The start of a New Year usually brings a flood of inspiration. It’s not uncommon to experience a drive to make changes, to pursue those goals, to take decisive action – and this is all great!

Where I find things get difficult though – is the follow through. I mean, raise your hand if you ever experienced this – you set a goal in January and come March you find that those intentions (while noble!), have sort of just… disappated. 

And this is totally common! According to some recent statistics, “only 9% of people successfully keep their New Year’s resolutions.” (Not that I’m the biggest fan of resolutions anyways, but that’s a blog post for another day!)

So – if you have dreams you are READY to tackle in 2023, how can you ensure you make them a reality? How can you stay focused, consistent, and clear on what you’re working towards and why?

Well, I have many suggestions for how to do exactly this (including getting crystal clear on your yearly goals, following up on them with monthly goals, and creating an accountability system), but one of the BEST ways to really set yourself up for success with yearly goals is by creating a vision board.

4 Vision Board Benefits for Making Your Dreams a Reality

What are the benefits of creating a vision board & how can they help you? Here’s are 5 reasons why you should consider creating a vision board for your 2023 goals.

1. Vision Boards Help You Gain Clarity

The biggest challenge I work with clients to overcome when it comes to improving livelihood is discerning – what exactly IS it that I want? Clarity can be the biggest hurdle when it comes to setting and achieving goals. And sometimes the best way to find that clarity is through visualization – taking some time to visualize your ideal life and exactly what you want it to look like. The process of gathering images to create a vision board can be a helpful tool for finding this level of clarity.

Furthermore, once you have this level of clarity, it makes it much easier to turn this clear visual into clear GOALS – which are the roadmap you will follow to your dreams. You can learn more about my approach to goal-setting here.

2. Vision Board Help You Get Inspired

Along the process of creating a vision board – namely gathering images, text, and visuals that speak to you – not be surprised if you identify OTHER latent dreams and wishes buried inside of you! It’s very common for images to inspire us further and the help us go deeper “down the rabbit hole” of what we want. The very process of creating a vision board may in fact allow you to add MORE inspiration to the board itself! 

3. Vision Boards Help You Dream Big(ger)

When we make the exciting-yet-sometimes-daunting decision to really THINK about what we want, and visualize what we want our lives to look like, we may find that our limitations get in the way. “Oh I could never do THAT….” or “That’s out of my reach…” are common limiting beliefs that arise in the visualization process. And to those limiting beliefs I say – Why not?

The process of creating a vision board can help you broaden the parameters of what you imagine might be possible for yourself. The best way to gain motivation to act is sometimes to see someone else pursuing that same thing you thought might have been out of reach for yourself. By taking the time to seek out images of success to add to your vision board, you may find that you are encouraged to dream bigger that you imagined.

4. Vision Boards Help You Stay Consistent & Accountable

One of the biggest challenges with setting “New Year’s resolutions” or yearly goals is that, well… they last a year! And that’s a long time to sustain motivation and progress. And even though you may start off strong – with high motivation and the best of intentions – that can be a challenge to uphold for 12 whole months.

This is another place where vision board benefits come into play. Once you create your vision board – which will essentially be a visual representation of EXACTLY what you are working towards – you will have already tripled your accountability efforts. But you can increase these odds by referencing your vision board often. For example, to increase accountability you can:

• Put your vision board in a place where you will see it every day (like your office or near your workstation)
• Make your vision board the lock screen on your phone or laptop
• Create or transfer your vision board into an app that will regularly prompt you with reminders

How to Create a Vision Board on Your Phone

Digitizing your vision board can be a very successfully strategy for increasing accountability. In today’s day and age, we keep our phones on our person, in our purse, or even in our hands all the time – so why not use that practice to your advantage to help keep your goals and dreams top of mind?

There are many ways to digitize your vision board for your phone, for example – creating a dedicated “Dream Life” or “2023 Goals” Pinterest Board.

However, I’ve also recently discovered an awesome app that is devoted specifically to creating a virtual vision board that lives on your phone and – even better – sends you reminders of your goals to help support you with accountability and consistently working towards your dreams!

The app is called “Perfectly Happy” – and it’s a NEW way to specify your dreams via a fun vision board creation interface that is 100% customizable. It is the first vision board app to combine moving images (visualization), spoken affirmations, and emotional music – so if you are inspired by auditory content (like me!), this may be a great option for you to explore. The app offers over 1800+ uplifting affirmations with the option to also create your own, so you can easily put your favorite affirmations & motivational quotes on your home screen to stay positive throughout the day. How’s that for accountability?

Perfectly Happy allows you to specify key areas that you want to focus on in your vision board (similar to what I do in my Ideal Life Exercise!) The areas are:

• Health
• Body Positivity
• Sleep & Relaxation
• Work & Career
• Wealth & Lifestyle
• Family
• Partnership
• Spirituality

In addition, Perfectly Happy also offers a built-in personal Gratitude Journal, which you can visit at the end of each day to reflect on your progress. I am such an advocate of having a gratitude practice, so I love that this app has an easy way to journal on gratitude!

If you’re interested in giving Perfectly Happy a try (and why not?!), you can download the app and start creating your virtual vision board here!

I hope these vision board benefits and digital creation options are helpful! Which one are you going to implement to stick with your goals in 2023?