Are you a super-successful achiever? Or do you have big dreams that seldom come to fruition? You have it all set out in your mind, but very few, if any, of your plans have succeeded. You eventually scrap the idea and start afresh. Perhaps you’ve heard of vision boards and wonder if it’s a lot of hocus-pocus. If successful people use vision boards, who are they, and why do they work?
Many successful people credit their success to vision boards, including Oprah, Jim Carrey, and more. Neuroscientists believe that vision boards train our brains to grab opportunities we wouldn’t usually notice. Your brain then rejects data irrelevant to your goals and fine-tunes your priorities.Â
Success in any aspect of life results from believing in yourself and hard work. It also requires a clear vision of our intended destination and directions for the journey. Sometimes we bury those ideas in our minds, and other times we write down our goals. But seeing physical images of your success every day will inspire you to achieve your dreams in a more powerful way.
Successful People And Vision Boards
A TD Bank Survey concluded that people who make vision boards or keep images of their goals have almost twice as much confidence in achieving them than those without visual motivation. Also, a whopping 82% of small business entrepreneurs that used vision boards from the beginning said that they had achieved more than half of their goals.Â
If you’re a sceptic, it may seem like an elementary school art project, but constantly viewing the same desired goals reminds you of all you’d like to achieve. It sharpens your focus and keeps you motivated. It certainly points to vision boards as the vehicles that can drive success. Let’s look at some examples of successful people who credit their achievements to vision boards.
Oprah Winfrey Used Vision Boards
Oprah Winfrey is notorious for her rags-to-riches story. Growing up in extreme poverty, she determined that her life would be different when she grew up. Although she pursued her dreams like a vision board guru, she credits Michelle Obama with introducing her to them.Â
At a political rally, the soon-to-be First Lady suggested Oprah visualize Barack Obama taking the oath when he becomes president. Oprah stated that she went home and made herself a vision board, putting a picture of Obama on it and an image of the dress she wanted to wear at the president’s inauguration. The rest is history.Â
Oprah no longer uses vision boards because she considers herself a powerful manifester. She knows how to attract success to her without seeing it in front of her on a board every day. You can see that visualization worked for her.
Jim Carrey Believes In Visualization
Vision boards sometimes come in different shapes. While many people use the poster-type version, visualization is not limited to pictures on a board. Jim Carrey’s “vision board” was a self-written check for $10 million!
Early in the 1990s, Jim Carrey was a struggling, unknown actor. He knew what he wanted from life and his career but had not yet attained it. To keep motivated, Carrey wrote the famous check “for acting services rendered” and kept it in his wallet for years. In 1994 he earned $10 million for the movie Dumb and Dumber.
Steve Harvey Loves Vision Boards
Steve Harvey, comedian, television host, actor, author, and producer, attributes all his success in life to vision boards. He firmly advocates writing down your needs and wants and asking God because it dramatically increases your chances of achieving those goals. To back up his opinion, he told an audience that vision boards were in the Bible and quoted Habbakuk 2:2.
Harvey says he has more than he could ever need in material possessions, career, and family. He still creates vision boards with “astronomical” goals and insists that he will attain those in the years to come.Â
Reese Witherspoon Believes In Vision Boards
In an interview alongside Oprah on A Wrinkle In Time, Reese Witherspoon admitted that she still uses vision boards because she still has things that she wants to achieve. Witherspoon said there will always be things to aspire to, implying that it’s worthwhile making vision boards to accomplish those things.Â
Reese Witherspoon is one of the wealthiest and most successful actresses, advocates for women’s and children’s rights, and is the Avon Foundation’s honorary Chair. This organization focuses on breast cancer research. These are only a few of the causes she supports.
Rebel Wilson Had Brad Pitt On Her Vision Board
Actress and comedian Rebel Wilson recalls her unpopular high school beginnings and how she transformed herself into one of the most popular girls in the school. She followed the steps in the Dale Carnegie book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” but also mentions one of her vision boards.Â
One of her high school vision boards had a picture of Brad Pitt and an Oscar Award. Although perhaps not in the intended manifestation sense, the moment occurred when Brad escorted her backstage after winning his Oscar!Â
How To Make A Vision Board
A vision board is a creative, crafty way of writing down your goals and visualizing your success. It draws on the principles of the law of attraction and motivates you to work towards accomplishing your goals. Here’s the short version of how to do it:
- Gather your board and materials such as magazines, old photos, or postcards for your board’s images.
- Take time to clarify your dreams.
- Find pictures, objects, and quotes to represent your goals.
- Arrange your board to make sense to you.
- Place your vision board where it is always visible.
Why Does A Vision Board Work?
A vision board is more than a pretty picture of a daydream. It is an inspiration to work hard for what you want. Many people might scoff at vision boards, but behind the positive thinking and dreaming, neuroscience is at work.
The brain has a ” value-tagging system,” which imprints significant things onto the subconscious and filters out irrelevant data. It assigns more value to images, and the more you look at them, the more important they become. If you view your board before you go to sleep, these images will imprint even more.
Of course, you can’t just visualize your goals and expect them to happen. Research indicates that this type of dreaming actually hinders your success. You have to take the necessary action to ensure your success.Â
But as you look at your vision board, it motivates you and removes the stress from the new actions required. When you constantly look at the necessary steps to reach your goal, your brain stops seeing these as new and stressful.Â
Click here to see “4 Feng Shui Vision Board Examples (For 2023)“
Final Thoughts
Many successful people have proved that using vision boards work. Celebrities like Jim Carrey, Reese Witherspoon, and more credit their success to visualization and vision boards.
There’s power in constantly visualizing your success, and research and science back this principle too. Go make a vision board and find your success. You have nothing to lose and everything to accomplish.
