You’re ready to build a vision board, but you’re not entirely sure what to put on it. That’s completely normal. There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there about what a vision board should include.
While there are many categories of vision boards – such as New Year’s resolutions, career, love, travel, wellness, or all-purpose vision boards – and each may focus on different topics, the types of elements you include are generally the same.
Before going into detail and explaining each element, here’s an example of a vision board (general, with a few life categories on it) that contains all the element types I’ll be discussing in this article.
The Core Visual Elements Every Vision Board Needs
Relevant, high-emotion images
This is arguably the most important element to include on a vision board: relevant images that trigger powerful emotions. The images you choose should reflect the type of vision board you’re creating.
For example, if you’re building a love and relationship board, use images that convey affection, commitment, emotional support, and happiness. Simple visuals such as hearts, a couple embracing, partners holding hands, or two people gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes can evoke strong positive emotions whenever you look at them.
For a career vision board, emotionally powerful images might include scenes of professional success, workplace celebrations, teamwork, receiving an award, or even someone confidently and enthusiastically working on their laptop. These images can help reinforce the feelings and experiences you want to attract into your life.
Research has shown that images tend to have a stronger impact when they evoke intense emotions. This is one reason emotionally meaningful images are recommended for vision boards. The stronger the positive emotions you experience while looking at your board, the more effective the manifestation process becomes.
Apart from generating emotions, the images on your vision board also help keep you motivated and focused on your goals. This is why you should include pictures that represent or remind you of the goals you want to achieve.
For example, if you want to travel to a specific country, you can include an image of a famous landmark from that destination. If your goal is to increase your income, you might use images of money, growing investments, financial success, or an upward-trending graph.
When you look at images related to your goals on a daily basis, your brain learns to stay focused on them. Over time, you may find it easier to take action toward your goals, procrastinate less, and even notice opportunities around you that you hadn’t noticed before.
This is explained by the fact that visualizing images activates attention-related networks in the brain, including the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS is sometimes described as a filter that helps prioritize what you pay attention to and filters out irrelevant information.
From this perspective, focusing regularly on your goals through visual cues may help you become more aware of related opportunities and keep your attention aligned with what you want to achieve, rather than spreading it across many unrelated directions.
This is why you should look at your vision board on a daily basis: it keeps your attention focused on your goals and reinforces positive emotions associated with them. It’s the way vision boards work.
Words and written prompts
Another element to include on your vision board is words and written prompts, such as affirmations and quotes.
Just like images, words can have a powerful impact on both our emotions and our mindset. Some words can trigger positive emotions such as enthusiasm, confidence, and hope, while others can evoke negative feelings like uncertainty, doubt, or worry.
Placing meaningful, positive words next to your images can significantly enhance their emotional and mental impact.
Words also help direct your attention by clearly reinforcing what your goals and dreams are. This is why I highly recommend including them on your vision board.
Here are a few examples of simple yet powerful words:
- Success
- Abundance
- Happiness
- Dream job
- Achievement
- Prosperity
- Confidence
- Self-love
- Self-respect
- Commitment
- Fulfillment
You can take this a step further by adding written prompts to your vision board. These can be affirmations, quotes, or short motivational statements. Their role is to add more clarity and detail to what you want to achieve.
When you visualize them regularly, your mind becomes more focused on those goals and better able to recognize relevant ideas and opportunities that can support you in achieving them.
Here are a few examples of short, motivational prompts and affirmations:
- I can achieve anything I want
- I am enough
- I can easily achieve success
- [My goal] is achievable and I’m getting closer to it
- I can achieve [my goal]
- I deserve to be loved and cherished
- I am attracting my ideal partner
- I am manifesting [my dream]
- I deserve to be in a happy, committed relationship
- It’s easy for me to make money
- My dream job is coming to me
I’ve used affirmations and short motivational prompts on my vision boards for a long time. I’ve found that they help me focus better, and I also gain more clarity when I visualize them. Some of them stick in my mind throughout the day, and I often find myself repeating them mentally several times a day without even trying. This is one of the benefits of daily visualization.
Numbers
In addition to images and words, numbers can also be an important element of a vision board, especially if you’re building a career or money-focused board. For example, if you want to get a pay raise, you can write the exact figure you’re aiming for. Or, if you have a specific salary in mind for your next job, you can include that number on your vision board.
The same applies if you own a business and want to achieve revenue growth. You can include specific targets such as annual revenue goals or percentage increases in profit or market share. For example: $500,000 in annual revenue, a 30% increase in profit, 30% market share, or 50% more customers.
Numbers can create clarity and give you a concrete reference point for your goals, just like images and words. While there’s no guarantee you’ll achieve the exact figures you set, they can serve as a clear benchmark to work toward.
I’ve personally used numbers on my vision board when I was job hunting a few years ago. I had a specific salary and bonus range in mind and put it on my board. When I landed the new job, the salary was very close to what I had written (around 90% of my target) and about 20% higher than my previous one. I saw it as a successful outcome, even though I later realized I might have been able to negotiate for more.
You can think of the numbers on your vision board as reference points. Even if the outcome isn’t exact, they can still guide you toward meaningful progress and better results.
Elements that work on your subconscious mind
One of the main reasons a vision board may not bring the results you want is the presence of inner blockages such as self-doubt and limiting beliefs. These can slow down the manifestation process and reduce the impact of visualization over time.
These inner blockages are often stored in what is known as the subconscious mind. This is the part of the mind where fears, doubts, and limiting beliefs reside. We are not always aware of them, but they can still strongly influence our lives by affecting how we make decisions and even how we see ourselves.
For example, you may hold limiting beliefs about money, such as: “It’s very difficult to make money,” “Abundance is only for certain people,” or “The effort required to significantly increase my income is too much.” You create a vision board focused on money and prosperity, using relevant images, words, and numbers. At first, you may feel more motivated and focused. However, over time, your progress may slow down or stall. This is because of the underlying limiting beliefs in the subconscious mind.
I’ve experienced this myself in the past, which led me to explore inner blockages and how to work through them.
The good news is that vision boards can also be used as a tool to remove or reshape limiting beliefs. By intentionally including elements that counteract these beliefs, you can create a more empowering mindset.
Start by identifying what may be holding you back. Then include images that represent the opposite of your limiting beliefs. You can also write affirmations that support new, more empowering perspectives and put them on your vision board.
I’ve created special vision board kits that explain how to identify inner blockages and work through them using vision boards.
Signature Vision Board Kit – in vibrant colors
Signature Vision Board Kit – in pastel colors
Other elements to put on your vision board
Reminders of Past Wins
One of the best ways to boost confidence in your abilities is to visualize your past wins. You can include images and short written prompts related to them in a separate section of your vision board, or even create a small, dedicated board for them.
When you visualize these past wins, your self-confidence gets a boost, and you may feel less intimidated by the bigger, more ambitious goals you’ve set for the future. Even small victories matter. Each past success acts as a reinforcement of your capabilities.
Identity-Shifting Affirmations
This is the “I Am” section of your vision board. Often, we feel stuck because we don’t fully trust ourselves, or because we’ve adopted an identity that isn’t aligned with success. We may see ourselves as timid, anxious, or simply not enough.
The way we see ourselves (the identity we hold) plays a significant role in how we pursue our goals. This is why it can be helpful to include “I Am” affirmations on your vision board, as a way to reinforce a more confident and empowered self-image.
Here are a few examples:
- I am enough
- I am capable
- I am successful
- I am beautiful
- I am deserving
- I am loved
- I am respected
- I am resourceful
Change doesn’t happen overnight. However, these “I Am” affirmations, together with relevant images and other written prompts, can help you build greater confidence, assertiveness, and a stronger sense of direction over time.
Vision Boards that truly work
Overall, what you include on your vision board can meaningfully support your focus and motivation as you work toward your goals.
If you want to explore vision boards in a more structured way, I’ve created kits with an exclusive 3-step framework designed to help you identify inner blockages, build confidence, and work toward your goals more effectively.
They also include collections of relevant images for a variety of life categories (love, career, money, home, wellness, friends, family, travel), a special section with images and prompts for reshaping limiting beliefs, affirmations, dreams and goals and much more.
