If you’ve been around the internet for a minute, you know that vision boards are the best thing since sliced bread. Every year, we whip out our poster boards, our torn up magazines, and start creating these elaborate boards with our dream bodies, dream vacations, dream cars and dream homes. We finish up our craft project and stick it on the wall, only to keep NOT achieving the dreams on that board. Then by the middle of the year, we start to compare our life to the imaginary dream life we cut out months prior, and by the end of the year we are exactly where we were last year, but feeling even further behind based on the standard we set one year before. 

Sound familiar? 

Even if it’s not that dramatic, most people compare their daily life to that of their dream reality, and feel like they aren’t measuring up. And every year they still don’t have the dream house/ car/ vacation/ body they feel even worse about themselves, and like they are a failure. 

This is precisely why I decided to ditch my vision board, and in that same year manifest the dream reality I was envisioning. And I am going to teach you how. 

If you have experienced this vision board fomo, or felt like you aren’t measuring up to the life you are envisioning, listen up, because I think this will really help you. 

I want to disclaimer that IF your vision board is working for you, and you don’t want to stop doing it, this episode will be really great for you too. I am going to teach you how to take it to the next level, so you can really maximize your outcome on achieving those goals. I have no issues with people who do use vision boards, so nobody panic. 

A common mistake I see us make when it comes to creating a vision board is not taking action. Like cutting something out of a magazine and gluing it to poster board is enough to make it happen. I wholeheartedly believe in co-creating with the universe, but in that I believe that there is action. The god/ the universe isn’t your magic genie that grants wishes when you ask for them. You have to play your role. And one of the biggest roles in this is becoming the person who HAS what you desire to have. 

If you desire to have a million dollars and live in your dream home, but you have fear and lack around money, and feel like selling is “yucky”, you are not likely going to make that dream a reality. In fact, you are actively repelling it with your energy. You have to do the work to become the person who has the reality you want. If that means healing your relationship with money so you can be open to receiving, you have to do the work. 

This also means taking inspired action. When you feel the nudge to do something, explore something, pursue something, that is the universe guiding you on the next steps. It is your job to listen, trust and take action. Too many times we feel the nudge and sit in fear, worrying what others will think, or feeling like we aren’t “there yet”, completely ignoring the ball the universe is throwing you. You have to do your part. Take action. 

Along this line, becoming the version of you having it means starting to take action as that next level version of yourself. The version of you without fear, who knows that this reality is the inevitable outcome. When situations arise or making decisions, ask “How would next level me respond right now? What action would they take?”. By embodying that version of yourself, you will start to become that version of yourself. 

A few weeks ago, I came across a video of Oprah talking about vision boards, and she mentioned that she didn’t use them anymore. Not only did I feel a little validated that Oprah agreed with me, but what she does instead is exactly what I do instead too. And what I am going to teach you to do too. 

The power behind vision boards is tapping into our third eye, the part of our brain that enables us to visualize. There has been extensive research done about visualization, even showing that athletes can visualize a race and their body will fire off the same way as if they literally ran the race. Its truly incredible how powerful this is. But what so many of us forget to do with our vision boards is actually visualize it! And that is the secret sauce to creating that reality. Instead of visualizing these things you want, the house, car, body, etc, I am going to show you how to create an incredibly powerful visualization exercise that will help you manifest your dreams into a reality. 

Ready?

The first step in this is picking a date. I love to pick a date with meaning, like December 31st or your birthday. Something you will feel anchored to this visualization. And I want you to imagine the dream reality you want to create, and where you are on that date. What are you doing? What do you see? How do you FEEL? I want you to imagine waking up on this date, in your dream reality, and take yourself through the day. If you aren’t driving, close your eyes and do this. Visualize waking up, where are you? How do you feel? What do you do next? Play this out in vivid detail. If you aren’t good at seeing images in your head (ie, visualizing) you can write this down. But part of utilizing this powerful tool is practicing it. So really try to visualize it. 

I’ll share mine for example. It’s New Year's Eve, even 2020. I wake up early, around 6 am in my sister’s house in Northern Ireland. We have been there for almost 2 weeks, and the Christmas decor is still up. I put on my slippers, and quietly sneak out to the kitchen with my journal. I put on a pot of coffee, and sit down at her couch and stare out her back door. The sheep are grazing on the hillside and I feel such a sense of peace. I smell the coffee and pour myself a cup, and cuddle up with my journal and a blanket. “We freaking did it”. I say, as I take my first sip. 

You get the idea, but I want to share with you how REAL that moment is to me. I can smell the coffee and see the sheep. I can feel the cool draft from her older home. I FEEL that peace. Make it as descriptive as you can. Now that you have this story written out, this will become your visualization tool. Read it every day, or as often as you can, and most importantly feel the feelings of it already being yours. Feel how you feel on that day as you experience it over and over again. This really is the secret sauce. 

Your brain is so complex that it can feel physical feelings even when the trigger for that feeling is imaginary. If you don’t believe me, imagine your husband or parent, any loved one, is driving through a snowstorm. They are 15 minutes late and you call their cell to see if they are ok. They don’t pick up. Do you feel that? That fear in the pit of your stomach? That is a manufactured feeling. Nothing actually scary has happened. You were not just accosted by a bear. But your brain has triggered a fear response. Just like you can manufacture fear, you can make yourself feel peace. Gratitude. Proud. These created feelings are JUST as real to your subconscious mind as they are when you actually feel them in real life situations. And by feeling the feelings of already having what you desire, you are rewiring your subconscious mind to believe it already has it. Which makes taking action as that person a heck of a lot easier. 

And part of this is gratitude. I will have a whole episode about gratitude, but one of the key emotions in creating your dream reality is feeling grateful for having it even when you don’t, yet. By feeling grateful, you are not only rewiring your subconscious, you are telling the universe that you have complete faith that it will be yours. And gratitude increases your magnitude for the things you desire. It also gets you out of the fear that it might not happen. This lack of faith in the universe is the first way to repel the exact thing you are trying to attract. This one is pretty simple, have you ever done someone a favor? Imagine you do a favor for two people, and the first person has total faith you’ll get it done, and doesn’t mention it. They are even grateful when you follow through. But the second person asks you about it every few days, checks in to see if you’re going to do it, and ultimately makes you feel like you inconvenienced them by not doing it fast enough. Which one are you going to want to do a favor for again? Definitely not Needy mcneedy pants. And the universe is the same way. By questioning it and sitting in fear that it might not happen, or worrying about when its going to happen, you are working against it actually happening. Would you order something from amazon and then freak out and check the tracking 4 times a day and worry if it’s going to get here? No. You have to have faith and gratitude for it already being yours.