Make a vision board for your weight loss journey

What is a vision board?

A vision board, or dream board is a tool that helps keep our focus on our goals and dreams. A vision board is a collection, or collage of pictures, words, or videos that is displayed in a prominent area of our homes. It can physically be a Bristol board with pictures and words on it. It can even be a background for your computer, tablet or an app on your phone that you look at often.

Why do we need a vision board? How would it help us?

By making a vision board, it forces us to think about the things that we want to be, to do and to have in our lives. Not only does it help us identify and clarify these visions and goals, but by looking at it daily, it reminds us of what our goals are on a regular basis. It stimulates our emotions. We become more motivated. What happens is that we are plugging in those dreams and goals into our subconscious brains. A little like putting in a destination into a GPS. Throughout the day, our brain remembers these images, words and emotions of our vision board and will be silently and creatively working out ways that you can accomplish these dreams, just like the computer inside the GPS will work out a path to the destination. You’ll notice that you start to do things differently, surprising yourself sometimes.

What kinds of goals or dreams should I put down?

They should be very specific. To narrow things down to really focus on your weight loss journey, you could post pictures and words, where you are at a weight or size goal. Remember, these images and words are what you will use to represent what you want to Be, Do and Have. For example:

BE: Maybe you can now be healthy enough so that your doctor reduces or eliminates the medication you’re taking, perhaps now you can start your own business, or move into a new job because you now feel more confident about yourself.

DO: such as riding on a roller-coaster, flying in a plane without a seat-belt extender, go swimming with a brand new bathing suit, starting to date again, go horseback riding, travelling to China

HAVE: a new outfit, a new hairdo, a special dinner, there are so many options!

So right now, while we get ready to do our vision boards, I want you to really focus on what it is you really want when you are at your goal weight. Have a pen and paper handy. Go into a quiet room where you won’t be disturbed. You’re going to close your eyes and imagine for a few minutes. How will your life be different?  What kinds of things are you going to be doing on a day to day basis? How are you feeling? What are you doing? What are you seeing when you look in the mirror? How do you feel when you put on that brand new outfit. What does it smell like. What can you feel when you sit into the chair, now being a smaller size? What do the healthy foods are you now eating taste like? Write all of the visions, dreams and goals you have imagined. There’s no right or wrong ones. Put the ones that are important to you.

Find the right pictures and words

Now, find pictures that represent these things. You can get them from old magazines or by printing them out. The picture should be representative and speak to your heart. For example, if you want to be healthy to run after your kids, the picture could be of a running kid. If you want a slimmer figure, get a picture of a role model that has the same type of figure as you (don’t put a pear figure if you have an apple figure!). The words or sayings or sentences you choose should be words of affirmation, or words that describe how you will feel, like “joyful”, “bold”, “healthy” and “confident”, when you have reached that goal.

Making your vision board

You can use a big magnetic dry erase board, so you can add photos quickly and write your words or sentences on the board. You can also use a cork board.

What kind of pictures, images or words should you have?

You can paste your pictures on using a poster board which will bring back all of your science project school memories! There are many ways to get creative. One interesting weight loss vision board that I saw used 2 rows of clothespins, one row for weight lost, one row for weight left to go and where you move the clothespins from the “weight to go” to the “weight lost” as you progress. If you look closely at the one below, you’ll see that the creative maker, Autumn O., has rewards written on the clothespins for when she moves those clothespins to the “weight lost” row. Be fun, colorful and creative. A quick search on google images for “weight loss vision board” shows some pretty neat designs that you can use.

You can also use an app – there are many you can choose from. You can go to the app store and type in “vision board” and see the ratings and prices.

Putting it somewhere visible

Now put it somewhere you’ll see it daily. Take a minute or two to look at the pictures and feel emotional and inspired again. You don’t have to know exactly how you’ll get there right now. Just feel it and let your brain do the work. Whenever you have an idea about how you can achieve that vision or goal, how do you know if it’s right? Well, if it brings you closer to your goal, then do it!