EP #7 VISION BOARDS FOR MANIFESTATION: How to Make One That Actually Works

 Vision boards are one of the most popular manifestation tools—and one of the most misunderstood. 

In this episode, we break down why most vision boards don't work, the energy you need to be in when creating one, and the biggest mistake people make; putting things on their board they think they should want instead of what they actually want. 

You'll learn why you don't need to be hyper-specific (spoiler: it's about the feeling, not the house color), how to stop hiding your vision board out of shame, why gratitude for what you have doesn't mean you can't want more, and how to use your vision board as a daily manifestation practice—not just arts and crafts time. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Change doesn't start with what you do. Change starts with who you are. I'm your host, Kendall Keaton, and this is the identity advantage.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Today we are going to talk about one of the most popular tools used for manifesting, but also probably the one that is used wrong most often that's misunderstood or really just used in the wrong way and ends up not working. And that tool is vision boards. If you are somebody who's ever had a goal, ever had a dream, ever wanted to do anything, you've probably either made or heard of a vision board. And it's not just for manifesting. It's not this woo-woo thing because they're used everywhere. Network marketing companies, they swear by them. Major corporations have entire strategic planning sessions. They like block off entire days or weeks just around creating visions and vision boards. So it's not just a manifesting thing, it's a legitimate tool used by successful people, successful huge organizations across the board. But there's a problem because when it comes to using vision boards for manifesting, there's a very specific way that they need not only to be used, but a very specific way that they need to be created. And we don't create them the right way, normally. We don't create in the right sort of energy. It ends up just being like arts and crafts time and zero results. We waste our time, we waste our energy, we get nothing from it, and we end up just being sometimes more frustrated than when we started. Your vision board ends up being something that just collects dust under your bed or you're hiding it in your closet or you've just completely forgotten about. So today we're going to dive deep into what a vision board actually is, how it works from both a scientific and a spiritual perspective. And most importantly, how can you make one that actually helps you manifest what you want? So, my to kind of illustrate this, my first vision board was actually like this was decades ago. And it came about because I joined a network marketing company. And at the beginning, they talk about really creating the vision, like the whole idea of the why. You have to have your why. And that's where it comes into play. And they asked us to make this huge vision board. And mine, let me tell you, I didn't know it at the time, but looking back, it was like a total hot mess. I had a big beach house on there, and I don't even like the beach. I have no desire to have a beach house, no reason for it to be on there, other than the fact that I just assumed I'm supposed to want these big things. Like, what do people put on vision boards? A million dollar house, a big sports car. Like, I don't even want a sports car and I had one on there. Like I have no desire for a sports car. What I actually want to drive, I want to drive an SUV that can haul a camper because my real dream would involve being in a cabin by a river with seven kayaks strapped to the roof or a trailer, not cruising around in a car that can't even fit half my camping gear. I put like three million dollars on there because that seemed like a good, like, rich person number. Did I have any connection to what that money would actually do for me? Nothing. It was just a big impressive number. I wasn't creating a vision board based on what I actually wanted. I was creating one based on what I thought I should want. What society says success looks like. And so that vision board did absolutely nothing for me. Because every time I looked at it, I felt nothing. There was no excitement, there was no joy, there was a complete disconnection because I didn't have an emotional reaction to anything on that board. Just because the things on there would take money to purchase, they were rich people things, did not mean that they actually meant anything to me. And when we put things on our vision board that we think we should want and we don't have actually any emotional connection to it, it doesn't work. The things on your vision board have to bring up emotional arousal. You have to look at that and actually feel the emotion of having those and feel good about it. And if you don't have a connection to it, if you're just putting things on there of what you think you should want, or another thing is if we put things on there that are so big, so far away from where we are that when we look at them, we can't even muster, like if you can't even muster even a little bit of belief that it's possible, you're just looking at it and thinking, I'm never gonna get that. If it does not excite you and you can't at least a little bit tune into the possibility that yes, I could have that, then it's a waste of space and it's a waste of time. So we need to talk about what actually goes on this vision board. And more importantly, how do you decide what goes on that vision board? Because it is very, very important, the energy that you are in during the making of the vision board. And I will tell you that you don't actually have to have a vision board in order to manifest. Okay, this is not like a mandatory thing. You're manifesting already. We didn't create a vision board of all the things that we didn't want that we created in our lives. And we have a lot of things that we do enjoy that we didn't create a vision board over. You don't have to do it, but it is a tool that can help you if you use it correctly. So if you want to have a tool that helps you manifest, a tool that helps you remember why you're doing what you're doing, a tool that can make it easier, can make things come to you faster, help you stay motivated, help you take action. It helps you improve that cycle that we talk about. A vision board is extremely helpful. It is super helpful, but it's not mandatory. You do not have to do this to manifest. But if you want to, and I do suggest that you do. And if you want to make a vision board that's effective, you have to be in the right energy when you make it. So you can't be sitting down and make a vision board looking at all these pictures. Like back in the day, we did it through a magazine. Like I literally had a whole bunch of magazines and would just flip through them. It's actually kind of fun if you can get your hands on some magazines. But Google Images, Pinterest, it serves the same purpose. You can actually make a digital vision board if you want to. Like I have a vision board on my phone, and I have something that we will actually get into in a later episode. It's called a mind movie. It's a vision board that is actually made to audio. It's kind of like a movie that goes through all of these pictures instead. I watch it every morning. It's pretty short. And you can do that if you want to. You can make a vision board all sorts of different ways. But traditionally, we see like a poster board or a cork board of things posted or pinned or glued onto a board. You can still actually do that, and I do have one of those as well. You can make your vision board anything you want it to be. Digital, audio, poster board, cork board, pictures glued to your ceiling that you see when you wake up. Make it make it your own. Doesn't matter what it is or how you do it, it matters who you are when you are making it. If you're looking through Pinterest, if you are looking through magazines, if you have them, and you're thinking about all the things that you want, but subconsciously you're thinking, I don't know how I'm ever going to get this, that this is never going to happen. If you're feeling a sense of lack or of scarcity or of disbelief, then just stop. Don't make a vision board in the energy of thinking that you can't have what's going to be on your vision board. Nothing will happen if this is the case because the wrong things will go on there. You will end up censoring what you want. You'll either be making decisions out of what you should want or what you think is available to you in the moment. You'll censor it, you'll water it down. There will end up being the wrong things on your board, and it will never create the right feeling and emotion to motivate you to actually do anything about them. So make sure you're in the right energy, an energy of feeling abundant, an energy of feeling gratitude. If you have the meditation that I offer that's free, that you can download for free, do that before you make your vision board. Use that meditation, get yourself into the feeling of feeling gratitude for even the smallest thing. Be in a feeling of abundance, of appreciation, of at least contentment before you start trying to make a vision board. Or the wrong things will be on there and the wrong energy will be behind it. All right, so that's step one. Get in the energy, get in the right energy, be feeling excited and hopeful and believe. Know that you are believing in the moment that you can have what you're putting on there. If you are making your vision board while you are feeling broke or feeling stuck, feeling miserable about your current life, desperate for things to change, then every time you look at your vision board, there's gonna be a sense of those feelings that come back up inside of you. You're gonna feel a sense of lack, you're gonna feel the gap between where you are and where you want to be. And that feeling, that gap, that frequency of I don't have this is repelling what's on that vision board versus pulling it towards you. It'd be like trying to use your phone with a dead battery. The tool is there, but there's no power source to it. And the emotion is your power source. So find something to be grateful for. Find gratitude in the moment before you start making that. And I promise you, the more you get into the feeling of gratitude, the easier that will become, the faster it will grow. You will adopt that frequency quicker and quicker every time you look at that vision board if you make sure that you are in the energy and in that frequency before you actually make it. Now, once you're in that moment, once you're in that feeling, once you know, okay, I am in a sense of contentment and believe that I can create something better for myself. Now sit with the magazines, get on Pinterest, start looking for those things that are coming up for you in that moment. When you are in the sense of gratitude, thinking about even just the smallest things, you don't have to decide at that point what kind of house you're gonna have on there. When you're in the feeling of gratitude, of appreciation, if you're just feeling good in the moment, that's the moment at which you want to start looking for things to go on your board. And ask yourself, just feel the feeling of what comes up when you look at the pictures. When you're scrolling Pinterest, what brings up an emotion inside of you that would be like, oh, that would be nice. And don't second guess it. The only thing you might ask yourself when you come across something is do I want this or do I think that I am supposed to want this? Is this something that actually speaks to my soul, or is this something I think I'm supposed to want? Do not put anything on there that does not genuinely light you up. No shoulds, no can I actually do that? Do I have the time? Do I have the resources? None of that matters. Put yourself into a state of no limitations. If money were no object, if time were no object, if you had no limitations, what would your life look like? And a great way to do this if you can't find specifics, because trust me, you don't have to. When I finally sat down to make a vision board in this way, I didn't actually know what I wanted. There was not a house on my vision board when I first did this. There was not a dream job on my vision board. I had to go back to the basics, just say, what would I just want my ideal day to look like? And all I could come up with in that moment was I knew I wanted to spend time outside, like outdoors. I was really into meditation at that point. I still am, but I had just gotten into it, and I loved the idea of I wanted to go on a retreat. I wanted to go to a meditation retreat or somewhere where I could just feel the peace of just being in nature. So that's what I found. I just scrolled through and I found a picture of a girl meditating in a field, and that just spoke to me, and that's what I put on there. There's nothing specific with that. It doesn't speak about a job I want, it doesn't speak about the kind of money I want to make, it doesn't speak about anything other than how I wanted to feel. And this is so important. Listen to me, like hear this. All we are really chasing is just a feeling. All that you want. Anything that you want is only because you think you will feel better in the having of it. Think about that. The only reason we want anything is because we think we will feel better when we have it. We are ultimately just chasing a feeling. And we assign things that we think that we have to have to make us feel this thing. You don't want to be stressed anymore. You just really want to feel calm. I want to I want to feel like everything's gonna be taken care of. We just want contentment. And we think that this X amount of money will make us feel less stressed. We want money, financial abundance, because we think we will we will feel free, we will feel happy when we have it. I want my soulmate because I think I will feel loved. I just want to feel loved, and then we assign thinking we need a soulmate in order to feel loved. But all we're really chasing is the feeling of being loved, having love, loving someone. I think if I have this job, I will feel so much more calm. But really, what you want is the calm feeling, is the contentment, the feeling of financial freedom. But we don't always know or we don't always have the right interpretation of the thing that we think will make us feel this way, that we think will get us that feeling, but we don't know for sure. When we really sit and think about it, what do I actually want? If money were no object, if time were no object, if none of my circumstances existed, and I could literally have anything that I wanted, what would it be? Sometimes we draw a blank because we're not used to thinking outside the box the box that we're in, the box that we live in. We are so used to thinking about what we could do, what we should do, what is available to us that we don't know how to think without limitations. But we do know how we want to feel. And that picture of that girl meditating in a field made me feel so happy just looking at that. Like if that was me, that would be unbelievable. I would feel so peaceful and so calm and so joyful just to be able to do that. There is nothing specific about that picture. It's not a job, it's not a car, it's not a house, it's not an amount of money, it's a feeling. There's a big thing, and some of you might be thinking this right now because I know I did. There's a teaching that goes with getting specific. Get really clear. There's a connection or a similarity between some of the teachings on manifesting and something called smart goals. The S in SMART goals stands for specific. There's a lot of teachings on goal setting where you have to get really specific about the goal. And in manifesting, a lot of the teachings follow that and say you have to get really clear. You have to have clarity. Get really, really clear on what you want. What color is the house? What do the carpets look like? What do the walls look like? What does it smell like? And this idea stuck with me so hard I took it so to heart that it kept me stuck because I couldn't get specific. And I felt like if I couldn't get specific on what I wanted, how can I ever create anything? If I don't know what I want, how can I get there? And so I kept myself stuck. I want this job, no, I want that job. All I actually knew for truth is that I didn't want the job I had. I worked a nine to five that was more like a nine to seven. It was physically demanding, it was time demanding. My schedule flexibility was nothing. There was no flexibility in the schedule, and it was inconsistent, never knew what time I was going to get off work. And I'm a single mom with three kids. It was not working. All I knew is that I needed something different. But I didn't know what I wanted to replace it with. So I stayed in that job for a lot longer than I needed to because I thought I had to know a specific of what I wanted to do before I could start moving towards it. And when I realized I didn't have to actually specifically know what I wanted, when I realized that all I just wanted was a feeling, I just had to specifically know how I wanted to feel. And I just wanted to feel free. Even more than financial freedom, I actually wanted time freedom. I wanted to be able to decide when I would get up and when I would go to work. I wanted to be able to decide that if I wanted to go spend an hour outside on a walk at two o'clock in the afternoon that I could do that. I wanted time freedom. Freedom is all I actually wanted. So when I made my vision board, I had to find things that made me feel free. So what is that feeling that you are searching for? Find out what that is. Not what will create the feeling, just what is the feeling. For a lot of us, it is freedom. It might be joy, it might be love. I want to love and I want to feel loved. You don't have to decide what it is that will make you feel that way. That's the part that we hand over to co-creation. Another name for manifesting is co-creating. And you don't co-create by yourself. It's called co-creating because you have to hand over a part of that to a higher source. And it does not matter what that higher source is. You can call it God, you can call it Jesus take the wheel. The part you're just going to hand over and trust. You don't have to call it God. You don't have to call it Jesus. You can call it source. You can call it energy. You can call it the universe. I think we can all agree that there is something bigger than us out there. I did not create myself. You did not create yourself. There is a higher source of energy that created this universe. And that's all you have to believe in. That there is an energy, that there is a source, that there is a higher consciousness that knows a little bit more than we do. And I'm not talking religion. I'm not a religious person, but I do have faith in a higher power. And it doesn't matter what you call that higher power. Just to know that there is an energy in this universe that can do things maybe we cannot do, that knows things maybe we don't know. That knows our highest good, even if we don't know what that is yet. And all we have to know, all we have to ask for is the feeling that we want. We don't have to know the how of how we're gonna get there. And when we know that feeling, then we look through those pictures, we look through Pinterest, we look through Google Images, don't overthink it. Whatever fills you up with that emotion that you're searching for, that's what goes on your vision board. Don't second guess it. If you look at, if you're cutting out pictures and you find, oh my gosh, all these pictures are just of like of yellow things. Maybe the color yellow means something to you. Who knows? If it brought up an emotion that felt good, that felt like that emotion you're searching for, put it on your vision board. The only purpose of the vision board is to bring up that emotion anyway. So don't second guess the pictures that are going on there. It might be a color that's bringing up that that emotion. It might be a certain word that's bringing up that emotion. It might be a landscape that's bringing that up. It doesn't matter what it is because you don't have to know the why. You don't have to know why that made you feel that freedom. You don't have to know why that made you feel loved. We let that go for that higher source for God, for source energy. We let that go for co-creation. You don't have to be religious to do this. I am not a religious person, but I do have faith in a higher power. And it doesn't matter what I call that higher power. That higher power does not care. You just have to know that it's there and you have to trust it. It can just, if you are someone who struggles with this, you're like, nope, I don't believe in God. I'm not doing that. Not going there. You don't have to call this God. It can just be, do you believe in a higher version of yourself? Do you believe that you have a consciousness that sometimes will speak to you and say, hey, that's right, that's wrong. That's a higher power. Do you believe that there is a better version of you that exists, that knows better, that wants to do better, that deserves better? If you believe that you did not create yourself and that there is a higher energy in the universe that created you, that's all you have to believe in right now. That feeling can grow, but there has to be a trust that there is a source of power that you can hand over some of this work to. And that all we have to do is ask and believe, and it can be. The only thing we have to believe in is that that feeling we're searching for, it's possible for us to get it. And our vision board is filled with the pictures, with the images, with the words that bring up this emotion. And if you can't find a picture, if you can't find anything that brings that image up, you can just put words. I've had vision boards in the past that have just been words, have been characteristics of how I wanted to feel or how I wanted to be. This is yours to create as you want. There are very few rules when it comes to making a vision board, but number one is how do you want to feel? And then make sure that you are in that feeling when you are choosing these pictures, these images. Maybe it's a song. A vision board could be audio. It could be a song that makes you feel every single one of those feelings that you want to feel. And if you listen to it every morning and every night, you can fill yourself with that emotion. A vision board is just a tool. It's a vision tool. Its purpose is to bring up the emotion in you that you ultimately want to be in. So whatever gets you into that emotional state is being used as a vision board. And the more you use this tool, the stronger the emotion gets and the more you are attracting it to you. This gets us into this next part, using the vision board. Because a lot of times what we do is we make a vision board and then we hide it. Have you made a vision board and then stuck it under your bed? Made a vision board and put it in your closet. Because we don't want anybody to see these things that we want. This feeling of this little bit of embarrassment around it. Or what if somebody would see this and see that's what I want? And then it doesn't happen, and then I'm embarrassed because I actually thought, like I had the audacity to think that I could do this thing or have this thing or be this person or have this person. And we build a little bit of shame around it. And we take our vision board and we hide it. And I'm not saying you have to like you don't have to post this or make it your, you don't have to put it on your living room or make it your profile picture. Right? You don't have to scream it from the rooftops. But are you scared to share your vision board with your partner? Your best friend? The people who are closest to you? Are you scared to show this to them? If you are, check in with yourself because there's a little bit of disbelief in there then that you could have these things. I want to tell you now that you are deserving of every single thing that you put on that board. And if you have a shame or an embarrassment around it, then that feeling is leaking into that vision board and it is keeping those things from you. It's keeping you from moving towards it, and it's keeping it from moving towards you. We make these plans and we make these dreams, and I want that feeling. Oh, but I don't want anybody to know about it. So I'm gonna shove this underneath my bed. I'm only gonna pull it out when nobody's looking. There should be no shame, no embarrassment around wanting to feel happy, about wanting to feel joyful, about wanting to feel free. Everybody else wants that anyway. And if they make any judgment or any comment or any fun making or poking fun at you about your vision board, it's their own insecurities about them thinking that they can't have it. If it's silly for them, then it's silly for you. Anything that anybody else has to say about your vision board is only ever about them. And when you can get into that space of really truly understanding that, then nothing anybody says about your vision board or about your dreams is ever going to affect you. Because you can look at them and just know they don't have a belief in themselves. And I hate that for them. I hope they can build that belief, but I have belief in me. And the one thing that can help others believe in themselves is you believing in you and you going after your dreams and not caring about what they think. If you want to help them, help yourself. We're all pretty much just wanting the same thing. It's just that not everybody's willing to admit it. And if you have a hard time admitting it, you're going to have a hard time getting it. Another thing that can stop us, that can bring up some icky feelings, is that I used to think that if I wanted more, if I thought I could actually have more, that somehow that meant I wasn't grateful for what I had. And I felt a little bit about a little bit of shame around that. I knew I was living a life that a lot of people would have given their left arm for. Like I should be grateful for what I have. And I was, but I felt like that meant that I couldn't want anything else. That if I wanted more somehow, that meant that I wasn't happy with what I had. But being grateful for everything that you have is the only way. It's the only door to getting more of what you want. We've got to be grateful for everything that we have in the moment. That's how we find that feeling of gratitude. But it doesn't mean that you have to stay there. It doesn't mean that you don't deserve more. You deserve everything that you want to have. Everyone does. And there is no limit to the abundance in the universe. There is no finite amount of money that if you make this much, it means somebody else doesn't get theirs. No one out there getting anything that they want is keeping you from getting anything that you want. And you wanting more or desiring more, desire is not a bad thing. And it doesn't mean that you aren't happy for what you have. It doesn't mean that you regret anything you've done. It just means, yeah, I have more life to live and I want that life to be the best it possibly can be. And I want to feel happy for the rest of my life. I want to feel joyful. I want to feel excitement. I want to feel adventurous. Maybe you want to feel courageous and brave. You want to feel free. I want to feel freedom with my time. I want to feel freedom with finances, with money. It's not a bad thing to want to have money, my friends. And you have to really truly believe that to stop being embarrassed of your vision board. Stop feeling shamed. Stop being worried about people seeing it. Put it up. You can put it in your bedroom. You don't have to put it in your living room or in your entryway. Make it the screensaver on your phone. Let yourself be proud of yourself for wanting more. Let your kids see it. Let your kids see that an adult woman or an adult man can have dreams for more as well. Do not shy away from letting the ones who are closest to you know that you have dreams for a better life and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. So if you are feeling in this moment that, yeah, you know what, I want to make a vision board, or I have one, maybe I need to go back and look and rethink and kind of redo this. Remember that you do not have to know specifics. If you do know specifics, that's fantastic. But the specificity of what you want will grow the more you use the board. The more you tune into the vision, the more you feel the feeling. Is it important to start getting specific about what you want? Yes. But don't do it from a false sense of what it is you really want. You need to be sure that what you're putting on your board is what you want and what you desire and not what you've been taught that you should want. Not what success looks like from society's standpoint. Just start with how you want to feel. Find a way to get into that feeling. And then from that feeling, decide what goes on that board. Maybe it's pictures of a family game night. You and your family playing games. It can be you taking a walk on a beach because that's what freedom look like to you. Maybe it's a cute reading nook where you have just hours of your day to just read because that's what feels good to you. What is the feeling you want and what helps you bring that emotion up? What helps you bring that emotion up inside of you? Make your vision board from that feeling. Make your digital vision board. Choose a song, whatever it is for you, and then look at it, visit it, listen to it every day, and don't hide it. Don't teach the universe, don't tell the energy that you're co-creating with. Don't tell God that you're embarrassed of the dreams he's helping you build by shoving those dreams under your bed and letting it gather dust. Tell the universe, tell source, tell God, show that energy that you're serious about this and that you're trusting not only yourself, but you're trusting the co-creation. You are trusting that higher power to work with you to make this happen. No shame, no doubt, no embarrassment allowed. You are allowed to have dreams. They are not just for kids, they are for adults too. You are allowed to have dreams. You are allowed to be proud of them. You are allowed to display them and then look at them every day with the feeling that that vision board is supposed to create, not with a feeling of lack. If there is anything on your board that you look at and think, I will never have that, take it off. Maybe you can put big grand things on your vision board and believe that it's possible. And if so, put them on there. If you're not there yet, that's okay. Only put things on your vision board that you can look at and believe that you can have. Believe that you already have. If the things on your vision board are supposed to create a feeling of freedom, what are the things in your life right now that make you feel free? Even if it's something small, the freedom to be able to choose what flavor of coffee you want in the morning, when you go to your Starbucks, when you go to your Seven Brew, wherever it is you go, you get to choose what you want. That's a freedom. If you get to choose what you wear to work in the morning, that's a freedom. Tune into the feeling that you really want to have. The vision board is the tool that helps you do that. And you can mix in a couple things on your vision board of things you already have. When I did actually manifest my dream car, I left that picture on my vision board. Because I can look at that now and feel so grateful that I have it, and it's proof that it works. Yes, this works. It is empowering. It helps me trust in myself, it helps me trust trust in co-creation. I leave that on there to remind myself with all the things that I've been able to manifest, all the things that God, that source energy, has helped me co-create. If looking at your children, pictures of your children makes you proud of them, makes you proud of yourself, makes you believe in that higher power, makes you grateful, put pictures of them on your vision board. Put some things on there that you already have, that you've already manifested to help bring up those feelings. And look at it every single day. Do not hide it. Be willing to own your dreams, not be ashamed of them, stand in the power of this is what I want, and I am worthy of having it. If you do these things, your vision board becomes more than just a pretty picture. It becomes more than a Pinterest page, it becomes a daily practice of tuning your frequency to match what you want to be able to attract. You are allowed to want more and you are allowed to want different things. You're allowed to want what genuinely makes you happy, regardless of what anyone else thinks about it. And when you create a vision board from that authentic place, when you use it then as a daily practice of gratitude and alignment, it becomes one of the most powerful manifesting tools you have. And if you're listening to this and you're still thinking, okay, this makes all the sense in the world, but I don't know how to get into that gratitude state, then please go get the manifesting meditation that I have that's free, that walks you through getting into that state of gratitude first thing in the morning. It is specifically designed to help you start your day from that elevated emotional place that makes manifesting possible. Thank you so much for listening. And if something you heard today made an impact or changed the way you think somehow, then share it with somebody you care about. Because sometimes it's that one moment, that one idea that changes everything. And until next time, remember if you want to do something you've never done, you have to become someone you've never been. That is the identity advantage.