“Change you thinking, change your life.” I once dated–and I’m using that word loosely here–a guy who used that phrase as the tagline signature on all of his emails. While I eventually chucked the guy, I kept thinking about that phrase, which has been used by more self-help guru’s than a few to sell books and other personal empowerment materials. The idea behind the message of change your thinking and change your life is that what we see in our minds eye, what we think, has an effect on the outer world. If you can see it you can manifest it.

What Is A Vision Board?

One easy and inexpensive way to be certain that you keep your goals and desires in front of you at all times is to create vision board. A vision board is a visual reminder in the form of a board where you have placed pictures of your deepest desires.

The trick to actually manifesting the images on the board in your real life is to avoid using generic stock images of people, places, and things which, although they are nice, don’t accurately reflect your deepest wishes and desires. You must unlock your creativity and only using meaningful images to represent your desires–the board should be a reflection of you; if you can find 20 images on the internet of vision boards that appear almost exactly like yours, then you need to make a new vision board.

According to Martha Beck, author of “Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live,” and a well-established life coach, we each have two selves: the social self and the authentic self. Your social self is the part “you” that developed in reaction to life experiences and the expectations that have been foisted upon us by the outside world. Your essential self is written in your DNA; it is the core characteristics that make up your personality, preferences, emotional reactions and deepest desires. Whether you had been born in London or Laos, you’re essential self would be the same. And it is your essential self, your deep self, that you need to get in contact with if you hope to create an effective vision board.

“When you start assembling pictures that appeal to this deep self, you unleash one of the most powerful forces on our planet: human imagination,” says Beck. “Virtually everything humans use, do, or make exists because someone thought it up. Sparking your incredibly powerful creative faculty is the reason you make a vision board. The board itself doesn’t impact reality; what changes your life is the process of creating the images—combinations of objects and events that will stick in your subconscious mind and steer your choices toward making the vision real.”

Steps To Making Your Vision Board

Materials you’ll need:

1. Markers
2. Scissors
3. Glue stick
4. Poster board
5. Magazines

After you have your materials, start gathering images for your board. Flip through magazines; take pictures; draw the images that come to you on a regular basis when you least expect it. Choose images that cause your heart to flutter, that make you get a lump in your throat; choose images that you want to see again and again…and again. If you have any sort of spiritual practice such as yoga, attending church, or meditating, you may find that you are most in tune with you deepest desires after your spiritual practice, and thus, this would be a particular good time to flip through magazines to find images that your essential self will connect with.

Spend a few hours posting images to the board and then it somewhere you will see it often. Looking at your vision board often will help you to visualize what you seek to manifest in your life; time and time again, the power of visualization in manifesting things has been shown to be effective.

What Can You Expect to Happen?

As effective a creating a vision board can be at drawing what you desire into your life, the board also works to repel that which you do not desire in your life. With a visual reminder of what you do want staring you in the face everyday, it becomes much easier to measure those people, places, and situations that present themselves against your true desires. When you have a clear measuring stick it becomes that much easier to see what does and does not measure up.

If you can see it, even if “it” is only on paper, you are that much closer to making it a reality.