Vision Board

Tis the season for making resolutions. I’ve read a few things about how the awfulness that was 2020 will change the way we set resolutions. These say that we’ve already been through so much, we will be kinder to ourselves and less all or nothing with our 2021 goals. I have learned my lesson over many years of failed resolutions. You can’t change yourself overnight and especially if you’re doing it to fit into some kind of mold. So many resolutions are about “should” - I should be the kind of person who is thinner, I should be the kind of person who is more organized, I should be the kind of person who cleans the toilet more than once a year - whatever. I realized at some point that these were all resolutions to be a different person and that seems like a futile and exhausting exercise, so no resolutions for me. 

However, vision boards are popping up all over my girlie sites (like Oprah.com and PopSugar and Brit and Co., not porn - don’t be dirty). All the online ladies’ magazines are talking about how to do a vision board and what they can mean to your life. A Google search gave me an option for 300 Pinterest images of vision boards. Some of the sites I looked at offered a “free” checklist for making a vision board if you sign up for some junk. How could something so personal and completely made up have so many rules? Many of the articles are written by life coaches. I guess their profession is grounded in making up rules about how to be a person so you pay them to tell you how to do it? I might not understand what a life coach does.

I’ve never done a vision board before. Oh sure, I read The Secret when it came out and I was totally into it. Someone giving me another way to blame myself for the shortcomings in my life? Sign me up! You are completely in charge of your life and bad things happen because you didn’t think positively enough. Even through all of that nonsense, I never fell for the vision board. Although I love Oprah, even she couldn’t convince me to try it when she was all about it (although she doesn’t do them anymore because she’s a “powerful manifestor”). The idea that you put a picture of a red Ferrari on a piece of cardboard and then you get a red Ferrari seemed ridiculous and soooo materialistic. Always Sunny in Philadelphia nailed my thoughts on that with their excellent The Gang Gets Extreme: Home Makeover Edition (although the episode itself is questionable and filled with racist stereotypes - they nailed the problems with The Secret). 

2020 was a pretty terrible year for everyone (except Patrick Mahomes - good for him!) but my biggest personal takeaway was how grateful I am. My family and I were so lucky this year - none of us got sick, I didn’t lose my job until later in the pandemic, and we’ve maintained most of our sanity through remote learning with our 2nd grader, and for 2021 I just want more of what makes my life so lovely and amazing. I envision one of those boards Jennifer Garner used in 13 Going on 30 only put together by Betsey Johnson. A few years ago I stole a great idea from Brene Brown by choosing a word for the year where I set my intention. I like words a lot so finding the right one is always a fun little quest for me. This year I’m trying to think of a word or short phrase that elegantly expresses “slow the eff down.” So many times when I make a mistake, it’s because I rushed through something. Part of it is my unbelievable arrogance in thinking I’m too smart to have to read all of it - whatever it is - those instructions are for the dummies, not me. Man, I’m a jerk! 

So, just like Hermione Granger would, I began to seriously research vision boards. Many of the youtube tutorials insist their vision boards REALLY WORK! One even teased “the one thing you must do to make your vision board work!” As in: the spirit world is waiting around to make your dreams come true! I like the way most of the how-to articles I looked at insist that there's no wrong way to do it. Well, Duh! How could you possibly do it wrong? Perhaps by accidentally filling it with things that terrify you? Or things that just make you furious? I would have to fill my board with images of snakes and Gwyneth Paltrow.

There are a ridiculous number of resources out there. I downloaded a 66-page pdf from one website designed to guide you through the process but I did not have the stamina to read it. I guess people are not kidding around about their vision boards. Some seem to believe in the power of the board in helping them achieve their goals. Like the board has some power over the “universe.” I ran across a lot of references to the power of visualization. So the vision board itself is the concrete touchstone for the visualizing they will use to achieve their goals. Pictures representing marathons, tropical vacations, and money earned from enterprises. This is what “really works” for many of the people I read about.

In the end, I decided I’m just not goal-oriented. I can’t imagine what I want in my life from this year except more of the amazing life I already have. I’m pretty sure that’s okay to the vision board guild (not a real thing but totally should be), since there is room in the rules to branch out from the standard "I know what I want" model. I put pics of my family and some words and quotes I like. I decided on conscientious for my word this year and my daughter and I decided that 2021 should be the year of the mermaid (2020 was the year of the unicorn and I’m undecided on what that meant). I think my board turned out well and I have it on a wall by my desk so I can always look at it and remember just how awesome my life is as evidenced by this lovely visual craft project.