ease to the work that is truly in your genius zone and most fun for you. And, may you see that everything that happens after creating these magical tools is a blessing to help bring to you all that you’ve asked for and to help you turn into the person you most want to become.
