Dreams are hazy and blurry. You can easily lose track of what’s real during a dream, lose sense of time, forget how you got where you are and where you’re going.
Dream-like states don’t just happen while we sleep. Sometimes they last for years, even decades on end. One day you may wake up and realize that you’ve forgotten what your day to day struggles are for.
We need to grab hold of our dreams, no matter how big or small. We need to pull them down from the ethereal realm of ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if…’, ‘One of these days, I’m gonna…’, ‘I just need to wait for the right moment to…’.
We need to make our dreams a reality before they float away and dissipate completely, and we’re left walking the Earth without anything to strive for.
There is a time and place for everything – and the present moment is always the best for taking mature and determined steps towards achieving our dreams. Some moments, however, are more symbolic than others and can give us an extra push in the right direction.
New Year’s Eve resolutions are made all around the world. It’s the day humanity has chosen to celebrate the Earth doing a big thing – making its way around the Sun, only to keep going again and again.
On this day of respite from the perpetual commotion that rattles our everyday lives, we reflect on our own life cycles. It feels like a fresh start, like a whole new chance at life. The slate is wiped clean and we get to begin anew, wiser and more experienced than before.
The best day to start becoming the best version for yourself is the 1st of January.
Use this opportunity to start making your life brighter and become a more refined version of yourself. Create a detailed plan and visualize your success. Use every tool at your disposal.
Creating a Vision Board to Help Set Your New Year’s Intentions
First of all, New Year’s intentions are not the same as New Year’s resolutions.
Resolutions are concrete decisions, calculated steps we commit to in order to achieve a goal or fulfil a dream.
New Year’s intentions have a broader scope. They don’t focus on any one thing. They concern our attitude, our disposition and mood, they describe a general outlook. They’re promises to ourselves, promises to become more loving, forgiving, compassionate, more daring, provocative and determined.
Our intentions bolster and empower our resolutions. Our resolutions realize our intentions.
No one can tell you what kind of person you need to be. That vision is the product of careful soul seeking and introspection. Once you find the direction of change you want your life to take on in the next year, creating a vision board is like making a promise to the person you want to become.
What is a Vision Board?
A vision board is nothing more than a hard piece of paper with a collage of pasted quotes, images, sights and scenes that inspire you. A simple reminder hung up on a wall, such that you can see it while resting and meditating.
The process of creating it is a ritual in itself. Set aside a relaxed evening, play music that soothes and focuses you and pour yourself a glass of your favorite wine. Take your time.
Invite over friends and family, dear ones that can make the ritual more inspiring. You can all create vision boards for yourselves, enjoy each other’s company and treasure the moment. The joy of togetherness will then be sown directly into your vision board and you will never feel alone when it is in your purview.
What you’ll need to create a vision board night
That’s all you need. It’s arts and crafts for adults, and that’s completely fine.
When you’re done, hang it up on a wall. Make sure you pick a spot that’s out in the open. Preferably in your bedroom, so you can see it when you wake up and before you fall asleep.
Making a vision board is a personal endeavor. Just like no one can prescribe you your intentions, only you can create your vision board – it’s a reflection of your own dreams and a motivation to keep striving.
Sometimes, however, your friends can give you insights you’d never be able to make yourself. We all live in a first person perspective. We shouldn’t forget that a third-person perspective is often invaluable.
I’ll share my story.
The Magic of the Vision Board
The author of this post made her first vision board back in 2018. I’ve been making them ever since and I’ll tell you why.
I was invited to a friend’s house where she and five other friends and family members were making vision boards for the New Year. I was sceptical about the idea at the time – yeah, right, a piece of cardboard is going to make me sleep less and exercise more.
Everyone was making their own collages, I was feigning interest and sulking in the corner of the room. My friend, she knows me better than I know myself, noticed that I wasn’t buying into the spiel.
‘Here you go again, knocking something before you’ve tried it’, she said firmly, but with a loving smile. ‘You know what your vision board should be about? Being less cynical.’
The room let out a little laugh. I took the joke in stride, but a few minutes later it dawned on me – she was right. I was being too cynical. Moreover, I did that all the time. Instead of enjoying the moment and trying something new, I would let some minute, irrelevant detail derail me. I had been missing out, all because of my pride and ‘rationality’.
I started sifting through the giant stacks of magazines my friend had prepared and found some quotes about being open, being welcoming and being positive. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my friend watching me with a pleased smirk on her face.
I maintained a facade of going through the motions. On the inside, though, I was making a conscious decision. From now on, I was going to be less doubting, more open.
At the centre of my vision board, I pasted a picture of a happy couple playing racquetball. Now, I’m a tennis player, the cynical me never bought into the racquetball fad. People kept raving about how fun it was. I believed them, but I was so caught up in my ways that I refused to try something new.
Why am I telling you this? What’s racquetball have to do with anything? Well, I’m still inclined to interpret it as an accident (I’m not completely cured of my sceptical ways), but that spring I decided to find a friendly game at my local club.
That’s how I met my boyfriend, now fiancee.
Now it’s not as if the vision board alone was enough for me to change my ways. And I haven’t completely, I’m a work in progress, just like everybody else.
But my friend and I made it a tradition. Every 29th of December, we meet up with friends, have a nice relaxed night in and we talk about the past year. We talk about the next one. We talk about goals achieved and failed, dreams and aspirations, big and small.
This year, it’ll be my fifth vision board. I make sure to include a picture of my best friend, my boyfriend and a small racquetball racket on each one.
About The Author
Stacey is a freelance writer living in Minnesota with her cat, and she’s passionate about yoga, languages, home improvement, and drinking strong coffee. Find her on Twitter @StaceyShann0n