Vision boarding reimagined: Where clarity meets creativity

Discover how a modern, digital-first and strategy-led vision board can help you align action with ambition for your personal brand and life. 

The classic cut-and-paste collage doesn’t cut it for vision boarding anymore. You’re restricted to the images you find in magazines you likely aren’t even buying anymore. Or, you have to find time to make a pit stop at your local printing shop in the already busy festive season. I personally find that any personal development works best when you remove as much friction as possible. Old school vision boards take up space and are likely on full display, revealing what you perhaps want to keep private. Here’s what I've found to be a better way to create a vision board. 

Stop clipping and start strategising 
Don’t simply sit down with your cocktail and clip dreamy images. You're restricted to images and ideas you stumble across as you flip through glossy magazines or search Google. I personally start planning my priorities for the year ahead at least a month in advance. This includes personally and professionally - from hobbies to finances. In Michael Hyatt’s book, Your Best Year Ever, he suggests setting goals within 10 key domains, aiming for 7–10 each year. The domains consist of:

• Spiritual

• Intellectual

• Emotional

• Physical

• Marital

• Parental

• Social

• Vocational

• Avocational

• Financial

The key is understanding which domains need the most attention in this season of your life.

Don’t just set visual goals, make pacts
In my recent blog, I shared how the book Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff completely changed the way I look at goal-setting, which I have been obsessive about for over a decade now. It recommends the power of making pacts and experimenting over setting goals. 

While goals are outcomes-focused, pacts are process-centred. For example, instead of a goal to be a content creator, the pact might be to upload a new video every week for 52 weeks. Pacts are time-bound - as it’s an experiment. With this in mind, how is your vision board process-centred? For example, to create content, the images might be centred on hitting the upload button or clipping an image of 50+ videos uploaded (perhaps clipped from another profile). Or, if you see your investments growing, the image might be of you investing a certain sum on a monthly schedule. 

Be hyper-specific

Despite embracing the process, I would still capture the vision for your future self. As Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) proposes, the brain can’t differentiate between what is vividly imagined and what is real. So, detailed visualisation for desired outcomes becomes a form of mental rehearsal. 

Don’t just clip random holidays, or what’s in your bank account. Find images relating to exactly what it is you want to tell your brain is possible. Goal-setting in NLP highlights the importance of visualising what success looks like. How do you know when you have the things you desire - what exactly will it look like? Where do you see yourself travelling to? What exactly is in your bank account?

Embrace temporal landmarks
When I read Dan Pink’s book, When, the idea of temporal landmarks really resonated. It highlights that, as humans, we don’t just use landmarks to navigate space, but also time. Don’t just mindlessly put creating a vision board on your New Year’s to-do list. I find this so much more exciting when I am intentional about the process. For example, my birthday is in November, and last year, for the first time, I started creating my vision board on this day and loved the addition to my birthday celebration. I have always felt a little strange about birthdays, but it gave me a whole new outlook on the occasion. Ask yourself, who do you want to be in this next chapter of your life? 

I kid you not - some of my vision board had already started to manifest in hugely unexpected ways by the time I came home from my birthday dinner.

Digitise your vision board

I create my vision board on Canva, using images I find online - mostly via very specific searches in Pinterest. I then download my board and set it as my desktop backdrop on my laptop. It’s the perfect blend of set and forget, while effortlessly engaging with your vision board daily. By digitising your board, you also give yourself the grace to change your mind. The person you are at the start of the year, the priorities you thought were most important, might evolve as you and your year does. Edit your board when you need to and reimagine the possibilities whenever you feel a shift.  

Recreate your vision board on Pinterest

As I shared in my earlier blog, Start reimagining your 2026 and personal brand with Pinterest: Move into 2026 with intention, I use Pinterest to really bring my visions to life. It’s my favourite online place to play in my downtime. It’s a way to get granular on the details. Want to eat healthier? Create a board with the foods you see your healthiest self eating. I use my yoga board to pin poses I’d love to learn and use the sub-boards to break this down further into an actionable weekly routine. 

As I also shared earlier, one of my favourite rituals has become creating boards for each season as they arrive. A blend of vision and mood-boarding, it means I don’t just get complacent with my yearly vision board, but transform these into strategies for each season ahead. 

Reimagining You

Vision-boarding isn’t about predicting your future; it’s about directing it.  It’s seeing yourself in motion, not just in a static collage, but in a living system. Don’t make your vision board simply a wall of wishes; curate a snapshot of your evolution in progress. Embody who you see yourself becoming.