The Power of a Vision Board

Remember when you used to make vision boards with your girlfriends long ago?

Magazines spread all over the floor, and sifting through to try to find photos of things you wanted and girls you wanted to be like?

Vision Boarding is about to get so much more powerful.

This week, I am getting ready to host a virtual Zoom Vision Boarding Workshop for the women in my June Ready for Change Group, and I wanted to give you a sneak peek into how powerful a vision board can be in your life.

After listening, if you'd like to join me for the July Ready for Change Experience and attend a Vision Boarding Workshop, click below for all the details!

Click here for all the details of my July Coaching Experience....Ready for Change: https://mailchi.mp/courtneygraycoaching/julyreadyforchange

Transcript

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Matt, welcome to modern body, modern life, the podcast for women who want to lose weight permanently feel in control around food and learn how to stop obsessing about their body and food a modern way of thinking about your weight, your body and your life includes mindset. I'm body and life coach, Courtney Gray, and each week I'm going to teach you the mindset tools that are necessary for changing the way you eat forever. We will uncover why you're eating when you said you were going to stop, what to do when you're really craving something, and how important it is to decide what you want to believe is possible for you, I believe we can get in the best shape of our lives at any age, a modern body, a modern life, all starts in your mind, and when you learn how to manage that, losing weight permanently becomes so much easier. Welcome to the Podcast, episode 83 the power of a vision board. The week that this episode goes live, I am hosting a vision boarding workshop for all the women enrolled in my ready for change group coaching experience. So as I'm getting ready for that workshop, I thought, oh my gosh, I have to share just, just the power of a vision board. Because I know, if you're like me, you kind of think of a vision board as something to do over cocktails with girlfriends and and just like, Oh, yay. Let's do this, and let's share. And yes, when I think back to how vision boarding worked for me, like in my college days, that's when I think about the first time I ever did a vision board. I think was when I was in this, like, the my junior year of college. I believe it was so fun and just kind of fun, but also kind of trivial. Like, I think if I remember back, I would create a vision board, and I think it would put words like awesome and like travel, and I'm laughing. I shouldn't be laughing, because I don't want anyone if they have a vision board that has the word awesome on it, or travel, there's nothing wrong with that, but the energy of it back then was just really fun. And I think I made that board, and I don't know that after that one night of making it, I ever even looked at it, and that's fine for me. In that phase of my life, it was fine, but I really now believe in the power of a vision board. That's why I've included it in this month program. And so before I dive into the power of a vision board and sell you on how this can be a tool to get you what you want in your life, to get you what moving in the right direction, to get you taking action. I want to tell you some exciting news. So I've started this ready for change program in June, and it was so well received, and I'm hearing such great feedback already, and we've only met once so far as a group that I've actually decided to run another group in July, so another ready for change program in July. And the cool thing with this July group is I looked over my calendar and they're going to actually get five group coaching calls, as opposed to four that we got in June. So if you are interested, if you listened before and you didn't get a chance to enroll in the June group. Maybe it was too busy of a month. Maybe you were thinking about it and didn't enroll in time. There is an opportunity to do my ready for change program in July. And there is a link in the show notes, a link on the website, of course, and on Instagram if you want to join me, all the details, all the dates, the cost, all of the things, what to expect, what the whole point of the group is, is all there for you. So I'm going to dive into this podcast. So I guess I should tell the story of how I kind of got back into vision boarding. So my sister and I have a twin sister, if you don't know, I have an identical twin sister. She's my BFF, and she and I spend a lot of time together, but sometimes we like to do more than just spending time together. We like to kind of create our own little powerful experience. We like, we like to decide, like, Let's do like a mastermind, or let's let's talk about our businesses, or let's talk about our future, or let's talk about, you know, specific things, as opposed to just hanging out and just shooting the shit. And so about a year ago, we decided to do a vision boy, I keep laughing. It's just so fun. We decided to do, like, a vision boarding day. You know, when we were going to be getting together for a long weekend, we had not both. Had not created one in years. In fact, we almost were like, how do we do this? Like, do we do this with magazines? Where do we even buy magazines? Can we do it better than magazines? So I told her she was really busy that week, and I told her, I go, you just, you just relax and show up. I'm going to make this a fun thing for us to do. And so first. I i realized the best place to get magazines, if you don't know like in person, is like a Barnes and Noble. But I'll tell you something, they are not cheap these days. They are not cheap. And so I really just I as I started looking through these magazines, like, which ones would I buy? And I thought back to the last time I actually had done a vision boarding exercise, and I remembered it wasn't necessarily my junior year in college, it was I went on this girls retreat, and we all were a vision boarding exercise. Was part of it, and I was so excited for it. So we all brought magazines that we had laying around the house. I remember specifically I had a bunch of Architectural Digest, because I love Architectural Digest. So we brought all these old magazines. Everyone brought magazines, and we all sat there talking, and it was so fun and going through these magazines. But if I'm honest, I will remember that I was going through these magazines trying to find pictures that inspired me. That's what she said, just find pictures that inspire you. And I'm looking through these magazines and I'm finding like, you know, kitchen tables and watches and colognes and Gucci purses and and I am just struggling to be inspired. I mean, yes, would I like that purse? I mean, sure, but is it really inspiring me? I remember just searching, searching, searching, like I wasn't finding inspiration. I would just I was searching. So at the end, I did come up with a board, of course, as we do, and then we all shared our boards, and I found myself thinking in my head like, this isn't necessarily really what I want for my future. This really isn't what's inspiring to me. And I here's the here's the other thing is, if it really was, would I share it with this group? Would I want to put my true desires on this board and tell people what I want, people that I don't know very well, people that maybe I don't fully feel safe with, people that I might question what I want. It just so as fun as it was, it totally was a fun day, but it wasn't a powerful vision boarding experience. And so when I decided for my sister and I to do it, I was like, How can this be powerful? How can this be amazing? How can we actually create a board that we look at and it gets us juiced? Like, let's go looking at this board, and then how can we actually use this board to reduce ourselves up for weeks and months to come? And so I ended up creating this amazing experience with my sister where we were able to create a bunch of images that really spoke to our true desires, and images that maybe we wouldn't share with everyone in our lives, what we would very much share with each other and share with images that when we looked at them, we could feel a reaction in our body like, yes, that is What I want for myself, and that's one thing to know about this vision boarding workshop that I'm doing with the girls in my ready for change group. You know they're not going to be creating a vision board and then showing everyone in the group. There is something, I think, if you really want to make this powerful, there is something very private about the board that you will create for yourself. In fact, when I have talked with some people that are really individual into vision boarding, they will say that they don't show anyone their board. I will talk to some people, they'll say they only show their partner, they only show certain friends. And so I have, right now my vision board in my office, my husband, my kids, my sister, my closest friends. I have no problem. I'm very confident with what I want. I'm very confident with the direction of my life. I'm very confident with sharing my desires, and also with my clients. Whenever my clients say, Oh, I would love to see your vision board, I have no problem showing them, but I don't know that I would have it on my mantle for anyone in my life to necessarily see if that is something that you think about. When you think about like, don't let that be a block for you when you think about creating a board, a vision board, and if you think like, I don't want other people to see it. I want to validate that that's totally normal and you can create a board that you can put in the back of your closet, or that you can even just have on Pinterest that you don't even print out, that you look at, that really speaks to your true desires and that you can juice yourself up. And so I've just had a few people that they're like, I would create one, but I don't want people to see it. Don't let that stop you. Don't let that take away that the power that this can have in your life. So I want to talk about the power. Why is it so powerful? It seems like such a fluffy exercise in some in some ways, Courtney, tell me. Tell me, what is the power? Yes, let me tell you. The first thing is, you really get clear on what you truly. Desire, and sometimes, most the time, what we truly desire is a feeling. When you think about wanting to go on that vacation, we can put an image on our vision board of that location. Maybe it's the exact location. Maybe it's a it's a location where it's just a beach and it symbolizes where you want to go. Maybe you don't know the exact location of where you'd like to go, but it's a feeling. In the end, you're looking for in the end, what we are looking for from anything we want in our life, whether it's to look a certain way in our body, to have a certain thing, to have a relationship, all these things, what we are looking for is a feeling. And so that's really important to know, is, how do I want to feel? And so sometimes, when you are picking out images for your vision board, sometimes you see something and it will speak to you, and you don't even know why. And here's a great story I heard from Martha back I heard her talking one time about creating a vision board, and this was so powerful for me, so I hope it will be powerful for you. She talked about how she was creating a vision board. I think she was doing it old school, with magazines, and she saw a picture of a giraffe, and she just thought, oh, it just spoke to her. She she had a visceral reaction to this picture of a giraffe, and she even, and this happens often, so watch for this. She even had this like, so she saw this picture of a giraffe, she had a visceral reaction, like she felt called, like that picture drew her in, but then she started, like, negotiating with herself, and so beyond to yourself. If this happens, if you start negotiating with yourself and you're like, what does that even mean? A giraffe. Why is that important? I mean, do I want to own a giraffe? Obviously not. Do I want? And she started kind of negotiating and almost belittling her instinct towards this picture. So often we do that we have a we have a resonance. We relate to something. We are drawn to something, but then we talk ourselves out of it. And so allow yourself to choose a picture, and don't talk yourself out of it. If there is something that you look at and you go, yes, you don't have to know in that moment exactly. Why? Right? We want to go, Well, wait a minute. What is it exactly about this? What if it's okay that you don't know there is something about that picture that speaks to you. And so Martha Beck talks about that picture and how she put it on her vision board, and a year later, or six months later, whatever, someone invited her to go to Africa. And it wasn't until she was in Africa on safari that she saw a giraffe and she thought, and she had that moment. You know, that moment, like even talking about that moment, my body gets like shivers, that moment of, oh my god. This was that picture. This was I wanted to create this, and I didn't even know it at a subconscious level. There was something about that that I wanted, and I ended up drawing it into my life by it being on my vision board, one of the pictures on my vision board that I am using for my new vision board, because I'm also going to create a new vision board for this workshop I'm doing with my, my ladies and my, my ready for change group. One of the images is of a girl, and she is, she looks like maybe she's six, seven years old, and she is spreading her arms, and she's, it looks like she's almost screaming or laughing, and it is pouring down rain, and she is just with so much pure joy and abandonment, screaming and laughing. And when you think of kids in the rain, like you think of us as adults in the rain, and we're like, oh my god, get the umbrella. Don't get my hair wet. Oh my god, this stupid rain. Get me out of here, right? And she is just just so joyful and like enjoying the rain like this is the most amazing thing. And I remember seeing that picture for the first time and being like, Yes, and I didn't know what it was about that picture. And I think I know more now. I think that as we become adults, we lose the joy of just being in the moment. We sometimes lose the joy of, oh my god, it's raining. And can I sit here and not worry about my hair, and not worry about my clothes and just enjoy that I'm alive and I am standing and I can throw my arms open and enjoy being in the rain? When was the last time you did that? I don't know when the last time I did that was there's something that draws me in about that picture, and I saw it, and I said, Yes, so that picture is going on my vision board. Now, does it mean that I want next time it rains, I'm gonna, like, go out in a sundress and do that? No, no. But it means that, like, How can I live more of that life? That's like, a it's a concept I want to bring into my life. How can I just be more in the moment and just enjoy the moment? It's like last night, my son, Tyler, came over for dinner, and one of my other boys, Ryan was supposed to join us. Ryan didn't join us. It was just Tyler and I, and we had planned on going swimming, and then all of a sudden it was like, getting late. I'm like, do you want to swim? And he was I do. And I was kind of. Like I could take it or leave it, and I thought, No, my son wants to spend time with me in the pool. Can I just enjoy this moment? So that's what this picture symbolizes to me, is that someday, at the end of my life, I'm going to be so glad I spent an hour in the pool on a random Tuesday night with my son, when I could have easily said, now, let's just sit on the couch, and then you can go and all watch Outlander, right? It's like, can I just enjoy the moment when you are looking for images to put on your vision board? Can you get clear on what you want? Let those images help you get clear on what you want. And sometimes it's just a feeling. A vision board is so powerful because it helps you build your belief that something bigger is possible for you. So often we see things it's maybe images that we want. Maybe it's images of like, things that we want to be like. Maybe it's women doing things we want to do, a woman that looks really confident, a woman that you know embody something that you want to embody, places you want to go, partners you want to have, experiences you want to create. And it builds our belief that something bigger is possible for us. In order to believe that something is possible for us, we have to first have the desire for it. And when we can find images that that like can inspire us and go, Oh, wow, I want that. Who knew Who knew that I want that? And sometimes we don't know we want it until we see it as an option. And so when you're looking for images to put on your vision board, can you really be open to and really say, I'm going to have I'm going to do this with an open heart, and I'm going to see what draws me in, and if I see something that I resonate with, can I start to believe that it's possible for me? Now you don't have to 100% believe it's possible to put on your vision board. That is the whole point of a vision board. You go, Oh my gosh. I don't know why, but that looks amazing. I don't even know how I'd be able to afford that. I don't even know if I could ever do that. But I'm putting it on my vision board because every single day you look at it and you go, I want to believe that's possible for me. I want to believe that's possible for me every single day, and by you looking at it every single day or once a week, or when, how often you decide to look at your board, you start to flood your life with possibility. So the power of a vision board is starting to flood your life with the belief that something bigger is possible for you. So often we get stuck in our same town, our same friends group, our same routines, our same same same and because of that, we don't believe something as bigger as possible for us, I can think back to certain times in my life when a woman would say something and I would be like what I've said many times before, of my friend Sarah, we're not good, good, good friends. I love her so much. I don't see her very often. I don't even think she listens podcasts, but her name is Sarah, and she begot her and we haven't even talked about this. I just saw it on Facebook. She got her pilot's license. What is happening? What is happening? I think it was about a year ago. Again, I can't wait to see her, because I want to talk to her and tell her what is happening. I saw her husband. I'm like, what is happening? I can't believe she got that. I It's just absolutely amazing. Now, I don't want to become a pilot. That sounds terrifying, but by her doing that, she inspired something in me, that I was like, we're, we're, we're allowed to do that. That's amazing. I remember when I was I had my kids were really young. I mean, the twins were probably a year old. I was talking with one of my girlfriends who I'd not seen in a while, and she said she was like, training for a marathon. And I remember being like, what, what? And because she had kids the same age as me, and I remember thinking, what? How is this even possible? I didn't believe that that would be possible for myself. So there was a moment of amazing possibility there. Then there was a moment of amazing possibility with my friend getting her pilot's license. And then I just talked one of my clients. I think she's like, I think she's pretty much my same age, and she's going back to school to get her doctorate. What amazing? And so if you surround yourself with people doing amazing things, that it can be quite inspiring. But for many people, they're kind of living their life on repeat, and they're not surrounded by people doing amazing things. So first of all, maybe that's one of the things you want to create. Is you want to surround yourself with more women doing amazing things, maybe you want to be first. Maybe you want to be the one doing amazing things and inspire other people. That's fantastic, but one of the things you can do is create a vision board to show yourself there is possibility outside of the norm, outside of what I'm exposed to every single day. Okay, and so that is the power of you looking at these images and deciding what is possible. Creating a powerful vision board helps you manifest. Manifestation is the practice of identifying clear and specific goals and then visualizing these goals and visualizing achieving them while you're thinking about how exciting that will be, how amazing it's going to feel gratitude ahead of time and really like affirming that this is possible for you. So you probably know what manifestation is, but maybe you don't know if you're good at it. Maybe you don't know exactly the tangibles on how to do it. One of the great tools for manifestation is creating a vision board, because then you can see something and start believing it's possible for you, thinking about how fun it would be if you were there already feeling the gratitude, feeling like the gratitude as if you are already there. One of the images I have on my vision board that I created with my sister over a year ago. I don't even know where this place is. It looks like it might be in Prague. I haven't been to Prague, but when I think Prague is one of the places I want to go, and when I see images of Prague, this image on my that I put on my vision board reminds me of that. And it's this early morning. It looks like a sunrise picture. It's foggy. There's all these beautiful, beautiful cast I don't know if they're castles or churches or whatever, and it looks like this image is taken from a hilltop early in the morning. And when I look at that image, I get this idea that I am looking at this there, specifically with my kids. So I look at this image on my vision board, and I think someday, I'm going to be traveling, and I'm going to be in a space where I see something like this. I'm going to wake up early with my boys and I'm going to say, Hey, there's this beautiful peak where we can look out over the city. I want to wake up grab coffee and go see this. We're going to do it, and it is going to be a magical experience. And so when I look at that image on my vision board. I am a grateful already for that experience, even though that experience has not happened yet. That's manifestation. That's manifestation in process, because it hasn't happened yet. Someday, when I am there with my kids, looking out, that will be the manifestation, because it will be a complete full circle moment. But the key here is with manifestation, and the key with the power of a vision board is being able to look at your vision board and being grateful and being excited and feeling the joy ahead of time you're not looking at it going, well, I don't know when I'm going to be able to fit that in. Oh yeah, that's the tickets for that are going to be outrageous. No, no, no, no, you're looking at it going, Hey, I'm not quite sure when I'm doing this. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to make this happen, but it's happening, and I'm excited, feeling the power of it now, feeling the joy of it now. That is the power of a vision board. That is the power of manifestation. That is how we create in our lives by thinking. I want to think big things are possible. I want to be grateful for them now and feel the joy ahead of time, creating a powerful vision board helps you make decisions. And this one specifically came from my sister. When I was getting getting this workshop together for my ready for change group, I said to her, I go tell me how you're using your vision board. Like, where do you have it? Do you look at it every day? Because I look at my vision board every single day. I will meditate, and then I will spend a few moments just looking at it and feeling excited for it and seeing how I'm already creating some of these pictures that are on my vision board now. And she says she doesn't look at hers necessarily every single day, but she says she goes to it when she wants to make a decision. And I'm like, oh my god, fantastic. Tell me all about this. And she said, she said, I will go look at my vision board when I I'm presented with an opportunity for work or for life, and I will think, I don't know, like, do I want to do this? And so I will go to my vision board and I think, Okay, this vision board is a visual representation of where I'm going. Does this opportunity I've been presented with align with where I'm going. So if I say yes to this decision, if I say yes to this opportunity, if I say yes to this person that's asking something of me, is it getting me closer to what I am trying to create, which is represented from this vision board? And I said, Oh, my God, Kelly, amazing, because I have not, I had not been doing that. She's brilliant. And so I said, Oh my god, I'm so glad you told me that. And so this is one of the powerful ways you can use your vision board. Is okay? Does this align with the life I want? Does this create the beautiful life I want for myself? And. Oftentimes, because I'm now, I'm using it this way too. Oftentimes, when you go to the board, it very quickly tells you Yes, this is getting this decision. Saying yes to this decision is getting me closer to this life I want. Or it's not that is the power of a vision board. It helps us get clear on what we want. Sometimes it's just a feeling. A lot of times it's really a feeling. In the end, it helps us build our belief that something bigger is possible for us. That is our responsibility to believe something is bigger is possible for us. It helps us really become more intuitive and follow our instincts. It helps us with manifestation. It helps and to me, when I think of manifestation, it also means creation. It helps us admit and find evidence that we are a creator, and it helps us make decisions for our future. It helps us when people are asking us to do things, and people are offering us jobs, and people are saying, Would you like to do this? You'd like to do that. And we can go to something visual that represents where we're going. It helps us get clarity on if that is helping us get closer to the life that we truly want for ourselves. So ladies, get ready. This vision boarding workshop is going to be amazing if you are inspired by listening to this podcast and you are wanting to get to see me teach this vision boarding workshop live, and you want the step by step how to tangibly create one, I invite you to join my ready for change group in July, and you will not only spend The month with me, creating massive change in your life. But you will get to come to this live workshop where I teach the group about how to create your own vision board, where to get the pictures, how to print them out, how big, how many, how to decide what to put it on, all of it. It's going to be a wonderful month of July, creating a massive change in your life. Head to Courtney Gray coaching.com/work with me, or you can click the link in the show notes to learn all about this. July, ready for change coaching group, have a great Tuesday. If you are ready to lose weight and keep it off permanently and feel confident and at peace around food, I invite you to head to Courtney Gray coaching.com to learn about how to work with me. I work with women privately, one on one, and I also offer small group coaching. There is a link to my website in the show notes. You.