It’s January, and vision boards are now in season. Apparently everyone makes one. Everyone but me.
Even more surprising, apparently everyone but me has glossy magazines for inspiring cutouts! It appears that I’m the only woman on earth who isn’t subscribed to fashion, travel and home decor magazines.
What’s wrong with me?
First of all, I like our planet, so I stopped my paper magazine subscriptions long ago. With the sole exception of Stanford Alumni Magazine. Don’t criticize, I paid a few hundred bucks for a lifelong subscription as a broke recent graduate. It was a gut wrenching decision, and hell yeah, I plan to live a long life and make good of that investment!
When I did subscribe to a paper magazine, it was to National Geographic. My husband had a subscription for a gourmet cooking magazine. I guilted him into unsubscribing after they filled half a bookshelf. So if I attempt to create a physical vision board from our magazines, my glorious inspiring future would be marine iguanas in the Galapagos eating Alain Ducasse’s crêpes suzette, or worse, attempting to make them!
(Original image before I desecrated it by Dave Emsley from Pixabay)
Can you tell I’m feeling bitterly inadequate by all this cutting and designing and gluing and pasting? I imagine myself invited to a vision board party (yes, Kimberly, I’m looking at you. I don’t care that you’re in Australia and there are no flights now.) All the women there have light summer dresses. They float around like fairies, and their vision boards are perfect. So is mine. It has the beautiful beach house, gorgeous nature images, and visuals that immerse me in my dream life. None of those giant pandas eating primavera pizza.
(Apologies to OyeHaHa and Bruno Marques Designer from Pixabay for this overlay)
But the truth is, that while I have a little vision board envy (ok, not little) I take issue with visualization. I’ve bitched written about it already: https://shlomittassa.com/2020/03/01/the-problem-with-visualization/
And while that post was my first stab at how to improve visualization, now I have a real expert on my side! Vindication at last! The lovely Denise Duffield-Thomas, author, speaker, and money mindset mentor, just released a great video series as part of her annual launch of the Money Bootcamp (this is not an affiliate link.)
I love Denise DT! I read all 3 of her books. Well, listened to them on Audible. She narrates them herself, in her lovely Australian accent. She laughs a lot as she narrates; I feel like we’re out drinking coffee.
(Side note: No easy feat, she ties for first place as my favorite narrator with Malcolm Gladwell. Very different personalities, but equally charming.)
So in the third video in the series, about the future, Denise takes us through an exercise of meeting our future self. The problem is that we tend to think that our more successful version would be near perfect, and that creates a huge barrier.
When you look at your vision board, do you imagine yourself exactly as you are now? Or do you look better/younger/healthier? Have nicer clothes? Do your partner or family look perfect? Those picture-perfect magazine cut-outs might not be doing you any good.
It might cause you to feel that to achieve this future, you need to change everything about yourself. Perhaps you can’t imagine it being your life at all.
So for the “visit your future self” exercise, Denise recommends imagining a time not that far away into the future. It can be just a few months away, maybe a year.
I was envisioning December 2021. Not even a full year from now.
As Denise takes you through the visualization, she asks you to look for the differences, which could be extremely subtle, like your posture or the look in your eyes. It might be just the energy of that slightly older, wiser version of yourself.
Then, take that feeling and “try it on” like a coat.
The goal is to integrate your current self and your future self, so that by taking actions that are aligned with that only somewhat more successful/productive/wealthy/calm version of yourself, you gradually become it.
So pick a milestone that represents a significant enough change, but isn’t too far and perfect.
Can you do this with a traditional vision board? Probably so, as the images should represent feelings, more than anything else.
To me, most magazine images appear way too polished. So between Vogue Paris and the secrets of the Amazon, I’m sticking with my own imagination, fast-forward a few months ahead.
PS – If you got hungry (and can cook better than an iguana) here is the crepes recipe….
PPS – If you’re feeling stuck and overwhelmed, I’m offering a few FREE coaching calls. Sign up here to chat about how not to make a vision board and still feel so much better. 🙂
As someone who’s never gotten the full juice from vision boards, I found this so refreshing. I love the idea of finding the way of visioning that works best for the individual, not necessarily following all those for whom this works perfectly.
Yes! I wonder if there’s a way to know in advance if you’re the vision board type or not. I suspect it’s not all about reading National Geographic… 😉
I feel the same way I felt when I read my first Brené Brown book. “oh, huh, that is a whole different set of eyes than what I’ve lived through.”
I guess I’ve never even thought to make a vision board. I do use boards when I’m on a design project to narrow down the scope of references. Occasionally I’ll pin something to a Pinterest board for later reference. I like the idea of getting small. Even if I haven’t’ made a vision board, I have pictured myself at some future date, and that self is indeed more ‘perfect’ than I am now. A shorter timespan would make it a little easier to empathize with future me.
P.S. I’m with you on the melifluousness of Malcolm Gladwell’s voice.
For me, it’s really important to find a gap that’s inspiring but not intimidating.
As for you, I think your current self is already perfect for using “melifluousness” in a sentence!
Oh how I love this! It’s so rare to find someone who sees the issues with Vision Boards–they’re so trendy. Thank you for being this voice.
Yes, Viola!! In a world of trendsetters, let’s be trendshatterers!
I think you offer that point of view a lot in the Ginchiest and I admire that about you!
I’m with you, vision boards have never been a helpful practice for me personally. I appreciate that you shed light on the illusion of a perfect future self. I had never thought of it that way and it is very spot on. I’ve got a milestone in mind that I will work through these steps with, thanks for the guidance.
Hey Shlomit, I love the idea of looking for subtle clues when I think about my near-future self. I happen to love vision boards, but I tend to have a lot of images from nature in mine–like your iguanas–they look like a happy couple to me! In the past, my vision boards had a lot of words on them, as I was trying to tell myself stuff I wasn’t quite ready to hear in my day-to-day life. Thanks for this article. I love the humor you bring to this topic!
I love the iguanas. They can certainly be interpreted in many different ways. I think that’s really the key, how the board makes you feel, and does it inspire you. This might be the crux of the matter. I don’t like the gloassy magazines that much anyway, they’re a little off-putting, and that’s why I don’t have them lying around. As such, they’re not good ingredients for my board. And the animals and nature, while gorgeous, are also too far removed from the emotions I’m looking for. (Although lying around in the sun like a cold-blooded lizard, soaking up some heat, is definitely goal-worthy!!)
Words don’t work well for me AT ALL. I have to give some thought to why.
Thank you for this, Diane, really insightful! And if I managed to make you smile – that totally makes my day!
Love this!! Thank you!
I’ve yet to make a vision board partially because I hadn’t yet visualized – in my mind – what I’d want to be there exactly and I also don’t have that many magazines laying around with fantastic photos. I really appreciate this reframe and the insightful comment about how we may be setting ourselves up for failure if we expect our future selves to be perfect.
A hundred applauses and thank you again.
Thank you, Crystal! Perfect is truly a concept that humanity would do better without…
Entertaining read – love the humility and stories you tell, while also giving some great tips and resources. I’m definitely going to go check out Denise’s resources. Think this would be really helpful with the students I work with, keeping the focus of future self in their career. Also, shout out to you for coaching me around how to set up a less stress life so I don’t end 2021 burned out!!! 🥰
Thank you, Sally! I hope 2021 brings you both great success in your amazing business, and a sense of calm and control!! Your students are lucky to have you.
I went to one vision board session with some girlfriends and it was fun and it still is up on my wall. My fulfiling of vision boards is usually a 10-year trajectory – way too long. Love the shorter version idea!
As long as it gets fullfilled! I do hope to one day have a gorgeous one as well, but I will have to give some serious thought to my scope and intent!
I’m not a huge vision board person either so this was good to read! I like the short time frame 6-12 months as a way to set habits & behaviours that help you become the “future you.” Thanks Shlomit!
Yes! I really like the “trying it on” part. I could feel myself standing taller just thinking about it. No need for a fancy car or a yacht….
I love your writing, Shlomit. It’s sooo very relatable and your honesty is refreshing. I think about vision boards and then don’t do them, in part, because like you, I don’t have glossy magazines around. I like your approach better, I can see a little bit into the future who the real me could be and how I can get there. Thanks for that dose of realism…and the laugh.
I’m really glad I made you laugh, my fellow non-glossy-magazine-person! Maybe we’ll have a Pinterest vision board party just for the likes of us…
Too far in the future, it’s a fantasy and I don’t know what steps to take to achieve it. I don’t mind starting there but you have to walk it back and break it all down into shorter terms goals. If it doesn’t influence your thoughts and actions in the moment, it’s a dream, not a goal.
That’s why I like “The One Thing”. You start with a “someday” vision, and then calculate backwards to what needs to be done in 5 years, by the end of this year, this quarter, month, week, day. My sciency mind gets that more easily than manifesting some far off future.
Shlomit, I have always failed at any kind of vision board, but I never attributed to the magazines I have in the house before! Now I see that it was the New Yorker cartoons fighting for space that doomed me from the beginning.
I really love this insight that you need to integrate your current self with one not too far in the future, It’s a realistic vision board!
I bet that in that near future vision, you’re still reading the New Yorker! Angie 2.0 is still an intellectual!
Tell me what magazines you read and I’ll tell you who you are/will be… 😀 😀