In 2014, Megan Thee Stallion tweeted: “I need a team [because] I promise this rap shit gone take off for me.” When asked who his celebrity crush was in 2017, Tom Holland named his now-girlfriend. Amongst these celebrities, many others have talked about how they’ve made their dreams become a reality.
This method of claiming your dreams as a future reality can be considered as a form of manifesting. Manifesting is the “practice of thinking aspirational thoughts to make them real.”
Manifesting has been trending on social media because of the results people discover from repeating affirmations or creating vision boards. Vision boards are constantly spiking in popularity at the end of the year, when many wellness influencers on social media recommend their followers to create vision boards to plan their new year. While recommending this, many influencers have been able to show the progress from their vision boards in the previous year by showing their vision board to their followers through photos and experiences that they’ve had during the year. Those who created vision boards for 2023 had their experiences become strikingly similar to the board they created for the year, while others have created an annual routine to accompany their board including journaling thoughts they want to leave in the old year and goals to bring into the new one.
A more spiritual explanation that is trending on social media is the Law of Attraction, which “stems from the principle that like attracts like.” By using this mindset, there is the ability to create the life they want to have. Youtuber Tam Kaur explains how “your brain cannot tell the difference between a real and an imagined experience […] your brain starts creating new neural pathways that can create new behaviors to help you achieve all your goals on your vision board.”
While on social media, the spiritual aspect of vision boards has been trending, but there is a psychological influence that impacts one’s success with them as well. Neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart explains the use of vision boards and their success that is coined as the ‘Tetris effect’:
“Looking at images on a vision board primes the brain to grasp opportunities that may otherwise gone unnoticed. That’s because the brain has a process called ‘value-tagging’ which imprints important things onto your subconscious and filters out unnecessary information. The brain assigns a higher ‘value’ to images than written words on a ‘to-do’ list … the more you look at those images, the more those images move up in importance.”
Some other theories that describe the psychology behind vision boards are Self-Efficacy Theory and Reticular Activating System (RAS).
Self-Efficiency Theory explains: “that individuals who believe in their ability to achieve a goal are more likely to do so. By visually depicting goals, vision boards enhance our self-efficacy, providing a constant reminder of our capabilities and aspirations.”
RAS Theory describes The RAS “a network of neurons located in the brainstem that helps focus attention. When you consistently see images related to your goals, the RAS prioritizes this information, making you more aware of opportunities and resources related to your aspirations.” RAS is directly related to visualization, where one focuses on attaining their goals and imagining the impact they would have on their life.
Whether vision board enthusiasts believe their power comes from spiritual energy or psychological effects, statistics have proved that “82% of small business owners who used vision boards from the start reported achieving more than half of the goals they set.” Creating a vision board can be beneficial in achieving goals by providing one with the opportunity to understand their desires in life.
If you’re looking to create a vision board, follow the steps below to make one of your own.
- Create a list of realistic and specific goals you can and want to achieve
- Choose goals capable of being achieved. If you’re a college student working and want to get a new car, put a car that is within your price range on your board, instead of one that you can’t afford now.
- Try to make a list of goals for each aspect of your life, for example, set a list of goals for your professional, personal, and social life. This can be on a short-term or long-term scale (for the upcoming week up to the year).
- Find images that reflect who you will be when you complete these goals
- What will be the effect of you completing this goal? If your goal is to move to a new city, how will that impact your life in the way you want it to? Consider these thoughts to understand how these changes will affect you and your life. To better understand how you want your future to unfold.
- Create a collage (physical or digital) of the goals in place
- Now that you have figured out who you want to be after your goals have been achieved, find digital or physical images that represent these changes in yourself and your life.
- For a digital vision board, find photos on websites such as Instagram, Pinterest, etc. And put them together on a website such as Canva.
- For a physical digital board, print out images you find online, or cut them out of magazines. Then glue them onto a posterboard.
- Place the vision board in a place you see often daily, such as setting it as wallpaper or hanging it in your room
- Keeping your vision board in a visible place will take advantage of the Self Efficiency Theory and RAS theories. The vision board will be a reminder to remain focused on the original goals made.
- Follow through with your goals by backing them up with actions
- A goal for a new job on your vision board but don’t apply to any jobs, how will your goal be achieved?
- Creating a vision board is not enough for you to achieve your goals. Without actions to support goals, those goals will remain dreams. Make sure to be patient and stay focused.
