The best way to achieve your career and life goals is to keep them top of mind, so that you are always consciously and subconsciously looking for ways to move you closer to them. A career vision board is the perfect tool to help you meet your goals.
Success is a choice! You can make the decision today to take control of your outlook on the things you wish were different in your life. The first step is to make a commitment to yourself and develop a plan to move yourself towards the desired outcome.
By putting a vision board where you can see it daily, you will prompt yourself to visualize your ideal life on a regular basis. This is important because visualization programs your brain to notice available resources and attracts you to the people and opportunities that you need to achieve your goals.
What Is the Meaning of a Vision Board?
A vision board is a visual representation (most often a collage of words and images) of your wishes and goals. Vision boards are meant to serve as a reminder for what you are working towards and inspire and motivate you to continue to achieve your goals.
Vision boards use the principle of the “Law of Attraction,” which states that whatever can be imagined and held in the mind’s eye is achievable if you take action on a plan to get to where you want to be.
Adding a visualization practice into your goal setting is a valuable tool to naturally motivate you to reach your goals and desired life outcome. Vision boards keep your goals top of mind, which will subconsciously leave you more open to ideas, people, and actions that move you closer to the vision you are holding in your mind.
What Should a Career Vision Board Include?
A career vision board represents your wishes and goals for the upcoming year and beyond. Your career vision board should include anything that inspires you and motivates you to keep working towards those goals.
Your vision board should include images and words cut from magazines, printed from online, or handwritten and drawn that represent your goals. It could include emails or notes of praise that you want to replicate, or even small objects and trinkets.
Consider the steps you will need to take to reach each goal. For example, if your goal is to gain more referral partners, what are the steps that you must take to do so?
Include items for the smaller steps too, such as images of a phone to remind you to prioritize reaching out to new leads, or something that encourages you to be bold and step out of your comfort zone to connect with new people.
Can a Career Vision Board Be Just Words?
Yes! A career vision board can be whatever represents YOU and keeps you inspired to work hard. If you are someone motivated by words, slogans, quotes, etc. then you should include those on your vision board.
Some people respond better to literal reminders rather than metaphors. A vision board should speak to you in whatever way you need it to.
How Do You Make a Vision Board? What Are the Essential Steps?
STEP 1: Envision the ideal life that you want to live. Write down the goals, experiences, and possessions you wish to attract into your life.
STEP 2: Look through magazines or browse images online to find representations of your vision of success. Use pictures and/or words that represent your ideal future, purpose, and passion.
STEP 3: Begin to paste your selected items onto your board to create a collage that reflects your goals and dreams.
STEP 4: Place your vision board in a spot where you will see it every day. This will act as a constant reminder to visualize, affirm, and internalize your goals.
What Questions Should You Ask to Create Your Career Vision Board?
If you are stuck with where to start on your career vision board, write down a list of questions that you can answer. This will help you develop more concrete goals that you can use to create your vision board.
Consider a few of the following questions:
- What does your ideal life look like in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? It can be beneficial to start with the broad picture and work your way backwards to find actionable goals for your present situation.
- What is the most fulfilling part of your career? What do you need to feel fulfilled in your career?
- Who do you admire in your industry? What did they do to achieve success? What are they doing now to sustain success?
- What is holding you back from completing your goals RIGHT NOW? Do you need to develop and grow a team? Do you need to create more trusting relationships? Maybe you need a business coach to help you break through your own hurdles and elevate to the next level?
Write down the answers to as many questions as you can think of. You will begin to form a better idea of your desired life and the goals that you will need to achieve to create that life. Then, you can find images and words that represent these aspirations.
What are Examples of Career Goals?
After asking yourself questions about your career and what you want out of your ideal career and life, the next step is to create a list of goals for the year. These can range from smaller goals to bigger picture goals.
- Secure a promotion or pay raise
- Improve your networking ability
- Grow your referral partner network
- Improve your production numbers
- Make a career or company change
- Become the leader of your branch or region
- Grow and develop a strong team
To truly create an abundance of success and achieve the vision for your career, it will not be enough to simply list out ideas for goals. You will next need to create S.M.A.R.T. goals.
What is a SMART goal?
These are goals that are clear and attainable and will lead you towards greater levels of success in reaching your general goals. They are:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-bound
For example, take your goal of securing a promotion at work. The SMART goal would be: “Get promoted to team lead by the end of the year.”
By including the details of what you want to be promoted to and by when, you suddenly have a much clearer goal that you can work towards.
Now you can find what represents this more specific goal for your vision board. You could include an image of a leader or the words “team lead”, for example.
What Additional Topics Can You Add to Your Career Vision Board?
While creating a career vision board can have a profound impact on your work life, you should also consider adding goals or creating a second vision board for other areas of your life.
To achieve true success, we must live our life by design rather than by default. This includes all areas of our life, not just our careers. Take the time to set your intentions and align your goals for the bigger picture of how you want your life to look.
Here are a few areas you can consider adding to your vision board:
- Wealth, Abundance, Financial Prosperity
- Relationships – Friends and Romantic
- Family
- Creativity and Fun
- Health and Fitness
- Travel and Exploration
- Self-Improvement
- Physical Possessions
What Do I Do After I Create My Vision Board?
Your vision board will work as a reminder and inspiration to work towards your goals, but you will only be able to achieve your goals if you also take actionable steps to make them a reality.
Write out a goal plan that accompanies your vision board. You should consider short-term and long-term goals such as 90-day, quarterly, and annual goals. Make sure your goals are specific and challenge you, while still being realistic to achieve.
Review your goal plan daily for the first few weeks, and then quarterly at a minimum. Adjust and add to your goal plans as needed, especially if you realize your goals are coming to fruition much quicker than you first expected!
If you are looking for more guidance, or feel yourself struggling to stay on track to meet your goals, read this blog for tips on how to improve focus and crush your goals.
Celebrate!
As you begin to complete goals from your career vision board, take some time to be grateful and appreciate all the hard work you have been putting into accomplishing your goals. You should be proud of your successes and the challenges you have overcome in the process! Taking some time to be grateful will fuel you to continue to work towards the next big goal.
A career vision board is one of many tactics that you can implement to elevate your business and help you achieve success. Challenge yourself and push the limits of what you imagine your life can be.
Take responsibility for the outcome of your actions and how they have shaped your life. To reach higher levels of success and happiness, start by setting goals and creating a vision that you can follow each day to move you towards your ideal life.
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