So I’m writing this post with the show Working Moms on in the background, and a scene comes on about vision boards! One of the new moms didn’t do the assignment. She snarls: “Vision boards are for sad, lost Millennials who don't have any work ethic!” LOL

She’s not wrong. Most vision boards ARE useless… just not for the reason she thinks.

A sheet of paper from her legal pad. A red and black ballpoint pen.

That’s all Glynda used to cast a powerful vision of the life she wanted to live. It was July 17, 2018. We had just reconnected after 8 years! We weren’t even living in the same state! I asked her what prompted her to make it. She said:

Then she texted it to me.

A big house at the top, “with all of our amenities.” The word Travel, with a plane drawn. A sun and a cloud. #floating… the word we started using to name the feeling we felt when we were together. Two stick figures with a heart between them: Carrie and Glynda. Above our heads: Moms. (We were still 7 years away from motherhood.) And underneath everything, holding it all up, one word in red: Stability. Around it, a handful of other words in red.

Then three more stick figures. Nicholas, Carrie, and Matthew. Two boys and a girl. (Yes, a little Carrie. Hold that thought.)

We’re having two kids.

And that’s exactly how I know it worked.

My mom taught me to make collages of what I wanted when I was a kid. Then I made poster board sized ones on my own. I’ve made Mind Movies and digital versions in Freeform. I’ve written out the details of my dream house down to the dining room seating for twelve. I’ve sat in Visioneering seminars and done Bob Proctor’s Image Maker exercise. If there’s a way to glue a picture of what you want onto something, y’all… I’ve done it.

Some of my hopes and dreams came true. The things that were truly my heart’s desire… those became real.

But my extravagant wishes and fully loaded journal entries? Didn’t happen.

Take the dream house. In my journal I wrote it all out: 5,000 square feet. A business suite with six workstations. A sauna. A yoga studio.

What came: the lot we wanted. A home about half that size. Two great offices, mine and Glynda’s. A converted garage gym with enough space for a yoga flow. An inviting kitchen that inspires my culinary creativity.

What didn’t pan out: the square footage. The sauna. The business suite.

The journal entries were rooted in what I really wanted… but the scale was off. So why did some of it come true… and some of it didn’t?

Here are two things I learned:

Glynda’s legal pad drawing beats every board I ever made. No cut-outs of status symbols. No brand names. Just words and feelings, written in pen.

Here’s why. When you build a board out of magazines, you’re picking from whatever somebody else decided to print. An advertiser chose your options. Glynda started with a blank page, so everything on it came from her.

She used words… And words leave room. Look at the travel list she wrote: Maui, Bora Bora, Paris, Fiji, Durban… We haven’t been to most of those. But we have been to Atlanta. Austin. Cabo. Cancun. St. Lucia. Seattle. My mouth still puckers thinking of the variety of tangy apple ciders we tasted at Pike Place market.

That’s #floating. It doesn’t matter which city. A photo of Paris can only come true one way. A feeling can come true a hundred ways.

Now back to my scorecard. My extravagant stuff was pictures of things, like a white Porsche Panamera. What materialized was the feeling underneath them.

So start with a word. A feeling. That’s what you really want… and that’s where the power is.

The second thing I learned:

It gives you something concrete to play with. You test it out mentally… you can try living in it for a minute… and notice whether it actually feels right.

We were gonna name our daughter Carrie. That theory didn’t hold… we have a Gemma!

Three kids was a theory too. We talked about it for years. Then we got clear on the life we actually wanted, and two is the number. Definitely two. We didn’t want to be outnumbered! And our second daughter is due this spring.

Same with the 5,000 square feet. Once I really lived in it in my mind, it was more house than I’d want to maintain and an office I’d never fill. Theory revised.

We didn’t lower the bar. We got clear. And the clarity came first, before the outcome.

Just remember, the order matters. Change the picture after the fact to match what you got? That’s making excuses. Change it before, because you got clearer? That’s growth.

The Working Moms lady was right about one thing. A pretty collage can feel like progress. But a board with no decisions underneath it is just decoration.

You gotta get clear on what you really want. Test the theory by mentally living in it. And when clarity changes your mind, let the picture change too.

1. WORDS FIRST. Before you cut out one picture, write the feelings. Love. Stability. Adventure. Pictures come second.

2. TRY IT ON. For every image, ask: would I actually want to live with this? Clean it, maintain it, pay for it, use it every day? Would I still want it if nobody ever knew I had it? If not, it’s fantasy. Cut it or resize it.

3. NAME THE OBSTACLE. Next to each item, write the one thing most likely to get in the way. That’s what turns a daydream into a plan.

4. DATE IT. Put the date on it, and put a date on your calendar to revisit it and see what sticks. Do you still want all of it?

5. CROSS IT OUT. DON’T THROW IT OUT. When you get clearer, either edit the board in pen, or make a new one, but keep the old drafts. The edits and revisions reflect your growth and show you who you’re becoming.

And do one thing for me please: hit reply and tell me one thing you’d cut from your board after you try it on. I read every one.

The Working Moms lady had it backwards. Vision boards aren’t for people who are lost. They’re how you find your way.

Expect an abundance!
Carrie at Lucky Culture