How Vision Boards Work

Personal development is an art and a science. The science comes in with what we can observe in the physical, 3-dimensional reality we live in. The art is more faith-based. We can’t possibly perceive all of the forces that are influencing us and shaping our lives, and leveraging some of those powers is more of an art form. I mean we can’t see infrared light and we know that exists, so there has to be many other factors at play that we can’t perceive.

I’m not getting too woo-woo or spiritual today, but I did want to show one way that the art connects to the science, and that’s by talking about vision boards. Featured in the book and movie “The Secret”, and other resources talking about manifestation and ‘the law of attraction’, many of the most successful people in the world talk about creating a vision board. Basically a vision board is a series of images and scenes that represent the future you want to have, and your practice is to put yourself in the setting and experience success as if you’ve already achieved it.

One important detail is that your mind does not know the difference between the imagined and reality. So with frequent visits to your vision board your, brain is influenced by the reality you’re imagining and it begins to make it more familiar to you in your life. This then translates into the present day because the brain prefers to do what is familiar, and if these big goals that you have are becoming more familiar to you, then your brain will start pulling you in that direction out of comfort.

This is the process of manifestation. Your subconscious mind is on the lookout for ways to make your vision a reality, and as you go about your day you’re more likely to do the things that will lead to new and better results. Priming your Reticular Activating System, the part of your brain that dictates your focus, you will see opportunities and possibilities that you didn’t before because that’s what your brain is looking for.

To quickly summarize - Vision boards help you simulate a future vision for yourself, which your subconscious mind perceives as reality. With repetition this new reality becomes more familiar and influences the Reticular Activating System in the brain to focus on things that would help to make this new reality present truth. So as spiritual and pseudoscience as it might seem, the effects of vision boards have a rooted base in neurobiology.

Knowing this information is one thing, but applying it is another. If you are trying to implement but you’re wasting a lot of time and energy doing things without knowing if it's working, then you’re leaving a lot of potential unfulfilled. If you want a plan to make real strides forward toward the best version of yourself, this is for you!