What The Heck's A Vision Board—and How Can It Change Your Life?
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Step 1: Please Your Animal.
There are two basic procedures involved in creating an effective vision board. First, instead of cogitating about familiar images, scout for the unfamiliar. Your mind can't do this. Your animal/angel self can. Just page through a magazine (and walk through the world) noticing things that trigger physical reactions: a heart thump, a double take, a gasp.
The only responses involved should resemble these:
"Ooooh!"
"Aaaahhhhh."
"Whoa!"
"!!!!"
"????"
These "thoughts" register in your stomach, your heart, your lungs—anywhere but your head. You can't produce them in response to cultural clichés or abstract ideas. Nor can you always know why your body reacts to an image. Wondering, then finding out, is one of the most delicious things about assembling a vision board.
For example, as I rummage through my current collection of images, my body is utterly unmoved by photos of mansions or designer clothing. What interests it are pictures of an abstract sculpture, a dried leaf, and (overwhelmingly) a map on which the migratory route of the springbok antelope is shown in red. !!!! Go figure.
Though it makes no logical sense, I know from experience that gluing these pictures on one big page will begin catalyzing something beyond my mind's capacity to calculate or conceptualize. If you're not already accumulating images that rock your socks, stay alert. Whenever you find them, filch them.
Step 2: Let Go Mentally and Emotionally.
Most folks master Step 1 easily, gathering new and interesting images by the bushel. It's like making the Mindflex ball go up: You stare at the ball and picture it rising. Powered by the output of electricity from your brain, the fan starts to blow, et voilà! Up goes the ball. You do this with focused, intense thinking—something you're almost always engaged in.
Step 2 of making a vision board requires something trickier: not thinking. This is the counterintuitive process that makes the Mindflex ball descend. To do it you must relax completely and let your mind go blank. You don't concentrate on the result you want—i.e., the ball going down. In fact, you concentrate on not concentrating. Slowly the fan decreases speed and the ball begins to drop.
This is exactly what you should do once you've created a vision board. Stop thinking about it. Lose it. Recycle it. The biggest mistake aspiring reality creators make (aside from that predictable cash/tropical island collage) is continuing to push something they've already set in motion. You've felt the repellent energy of salespeople desperate to hook you—it makes you sprint away so fast, you cause sonic booms. Don't use that results-oriented energy.
Step 3: Be Still and Still Moving
There are two basic procedures involved in creating an effective vision board. First, instead of cogitating about familiar images, scout for the unfamiliar. Your mind can't do this. Your animal/angel self can. Just page through a magazine (and walk through the world) noticing things that trigger physical reactions: a heart thump, a double take, a gasp.
The only responses involved should resemble these:
"Ooooh!"
"Aaaahhhhh."
"Whoa!"
"!!!!"
"????"
These "thoughts" register in your stomach, your heart, your lungs—anywhere but your head. You can't produce them in response to cultural clichés or abstract ideas. Nor can you always know why your body reacts to an image. Wondering, then finding out, is one of the most delicious things about assembling a vision board.
For example, as I rummage through my current collection of images, my body is utterly unmoved by photos of mansions or designer clothing. What interests it are pictures of an abstract sculpture, a dried leaf, and (overwhelmingly) a map on which the migratory route of the springbok antelope is shown in red. !!!! Go figure.
Though it makes no logical sense, I know from experience that gluing these pictures on one big page will begin catalyzing something beyond my mind's capacity to calculate or conceptualize. If you're not already accumulating images that rock your socks, stay alert. Whenever you find them, filch them.
Step 2: Let Go Mentally and Emotionally.
Most folks master Step 1 easily, gathering new and interesting images by the bushel. It's like making the Mindflex ball go up: You stare at the ball and picture it rising. Powered by the output of electricity from your brain, the fan starts to blow, et voilà! Up goes the ball. You do this with focused, intense thinking—something you're almost always engaged in.
Step 2 of making a vision board requires something trickier: not thinking. This is the counterintuitive process that makes the Mindflex ball descend. To do it you must relax completely and let your mind go blank. You don't concentrate on the result you want—i.e., the ball going down. In fact, you concentrate on not concentrating. Slowly the fan decreases speed and the ball begins to drop.
This is exactly what you should do once you've created a vision board. Stop thinking about it. Lose it. Recycle it. The biggest mistake aspiring reality creators make (aside from that predictable cash/tropical island collage) is continuing to push something they've already set in motion. You've felt the repellent energy of salespeople desperate to hook you—it makes you sprint away so fast, you cause sonic booms. Don't use that results-oriented energy.
Step 3: Be Still and Still Moving
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