Unlock Your Potential: How Vision Boards Transform Work & Life Goals S5E9

Have you ever wondered if vision boards are just a fun craft project, or if they actually help you achieve your dreams?

In this episode, we move beyond the "woo-woo" and get into the practical reasons why a vision board is one of the most powerful tools for your career and life. If you have ever bought a specific car and suddenly started seeing it everywhere on the road, you already know how this works. It is about training your brain to notice the opportunities that matter.

I break down the critical difference between a "Goal Poster" (your checklist) and a "Vision Board" (your emotional anchor) and walk you through the exact steps to create one that pulls you toward your future.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The Science of Focus: How the Reticular Activating System works (and the "Red Mustang" example) to filter reality in your favor.
• Vision Board vs. Goal Poster: Why you need both in your office but why they serve two very different purposes.
• The 5 Essentials: The specific items to include on your board, from emotional images to symbols and affirmations.
• The Guardrails: 5 rules to follow to ensure your board is for you, not for Instagram.
• The Vision Statement: How to write a present-tense story for your life that helps you internalize your success before it happens.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Discovering Your Calling (Book)
• The concept of "Fearful Fred" vs. "Ready to Go Ruth"

Action Step: Once you listen, gather your supplies (magazines, stickers, photos) and block out time this week to build your board. If you feel brave, snap a photo and DM it to me. I would love to cheer you on as you set the dire

2026 Career Change Quiz
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Checked all the boxes of success but still feel like something’s missing? My new book, Discovering Your Calling, is a guide for ambitious women ready to stop drifting and build a life of true fulfillment and joy. Your calling is waiting.

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Transcript

Sheri Miter: 0:00

In this episode, you're going to discover how to create a vision board and a vision statement. I'll teach you what to do and what to avoid doing so that a vision board and a vision statement can help you achieve any goal you set for your career, for your work, and for your life. Welcome to the Discovering Your Calling podcast. I'm your host, Jerry Mitter. I'm here to help you unleash your strengths and get clarity on your calling. I believe when you find your purpose in life, fulfillment, joy, and success will follow. If you're ready, pop in those earbuds, hit that follow button, and join me on this journey toward discovering your calling. Let's jump in today's episode and one of my favorite topics to talk about. So if you listen to how to turn year-in reflection into a clear plan for the year ahead, where I shared the three simple steps for goal setting, andor the latest guest episode with my friend John, where we touched a little bit on vision casting our goals. Today I'm gonna give you the how-to behind creating a vision board and a vision statement. And it's a training, you know, a vision board is about training your focus. Darlin, start that part over. A vision board is about training your focus and giving direction to your energy because the vision is what keeps goals from becoming scattered or forgotten. So if we take the time to do the three steps that I shared in the previous episode and you are very clear on your goal, we want to keep that goal in front of us so that we are way more likely, and I don't have stats for you today, sorry, but you're definitely more likely to achieve the goals that you want for your work and for your life. Now, before we jump into the how-tos, I do want to clarify because I get asked this a lot. What is the difference between a vision board and a goal poster? And in my mind, a goal poster should have the checklists, the timelines, the outcomes, the actual maybe how-to on it, the things where you can mark it off and you can track things. Whereas a vision board is your visual reminder, it's about direction. It's about really that emotional resonance that you feel when you look at it. It's more that feeling of it more than the how-to. It lets you sit with the goals and really be able to envision in your mind what it's gonna feel like when you achieve them. Now, both are important, but they both work a different way. And they both, you should have both in your in your workspace, in my opinion, so that you have the goal poster for the checklist and the vision board for that emotional attachment to the goal. Today we are definitely just talking about the vision board. Now, again, this is one of those things that I don't understand exactly how it works. It goes back to that reticular activating system that I've talked about before. And I know it works. I just don't really understand all the science behind it. But I've said this before. I also don't know how the light switch turns on a light. I don't understand how my cell phone works. I don't understand how a podcast works. I just know it does. And I trust that it does. I trust when I pick up my phone to call somebody and they pick up the other phone, it's working in their line. It works. And I hope you can just do the same thing. We don't need to always understand every the how-to behind everything. Sometimes we just have to trust that it works. This is what I do know is that the brain notices what it's trained to notice. You may have heard me hear the example of car shopping. Sometimes we go car shopping and we've been looking at cars and dreaming about cars, and we finally settle on this, you know, one particular model of a car in a unique color. Maybe it's a cherry red Mustang that you've always wanted. And you finally go by that car, and you feel like, you know, I never see anybody with this cherry red color Mustang. And all of a sudden you're driving home, and what do you notice on the roads? You notice a couple of other cherry red Mustangs. Now, did everybody else just run out and buy the same car the same day? No. The thing is, your mind wasn't filtered to notice them yet. But once you bought the car, now your mind says, Oh, we need to filter to see other cars like this. So all of a sudden your brain works and it starts noticing those particular cars. And again, it's part of your reticular activating system that just filters things out because we're not designed to notice everything that's happening around us. We would go insane. And sometimes we may feel that way already. So it's about shifting your awareness. And that's what a vision board helps you do. Now, in real life terms, your vision board, when you look at it, it helps helps you from second guessing. So you have less second guessing. It becomes a clear reminder, like, oh, wait, this is what we're focused on. So stop going in this other direction. You also will experience fewer, should I be doing this moments? Because again, when you look at your vision board in front of you or read your vision statement, it reminds you what is aligned with the goal you set, what is aligned with what's on your board. And if it doesn't align with it, then you need to train your brain to say, no, that's not the direction we're going to go. That will not help us achieve this. It also just gives you that easier, more confident yeses and no's. Because again, does it align with what's on the board? Will it help you achieve what's on your board? Then the answer should be no most of the time. If it will help you achieve it, then it's a yes. So it helps you in a practical manner of just kind of eliminate some of the decisions we have to make throughout our day and our work week. It eliminates some of that decision fatigue because it's very clear the direction we're headed. Now, I want to share one more story, one more thing to get you on board in case you're still doubting is it worth taking the time to create a vision board? So this happened years ago. It was one of the first times I really created a solid vision board that really resonated with what was super important to me. I had created some before, but there are some usually more what I felt like I should be putting on my board. And I remember having a very small vision board set up, and it was actually a picture of a 31-foot sailboat. And it I sat it in our kitchen window. And there were a couple other things around the board. I couldn't even tell you what else was on there. It was like the sailboat was the main picture, front and center. And it was a little bit bigger than a normal paper size. It was like on a small poster board, and it sat in that catch kitchen window. So I would look at it every single day, multiple times a day. And here's what happened. Within a year, and again, this goes back like 10, 15 years ago. So I don't remember the exact timeline, but it was within the year of making that vision board with the sailboat. We ended up buying the exact same model of boat. I had no idea. I had just cut out a picture of a sailboat when I put it on there because that was what we'd owned a 26-foot sailboat at the time. We knew we wanted a bigger boat. It happened to be the exact same model we ended up buying. We didn't set off to actually look for that model. It's just what happened. And that's what happens when we really resonate with what we put on our vision board. And we see it daily. And I'm going to talk more about that in a minute. Things do become real over time. And again, it's a little woo-woo and mystical. I don't understand it all, but I know it works. And we don't need to fully understand how it all works. We just need to trust the process. So here's a key takeaway I want you to remember though. Vision boards do not replace action, they give action a direction. So by creating a vision board, you doesn't mean you don't have to do the work to achieve it. It means you're going to be clear on what action is going to help you achieve what's on the board. All right, my friend. So this is the time that I want to give you the practical steps for creating your vision board. Now, I used to do this in a live workshop where we would gather all the things and I would send out the list of people. This is what you need to bring, and we're going to do this all together. And to be honest, I miss those. And hey, let me know. Like if you're in the 518 area and you would ever come to a vision board making workshop, let me know because I would be happy to put something together again in person, in real life. But in the meanwhile, here's what you need to gather for your vision board. Now, the vision board again is all about emotions and pictures. So there's five things that you can put on your vision board. You don't necessarily need them all. These are just some options. And there may even be some that I miss here. But number one is you want images, and this is the most important thing. The images that represent what you want. So it could be something tangible, like that boat that I had on my vision board. It could be maybe that beach condo is your dream. Maybe you want a new kitchen. So it could be something tangible that you want to achieve, that you want to have. Maybe it's even, you know, a new couch. Maybe it is that new cherry red car. So whatever it is you want, pictures of what you really want to achieve. Then you want images that also represent how you want to feel. So how do you want to feel this year? Do you want to feel healthier? What images would represent that for you? And that's important. It only has to mean something to you. You don't have to explain what the pictures mean to anybody else if you don't want to. This is just for you, my friend. Only for you. So what pictures would represent how you want to feel this year? Put those on there. You can also have images that represent the kind of life you want to live. So is it a life of activity? Is it a life of dancing? Is it a life of achievement? Is it a life of, you know, game night? You know, things like that. You can put any of those pictures. Again, they're images that represent what you want, how you want to feel, or the kind of life you are living. So that's the first part is images. The second thing you can put on your vision board are stickers. And you can get some great stickers, you know, from calendars, you can get great stickers in the kids section and, you know, Target. You can get great stickers like photo photo books. But stickers or words of, you know, stickers of words or phrases that evoke emotion, the emotion that you want to feel this year. Um, is it freedom? Is it happiness? You know, what are those words that just evoke something to you? You can also put number three, so that was number two, number three, you can put photos of yourself. Photos of yourself when you felt happy and confident. Photos of yourself, maybe when you were your ideal weight, that maybe that's your goal. You want to get back to that ideal weight again. Photos of yourself of how you again want to feel this year. So the first images we talked about weren't images of you. They were images you find online and print out and have them, you know, cut them out and put them on your board. These are actual photos of you that remind you of how you want to feel this year. Maybe it's a photo of you crossing a finish line if you want to get back into running, you know, is the last time you crossed the finish line. You know, maybe it's a photo of you dancing, maybe it's a photo of you playing with a kid with your kids, whatever that is that makes you happy. The fourth thing you can put on your vision board are affirmations or meaningful verses. So you can write these out and put them on your vision board. You can type them out, cut them out and paste them on your vision board. So maybe there's some meaningful Bible verses that just resonate with how you want to live your life this year, or that give you confidence that you can do this or you're on the right path. So, what are those affirmations or meaningful Bible verses that you could put on your vision board? And the fifth thing that you can put on your vision board are just symbols. Symbols that represent what you want most in 2026. Again, is it freedom, joy, peace, financial well-being, health? You know, again, it's something that means something to you. Maybe it's, you know, for me, a lot of times I will have the compass rose just because that's a meaningful symbol to me. Maybe it's a palm tree. Maybe it's again, it's just something that means something to you, doesn't mean something to anybody else. So again, the five things that you want on your vision board, and you don't need them all, but you can use any of these images that just represent what you want to, you know, be, do, or have this year. Two stickers of words or phrases that evoke emotion, three photos of yourself feeling happy and confident in that moment, photos of yourself of how you want to feel this year. Number four, affirmations or meaningful Bible verses. And number five, symbols that represent what you want in 2026. Now that we talked about what you want on your board, I want to give you five important guardrails, five things to remember about your vision board. Number one, this is for you. This is not for Instagram unless you want to share it over there. That's totally up to you. This is your no judgment zone vision board. It only has to mean something to you. So it's only for you. Don't do it to make it pretty to look on Pinterest or Instagram. Really, really please avoid that. Again, if you want to share it over there, that's great, but don't make it for that purpose. Your vision, number two, your vision board doesn't need an explaining. You don't need to defend it, and you don't need to justify it. So no explaining, no defending, no justifying. Number three, keep it simple, over cluttered. Choose, be purposeful of what you put on it. It shouldn't be full of things. And you may have to discern. Maybe you have a lot of meaningful verses. Pick one or two that really mean something. Maybe you have a lot of pictures. Pick the ones that most go towards that number one goal that you set that we talked about in the three steps in the last episode. So simple over cluttered. Number four, one big main board is fine. But multiple boards are also okay. If you have different areas of your life that you're really focused on this year, then make separate ones if you want. Again, it's totally up to you. And number five, and this is really important, positive focus only. Avoid words or things like, you know, I want to be debt free. Debt's a negative word. I want to lose weight. That's a negative word. I want to quit my job this year. Replace them with I'm financially free, or I'm my ideal weight, or I'm, you know, I have the career of my dreams. I found my calling. So positive words and focus only. So those are the five things to watch out for on your vision board. Here's what you really want to look for as you're creating this and you're looking through your pictures and what you want to put on it. You might notice as you're going through is like what excites you? Like, what just gets you going? What when you look at it, you're like, oh, I want that so bad. Pay attention to what pulls you in and then trust what resonates, even if it doesn't make sense. Maybe there's something like, I don't even know why I'm putting this on here, but it just feels right to do it. Put it on there anyway. Now, one other thing we need to be aware of is fearful Fred, our inner critic, may show up in the middle of making our vision board. And if you haven't read my book yet, fearful Fred is that little voice that that triggers us, that, that starts to speak to us and questions everything and says, why do you who do you think you are? Well, that's unrealistic. That's never gonna happen. You should just be grateful for what you already have. And we need to learn that that is just fearful Fred speaking. We don't need to take Fred seriously. We don't need to listen to Fred. We can acknowledge Fred and then flick him off our shoulders and move on. We need to, again, reframe the voice. It isn't truth. It's just our past conditioning. And our vision doesn't require permission. And again, if you read my book, I talk about ready to go, Ruth is who we want to listen to. She's gonna cheer you on, she's gonna believe in you, and that's the voice we need to listen to and not fearful Fred. But I mention that because it's normal for fearful Fred to speak up anytime we're doing something to move towards something bigger in our lives. So be ready for him. Doesn't mean you shouldn't put the picture on the board, though, okay? And I want you to also remember that you're not committing to how this happens. That's the goalposter's job. You're only committing to what matters most to you right now. What do you really want in your life right now? We don't need to know the how. That's up to your plan. And that's honestly, I like to say that's up to God to figure out the how. We're just committing to what we want in our lives. Now, once you have your vision bored, I want to give you one little extra thing to work on. And that's a vision statement. And a vision statement could be one or two sentences. It could be a vision story, which I've loved doing before. And that could be three or four pages in your note, you know, in your journal or your notebook. But this helps because your vision board helps you see what you want, whereas your statement helps you really internally claim it. And with a vision statement, it's simply kind of taking all these things that you've been working on and writing it out in a present tense story of your life. And you want to think about like, what themes keep showing up for you? What keeps resonating that, like, oh, I think this is the direction I'm supposed to be going? Then what kind of woman is living this life? Who is she? How do you need to show up as that woman? How does she show up to work? How does she show up in her relationships? How does she show up in and just her living her life day to day? How is she living? Your vision statement might include how you want to feel in the present tense, as if it's happening right now today. It might include what you're prioritizing in your life today, again, as if it's you're doing it, and definitely the kind of life you intentionally are creating. And the more detail you can do that, the better. One of the last times I really sat down, I'm way overdue to do this. So I'm speaking to myself today, too, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, this episode is just as much for me as it is for you. I'll be honest, because I haven't done a vision statement, a new one in a while. But the one I had where I took the time and it was pages. It was like four or five pages. So many things on that vision statement came to life. And we're actually living in one of them now. One of it was about, and I don't have it right in front of me, but it was about living in a luxury. I think I called it a funky apartment, one of the best in the town, where we get to walk to farmers market, you know, weekly, and we make healthy eating and eating fresh produce and goods from the local farmers part of our weekly habit. And I wrote in detail about this. And that's exactly what we do today. I wrote it as if we were doing it probably five, 10 years ago when I wrote it. But we're living that life today. Now I do encourage you to handwrite this, and we're not looking for perfection. I'm sure I misspelled some words when I write mine. But write as much as you can with vivid details. And again, don't listen to fearful, Fred. Just let your mind wander. If you knew you couldn't fail, what would your life look like? Write it out in detail. All of it. Where are you working? What are you doing? What matters to you in your work? How are you living? Are you eating healthy? Are you exercising? What does that part of your life look like? Your financial part, what does that look like for you? Are you giving? Are you saving? Are you financially free? What else matters to you? You know, what's your relationships like? Like as much as you can in detail. Write out your story. How do you want your story to unfold? And I would encourage you to think longer than the year for this. The vision board, many times one year is great for those. But for your vision statement, you can even go out as five, 10 years for that if you want. So it's up to you. It could be a one-year vision statement, five years, 10 years, lifetime vision statement, depending on how old you are. But write it out in detail and kind of take the same principles we talked about before. And the vision board is just you're using your words now instead of pictures. Now, here's the most important part, my friends, for either one of these. Because you can make these, and if you tuck them away and never look at them, they're not going to help you. They're not going to serve you. So here's some practical steps to take. Once you create your vision board and your vision statement, your vision board, you want to put it where you're going to see it daily. Now, maybe it might be at work, maybe it's in your home office, maybe it's in your bathroom, maybe it's in your bedroom. Wherever it is, make sure it's someplace. Maybe it's in your kitchen window. Where will you see it all the time? And intentionally take the time to look at it either first thing in the morning or last thing at night. And during those moments, study it. Spend time with it. Feel the feelings as if you've achieved those things, as if they are part of your life today. Almost meditate on it if you're a meditator. Like really sense it and feel it. Don't just glance at it. You'll glance at it several times throughout the day, but really just spend time with it first thing in the morning or last thing at night, or both if you want to really boost it. And imagine stepping into the images. It's all about, again, the emotion that you feel when you look at it. Feel gratitude as if it's unfolding. And then your vision statement, read that at least every morning and or every night at a minimum. If you can't do both, then make a point that at least once a week you spend time reading your vision statement at a minimum. But I would encourage you to do it daily. And again, it depends on how long it is, but it's amazing what will happen. I love to end the night reading my vision statement and just let my mind wander and sleep. You'll sleep better, you'll dream better, you'll come up with ideas on how to make it happen when that's the last thought you have at night. Now, a couple, again, key reminders here is on your vision board. Don't remove the images once you've achieved them. Leave them there because they will remind you of your growth. They remind you of what you have achieved. Also, it's a fun idea if you have the space, keep your boards year after year. You will get to see maybe something doesn't happen this year, but five years down the road, you'll look at a board and like, oh my gosh, that happened. And we're reminded of that. It's so fun to pull out boards from previous years to see what has changed, what has happened. Or sometimes we look at boards from five years ago and think, yep, why did I even want that? I'm glad that didn't come to fruition. You know, sometimes things don't happen for a reason. But as I close here, one really important thought I want to leave you with. Whether you're creating your vision board or your vision statement or both is just give yourself permission to dream. And then give that dream a place to live. And if you feel called to do so, once you create your vision board, send me a picture. You don't have to do it on social media if you don't want to share it there. Just send it to me in an email or in the DMs. I would love to see it. No judgment. I just want to cheer you on to achieve everything on it. I'm here for you, my friends, and I will see you back here in a couple of weeks. I can't wait to hear what happens with your vision board and your vision statement in 2026. And I'm gonna go write mine this week myself. Thanks for listening. Thank you for spending this time with me. My hope is something you heard today inspires you to take action toward discovering your calling. I just have two favors to ask of you before you go. One, if you found value and enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and you might hear your review read on a future episode. And two, can you share this episode with three friends who will also enjoy it as much as you did? By doing these things, you will help us grow the podcast to make a bigger impact on the world. And until next week, remember, you've been created to live a life of fulfillment, freedom, purpose, success, and joy, okay.