I know you’re probably surprised to see a headline like that coming from me. After all, two of my most popular posts are Create a Portable Vision Board and What is the Purpose of a Vision Board. But now, I’m here to tell you why Vision Boards don’t work.
If you create a beautiful Vision Board with all your hopes and dreams and if you look at it every day, it’s still not going to get you where you want if you do nothing else but look at it. A Vision Board is just a tool–it needs you in order to work. It needs you to take steps towards your goal. I’ve said it before, a Vision Board is not an ooie-gooie magical unicorn. Think of it more like a car. A car is a great tool for transportation, but looking at it in the driveway won’t get you to your destination. You need to get behind the wheel and drive it if you want to go somewhere.
A Vision Board should be the fuel that drives you toward your goal. If you look at it every day, then you’re keeping your goals in front of you. This allows you to then see the opportunities that present themselves. Opportunities that you might not recognize if you weren’t thinking about your goals.
Think about the last time you bought a car, for instance. If you had a particular car in mind, did you ever notice how many times you saw that car? It’s all over the place, right? Not really. It’s just that you’re more likely to see the car because it’s at the forefront of your mind. The same is true about opportunities. They are out there waiting for you to recognize them. But first, you need to know which opportunity actually belongs to you.
A Parable for the Modern World
I’m sure we’ve all heard the parable of the flood. A man in a flood insists that God will save him and passes up an opportunity to get out in a canoe, motorboat, and helicopter. The flood eventually destroys the man’s house and he drowns. When he gets to Heaven, he asks God why he didn’t save him and God said, “Didn’t save you? I sent you a canoe, a motorboat, and a helicopter! What more were you looking for?”
Now you might scoff at this and say it’s just a parable, it’s not real life and I would agree—except—I saw this play out in real life. Ok. Not a flood, but the concept. Years ago, I was at a picnic with a friend. Nearby, I saw a young man talking to a family and overheard him telling them how he couldn’t find a job because he needed a car. He then said he was praying to God to find him a car.
Not more than 5 minutes later an older man walked up and said to the younger man that he heard he needed a job and that he had an opening at his place and would the younger man want it. But the younger man said that he couldn’t take the job because he didn’t have a car. He then added that God would provide.
The older man shrugged his shoulders and walked away. And there also went that young man’s opportunity to earn enough money to buy a car. He failed to see the opportunity in front of him (he failed to see that God was providing.)
And that can be the danger of a Vision Board and the reason why Vision Boards don’t work–putting a picture of a car on your board and then waiting for it to drop out of the sky onto your driveway. It doesn’t work that way. We are all responsible for making our dreams and goals come true.
The Vision Board reminds us what we’re working towards, but working is a key concept. It reminds us to make the choices that put us in the direction of our goals. It also reminds us to be open and to recognize the opportunities along the way that will push us in the direction of our dreams.
Yes – I completely agree with this – there have been a few books throughout history that encourage people to believe we can ‘manifest whatever we want from the universe’ by imagining we already have it.
Vision boards are just tool to help us work out what we really want so we can then do the real work involved in achieving our goals – which is what you are saying. Perhaps after pasting pictures of Ferraris and mansions on boards and noticing we are still driving VWs and living in ordinary houses we are waking up to the fact that visualisation is only the begining!
Very well said Jennifer – I hope the hippies listen ? (That’s a joke – I am an old hippy myself – can’t you smell the Patchouli?)
Exactly Gilly, can’t wait for it to magically appear. There’s work to be done…and I can smell the patchouli because wearing it.
What a simple but powerful message about personal responsibility! It reminds me of the (sort of) joke about someone wishing and praying to God to win the lottery. When God asks if the person has bought a lottery ticket, the person says, “No.” God replies, “You gotta work with me here.”
Hey, that’s what I always think when someone wins a huge lottery, “why can’t I win like that?”. Then I laugh at myself as I remember that I have to buy a ticket first.
Yes, the whole point of a vision board is focus and that takes more than attention. It takes work. Toward the goal. I love vision boards as reminders to do the work.
Carol, so true. I love a vision board because it keeps me on track. If I look at my goals on a regular basis then im making the right decisions towards them.
I love this, Jennifer. Love that parable, too. We often can’t see opportunity when it’s right in front of us because we have our focus set so far into the future that we forget there is a now to tackle first. Great reminder.
So true. It’s important to keep our eyes open for opportunities that will help us get to our goals.
I love vision boards but sometimes I get so used to seeing them, I don’t really notice them anymore. Its good to change them here and there.
I think you should recheck your goals and redo vision boards at least once a year. There are so many changes that can have an impact
I didn’t have a vision board, but I would clip my favorite pictures from Martha Steward Magazine, Rachel Ray, etc and put them on pretty scrapbook paper and hang them on the walls in my craft corner. I would look at the pictures for inspiration when crafting and the act of cutting them, pasting them, and putting them up was a great stress reliever.
Yes – I so agree with that. You can dream all you want – but unless you start building the bridges to get there, you never will.
I love this concept. I’m always thinking of ideas for stories, and unless I put them in a place where I can see, such as writing them down, I forget.
So very true, visions and plans only work if we eventually find the guts to go out and make it happen.
You are so right, it takes guts too
Very wise words. Wishing is not going to get you anywhere, nor is making a vision board. It is only when action is added to the equation that things start to happen.
Exactly. Athlete use visualization all the time, but then they practice, practice, practice so they can go out in the field to make their visualizations come true.
I have always loved the flood story. Both the message and the idea that if there is a god she might be snarky.
I know! I would love a snarky god
You nailed this one. We all yearn for that magic bullet that will bring everything we want right to our doorstep. I haven’t found it yet, but I do believe that tools like a vision board are a great support to us as we define, refine and WORK toward what we want. But, if by chance, you do find THE magic bullet, could you, like, give it to me? 😉