A Vision Board is a visual representation of your goals. It is a collage of all the things you want to get done, places you want to visit, and goals you want to achieve. It is a tool recommended by some of the most successful people in the world such as Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Steve Harvey, John Assaraf, and Jim Carrey among others. By Visualizing your goals, you impress them on your subconscious mind but you have to first set the goals and write down your goals. As author Napoleon Hill said in his 1937 book, Think and Grow Rich “Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
Be careful what you ask for, you might get it. Our belief system drives our behavior. By impressing your goals on your mind constantly, and seeing your goals continuously, you stand a greater chance of achieving them. One of my favorite examples of the power of visualization is from a story shared by Comedian Jim Carrey. In a 1997 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Carrey described how he used visualization to earn $10 million through a check he had written earlier for services rendered.
Oprah: Obviously you knew somewhere inside yourself that you were destined to be famous because I think it’s a really a marvelous thing that visualization thing you did. Do you want to read or hear about this, that you used to go up on Mulholland Drive and park.
Carrey: Every night
Oprah: And visualize seeing yourself as?
Carrey: yeah I would visualize uh yeah
Oprah: This was when you were broke and poor?
Carrey: yeah right having directors interested in me and people that I respected saying you know I like your work or whatever that is and I would visualize things coming to me that I wanted or whatever
Oprah: This was in like 1987 or 85?
Carrey: Yeah and I had nothing at that time so it was like but it just made me feel better it, it made me at that time all it really was for me was kind of making me feel better. I would drive home and think well I do have these things and they’re out there. I just don’t have a hold of them yet but they’re out there
Oprah: Okay so you would get this from what self-help books or whatever yeah
Carrey: uh-huh self-help section
Oprah: Self-help section
Carrey: They renamed it the Jim Carrey wing (laughter)
Oprah: So didn’t you write yourself a check. I heard that you did, is that true?
Carrey: I wrote myself a check for ten million dollars for acting services rendered and I gave myself five years – three years maybe and I dated it Thanksgiving 1995 and I put it in my wallet and I kept it there and it deteriorated and deteriorated and stuff and but then just before it’s the Thanksgiving 1995 I found out that I was gonna make ten million dollars on, I think it was: dumb and dumber maybe.
Oprah: Dumb and Dumber, yeah so you visualize yourself, visualization works if you work hard
Carrey: Yeah well yeah that’s the thing, you just can’t visualize and then go eat a sandwich (laughter)
Oprah: I love that – Interview Ends
Oprah reflects on the interview she had with Jim Carrey in 1997 by saying
Oprah: That was such a powerful moment for me because I was not a person who did visualization or thought about my belief system in such a practical way but I learned a lot from Jim Carrey on
that show and he is absolutely correct. If you can see it and believe it it is a lot easier to achieve it. So thank you, Jim for reminding us of that lesson and it doesn’t mean that for every person that
writes the 10 million dollar check that that’s going to happen for you because so many times people who do that process live in the space of wanting and resisting it instead of writing it, visualizing it seeing it for yourself, and then letting it go. Letting it go but moving in the direction of working toward it.
If you can see it and believe it it is a lot easier to achieve it. – Oprah Winfrey
So nothing happens at first it’s over the process of the time and the effort and the energy that you put into a thing that the energy comes out.
I have also used the vision board to achieve some of my most important goals such as running multiple marathons (12+), 100 Books reading challenges, 365 Podcast Listening Challenge among other goals that I write about on this blog. Here is my present vision board and the goals have set for myself on the board:
- Reach the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro – December 31st, 2025
- Stay and work in Paris, France for a year – December 31st, 2025
- Read 5,000 Books – December 31st, 2070
- Skydive in Dubai – December 31st, 2023
- Finish a Triathlon – December 31st, 2025
- Travel to 4-5 new cities every year. – Yearly
- I exercise consistently – Daily
- Give back to the world (Build a public library in Nigeria) – December 31st, 2035.
- Operate with the TIME Framework – Daily.
Achieving any worthwhile goal takes time, consistency, single-mindedness of purpose, dedication, and commitment. If at first you do not succeed try and try again. Fall down 7 times, pick yourself up 8 times. You’ve got this: The Best is yet to come.
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