You’ve probably heard it before.
I’ve even talked about building your own business around it here on Stay Goal’d.
“Follow your passion.”
But what if you’re not quite sure exactly what your true passion is?
What if you struggle with trying to figure out what your goals should be to keep yourself feeling happy and fulfilled?
What if you’ve tried to figure out or with journal prompts or some other methods, but you’re still not entirely sure what you want?
It may be time for a different, more visual approach: the self-discovery vision board.
What are Vision Boards and Should You Make One?
A vision board is a collage of images that create a physical representation of a dream or goal in your life. They often also include encouraging words, quotes, and affirmations that inspire you to make changes in your life.
But a vision board is more than just a collage that you create every year. It’s a visualization tool that will help you envision what you truly want and manifest it into your life.
While you still need to take action to receive gifts from the universe, being able to clearly visualize what you want and the process to get there will help you recognize opportunities you need to stay motivated long enough to achieve your goals.
Rather than creating a single vision board at the beginning of the year, you can continue to use them to motivate you for any goal.
Why a Vision Board is Good for Self-Discovery
Using a collection of images that represent what you love and what you want in life can show you who you are in a different perspective. You’ve probably thought about the many things that make “you”, but looking a collage of all these things in one place is different.
You can find patterns connecting the things you love and even come up with ways to do those things that you hadn’t thought of before.
You’ll also be able to tell what thoughts are at the front of your mind. These are things or feelings that come up often within your self-discovery vision board. This will help you recognize what’s most important to you so you can set goals based on these needs, hopes, or dreams.
How to Use a Vision Board to Find Your Passion
Making a vision board for self-discovery basically works the same way as any other vision board. The major difference is that you’re not quite sure of what you want yet.
In most cases, you have a vague goal of figuring out what you like or want in life so you can begin setting goals around that. This is perfect for a self-discovery vision board!
So instead of creating a vision board around a set of goals or dreams, you’ll create one that includes your innermost thoughts and feelings.
Start by finding images for your vision board
The pictures, words, and phrases that you include on a self-discovery vision board should be tied to an emotion. If you find a picture that makes you happy, collect it so you can add it to your board.
Don’t think about why you feel what you feel about this image yet, you’ll do that later. Just focus on finding and collecting images for your board.
You don’t have to focus strictly on positive emotions, either. If you hate the way something in your life makes you feel, then it’s okay to want to make a change. Find an image that represents that change so you can turn a negative to a positive.
Organize and lay out what most calls to you
When you’re finished, you’ll probably have a ton of images, way more than you’ll need. Now is the time to start sorting through and deciding which are most important or intriguing to you.
These are the things that you enjoy the most, feel you can’t live without, or that you want to change most.
Arrange these items in a way that makes sense to you, but don’t glue our pin anything down permanently yet so you can make changes freely.
You can create a list, a collage, or a section of parts of your whole board to represent different sections that you want to include. There’s no wrong way to lay out your vision board!
Put everything together
Once you have everything where you want it, NOW you can glue it down!
This step will be a little different depending on what kind of vision board you’re creating (poster board or corkboard, physical or digital) but the concept is the same.
Attach your elements so they’ll stick on the board and won’t fall off. Let your glue dry if necessary.
And just like that, you’re done with the creation part! But this is only half the battle. You now need to use your vision board for the self-discovery “magic” to happen.
After Creating Your Self-Discovery Vision Board
Once your vision board is finished, take a moment to take in what you’ve created. You’ll want to keep it in a space where you can view it easily and reflect on each item you added to your board.
Below you’ll find some tips to help you through the process of using your new vision board to discover more about yourself and what you’re passionate about.
Reflect on your vision board often
Take some time to really absorb each element that you choose to include. Think about why you feel a certain way and what you can do to either change it or bring more of it into your life.
Some people may be able to uncover what they’re looking for right away. That’s great if you’re one of those people, but you should still spend some time reflecting on your new creation.
Give yourself time in the morning and before you go to bed to consider the collection you’ve created.
Look for themes and patterns
What things show up on your vision board the most?
Are many things related to each other or some other common thread?
When you find reoccurring themes through your board, this is worth looking into further. For many of us, this is how what you’re most passionate about will reveal itself.
You may have created a self-discovery vision board with a purpose, like to find out what you want to study in college or how you can turn your passion into a business. In this case, you want to search for patterns that relate to what you’re looking for.
Create a New Goal Board for Your Passion
Let’s say you’ve created your self-discovery vision board, you’ve found your passion (or the thing you need most right now), and now you’re ready to move on. Now what?
Well, now you can make a new vision board specifically for some goals related to your findings.
- Is your dream to start your own business?
- Are you ready to take a new step in your career?
- Will you start saving for your dream vacation?
- Do you want to settle down and start a family?
- Are you ready to start your weight loss journey?
- Do you want to go back to school?
These are just a few of the most common goals people set in their life. It doesn’t matter if what you found fits into one of these or not. You can set any goal you want!
What’s important is that you’ve found something you want to work on and you’ve already got a head start on building the motivation to finish what you start.
Find Your Passion with a Vision Board Now
View our guide on how to make a vision board here. Creating a goal-focused vision board is a little bit different than a self-discovery vision board, so be sure to check it out. Now that you know what you want, you can follow those instructions exactly.
Make sure you grab our Vision Board Checklist to help you remember the process as you go along.
