A vision board is a visual representation of your thoughts, hopes, and dreams. It’s an effective method to focus on what you want your life to be. And no, it doesn’t have to be anything fancy! In this episode, Tracey Pontarelli shares how to create vision boards that actually work. Learn why it is important to have a clear goal and specific intentions as wells as how to use the Law of Attraction to realize your dreams faster. Tune in now and start working on your very own vision board today!

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Vision Board Masterclass

Attract Everything You Want This Year

I’m so excited about this episode. This is the stuff that fires me up. When I think about where my personal passions lie, it is helping people, particularly entrepreneurs, overcome the stories in their heads to manifest the life of their dreams. One of the great ways to do this is to create a vision board. If you haven’t tuned in to the episode on the Word of the Year, I’m going to highly recommend that you grab that workbook.

You’re going to do a little bit of overlapping with the activities, but both of them will be well worth it. I don’t think you can spend too much time dreaming. I talked about a quote. I’ll paraphrase it again, “Dreaming is planning.” The dreams in your heart are potentially there for you if you so choose to go after them. If you got a dream to change your future, you got to create some dreams. This is what vision boarding is all about.

Vision Board

I’m going to talk to you a little bit about vision board. We’ll talk a little bit about how our brains work and what I love about this process. Let me dig into it a little bit. I’m going to pop up my workbooks so that I can follow along with my notes. Let’s start at the very beginning because it’s always a very good place to start. Sing it along with me. What is a vision board?

In its simplest form, a vision board is a combination of words, ideas and images that you put in combination so that you can visually see what it is that you desire, and your conscious and subconscious mind can focus on it. I’m going to go through a little fun exercise. You may have already done this before. I’m going to ask you right now, wherever you are, to look for something green. Without looking around, can you tell me something that you saw that was red?

You might say to me, “I wasn’t looking for red. You didn’t tell me to look for red. If you asked me to look for red, I would find red.” That is what we’re telling our subconscious brain. We’re telling our subconscious brain, “Look for blue. Look for red. We are doing this. Here is what we prioritize. Here’s what we’re focused on.”

Your brain cannot take in all of the things in the world that are accessible to it. It filters through a part of our brain called the RAS, the Reticular Activating System. It acts like a Google search function in our brain to filter out the stuff we don’t think is important. How do we decide what’s important? We tell our brains what’s important. This is what vision boards do. I’m going to tell you that the only way that vision boards work is if you believe that they do.

Back to your subconscious, if you put the whole vision board together and you do it with the belief that these things don’t work, guess what? It won’t because your subconscious brain is saying to you that these don’t work. They only work if you believe that you can have, achieve, and accomplish anything that’s on that board.

I will ask you to be careful. I want you to dream, but I also want you to think, “This totally could happen for me in the coming year. I believe that for myself.” The magic happens when you line up your beliefs, your thoughts, and your actions as to what’s on that vision board. It all starts to happen. You have to believe that it’s possible.

You wake up each day in that belief, and you look for the things that make that true, and you step into inspired action because you know that it’s waiting for you. When you doubt yourself and question whether or not this is going to work, it’s not. The belief creates the possibility. You are deciding what you can create by your thoughts. Do this work with me, have fun, dream, and believe it’s possible.

Pieces of the vision board. You’re going to have a big theme, and the Word of the Year Workbook is going to help. Ideally, your word of the year will be the theme of your vision board or something very close to it. There are one or two words or a phrase that are your guideposts for the year that will help you drive everything in the direction of your dreams. The Word of the Year workbook is a great tool.

Words of inspiration. Those are going to be some of the other words that you come up with in the Word of the Year or other things that inspire you. You’ll see it in the workbook. I’m going to run you through it. Different words, sayings, and quotes that keep you inspired and on the path so everything ties in, and then images that match your goals, words and ideas.

Here’s what’s fun. When I used to do these vision boards with friends back in the day, some of you might be laughing and thinking about it, we would get together with our friends with a big piece of cardboard, scissors, paste, and a bunch of magazines. You’d spend your time looking for things that matched up, which is super fun and social but sometimes not very effective.

I’m going to teach you how to do this on Canva. If you don’t have a Canva account yet and you’re an entrepreneur, it’s time to get one. You can do it for free. I’ve got templates for you that you can use. I’m working on something that could be fun. It’s a little video, a real option. I’m looking to create something fun. I’ve got to create mine first before I can create it for you.

We’re going to use Canva to pull it all together. I’ve got a link to all that stuff for you. I’ve got a link for one that you can print out. That’s an 8.5×11 version of it, so you can put that anywhere. I’ve got a version that’s a phone version that can become your screensaver. I’ve got a couple of versions for you. We’re going to go through this.

If you’re in the car, start to think about it, and then you’re going to come back to this later. If you’re walking, this is some stuff that you’ll have to write down later. You’re going to want to download the workbook. This could be a fun time to grab a fresh notebook that can become a journal for you for the coming year. Your journal can open with this work, which is a great way to do it.

Different Life Areas

We’re going to work through different areas of your life. Every year, different things might be a bigger priority for you. That’s great. The first year that I ran a marathon, running was a key area of my health. That was the priority because I needed to get myself to the starting line and the finish line. I’m going to give you some different things. There might not be a lot to say in each one of these areas, and that’s okay. Don’t judge yourself. Don’t shit all over yourself.

Number one is health. What are your goals when it comes to your health? This could do with getting to an ideal weight or a healthier weight, getting stronger, eating better, reducing your anxiety, having more time to meditate, more self-care, more self-love, and fixing your hormones. Hormones were big for me in 2021. A couple of things. Mental health. What about your health?

Next up is learning. I’m not going to shit on you, but I’m going to encourage you to find something that you want to build a deeper knowledge in. It doesn’t have to be for any reason except that you’re interested. It doesn’t have to have a purpose beyond feeding your curiosity. Is there a new skill you want to learn?

My friend, Carla, learned how to ballroom dance a couple of years ago. Now, she competes in ballroom dancing. It’s one of her favorite things to do and she’s phenomenal at it. She is 51 and she’s amazing. There are no rules on this. Is there something you want to take a class or a course in? What do you want to get better at or explore more learning?

Third up is career. I use the term career loosely because you may be tuning in to this and you might not be working outside the home right now. What I would ask you is how you are feeling about the work you’re doing. Is there something specific you are desiring? Do you want more responsibility or less responsibility? Do you want to change? Do you want to retire? Do you want more flexibility? What is it about your current work situation that you might want more or less of, or something totally different? In your home environment, how do you feel about where you lay your head at the end of the day? Are you looking to buy, sell, relocate or redecorate? What about your home?

Moving on. This is a big topic. This is a fun one. Because life is fun, we get to do it with other people. We get to do this with our fellow humans. It’s relationships. This is a big area. If you’re in a relationship, do you have specific goals around your relationship? Do you want to start a family? Do you want to deepen your relationship with your family? Do you want to mend fences with anyone? Is there anyone you need to let go of? Do you want to find a new circle? What is it that you desire? Dig in. Relationships are interesting because those are the biggest ones where we can get into patterns and think we can’t change them, but we can. As soon as we decide that we’re going to change, so it begins.

What about travel? As I said to you in the beginning, travel was a big one for me. It’s going to be another big one this year. I’ve got retreats that I want to go on. I’ve got some fun things that combine travel with learning, which is fun. What do you want to experience? Are there any special vacations you want to take or any special places you want to visit in the coming year?

What Matters The Most

Here’s a good one, and then we’re going to dig into some specific things. The last big-picture things are your priorities. What matters the most to you this year? Don’t overthink it. Just write, “What matters most?” If you feel frustrated by that question, look at it from a different lens. What things are you doing right now that you feel are not a priority for you that you’re frustrated with?

A priority could be to get rid of the things that are not lighting you up. That could be the priority. Less could be the priority. I keep thinking about my word of the year. It’s interesting because there’s a part of me that wants to simplify, and there’s also a part of me that wants to expand. Less is more. The whole, “I got to slow down to speed up. I got to trim down to expand.” I’m trying to figure out how to turn that into a theme but I’ll get there.

Moving on. What are you grateful for and what do you want more of? Go ahead and write them down. More money, more time, more freedom, more fun, more adventure, more muscles. What is it that you want more of in your life? Is there a challenge that you want to overcome or tackle? What is the challenge you want to overcome? Anything you want to overcome this year, go ahead and write it down.

The year I ran my first marathon was a huge challenge for me. I’m a fit person, but I’m not a long-distance runner by nature. That was a big one. I wrote it down and I told people, and that is why it happened. What are some of the things you want to do more of this year? Think about stuff that you love to do that you think, “If I could fill my days doing more of this, that would make me happy.” What are those things?

On the opposite side, what do you want to let go of? Do you want to let go of resentments? Do you want to let go of anger and frustration? Do you want to let go of doubting yourself? Do you want to let go of a job? Do you want to let go of a friend group? What do you want to let go of? Don’t limit it. What do you want to do less of? It’s the same thing. Let go of and do less of.

Even if this stuff doesn’t end up on the vision board, it’s helping your brain pull out the things. This is why I love having this stuff written down somewhere where you can go visit it again because all of this stuff is super useful. What do you want to do less of? What is the stuff that when you go in your day-to-day routine, you’re like, “This stuff drives me crazy. Why am I still doing this? What am I going to do less of?”

What would you do if you weren’t afraid? Would you start a podcast? Would you write a book? Would you go live more on social media? Would you reach out to more people and talk to them about what you’re doing more? Would you ask people to go do things with you if you weren’t afraid they’d say no? If you go back to a couple of episodes ago, I talked about how our brains like to stay exactly where they are. The minute you try to do something different, your brain is going to tell you not to do it. Put it aside. What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

What is most important to you? What are your core values? What matters? What is a dream that you have in your heart? I’ve always wanted to fill in the blank. I always thought I was going to fill in the blank. When I was little, I thought I could fill in the blank. I’d love to be able to fill in the blank. This is a fun one. If money wasn’t an issue, how would you spend your day? What would you do? Maybe you’re doing exactly what you’d want to be doing. There are so many ways to make money. Just put it aside for a hot second and answer the question, if money wasn’t an issue, how would you spend your day?

Anything that you’re working towards right now, what are you currently working towards? Write that down. Write down the current to-do list. Potentially, there’s something that you’re working towards that you want to make happen. Write it down. What are you passionate about and want to spend more time doing? It’s like my friend Carla. She now takes ballroom dance classes three times a week. She loves it. It makes her happy. She’s learning. What are you passionate about? What do you want to spend more time doing? Those passions are in your heart for a reason.

I know you might get a little offended by this. We are the only people that can make time for our passions. No one is going to do it for you. The only person that can change it is you. If your current circumstances aren’t allowing for the things that you’re passionate about, the only person that can change it is you. This is the beginning of that process.

What The World Needs

Final question. What do you believe the world needs more of? What are you going to do? If you’re going to take all that you gather from here and you’re going to look at the Word of the Year workbook as well, you’re going to start to come up with the key findings. This is where you start to distill. Underline, circle, highlight, and put a little sticker next to things, the core concepts for the vision board.

There’s no limit to how many words or images you can put on it. I’ve got a set number on the Canva doc which you could delete some and you could add some. It’s super easy to do. What you’re going to do is you’re going to go into the Canva document. You’re going to add your words where it says “Add word.” You’re going to replace them. Maybe you have some of your own photos, but Canva has photos. There’s a ton. You can just go into photos, and you can type the word. Every photo that’s in Canva will pop up, and you can pick one that you feel most connects.

You can go onto Google Images. You can download some of yourself, and you can upload those right into Canva. You may have some of your own pictures. You may have a dream house that you already have a picture of. You can upload that directly onto Canva. All you do is simply drag and drop. You’ll see it in the tutorial that I do. You just drag and drop the photos right into the template. I want you to print it out where you can see it. Print out several.

You can add it as a screen saver onto your desktop. I’ve got a version that you can use for your phone. It’s a smaller version. You’ll have to streamline which ones you want to do. I’ve got the link for free access to the template in the workbook. When you download the workbook, you’ll have all of that stuff. I want you to send me your finished copies. It’s TraceyPontarelli.com.

I want you to send me yours or tag me on Instagram if you decide to post your screen version or post it out there. I cannot wait to see what you come up with. I know in our Magnetic Marketing Academy and our Clean Play Club, people will start to post theirs there as well. If you want to join us in either one of those groups, we can do that as well.

I’m super excited about this for you. Some of the most important work you can do is to dream. Dreams are planning. I cannot wait to see what yours looks like. I’m so excited to offer this resource to you because it’s one of my favorite things that I’ve created. I can’t wait to see what comes back. After this, we’re going to start digging into Magnetic Marketing Academy. This is going to be fun. Lots and lots of value coming in the next couple of months. I can’t wait to share it all with you. I love you, guys. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.

Important Links

• Word of the Year Workbook
• https://LP.ConstantContactPages.com/su/M1XGwsk/visiontools