2020 Vision Board: Curating Your Year Ahead
At the end of every year, for as long I can remember, I have always found myself getting really introspective. It would usually kick in right around the start of the holiday season, like around Thanksgiving. The realness of the end of the year would start to kick in and I would start to get really deep into my feelings.
End of 2019 was no different.
Actually, by the end of summer 2019, I was already thinking about what the new year would mean for me…and even what the new start of a decade would mean for my life.
I’ve been pretty vocal about how 2019 was basically the best and worst year of my life, forcing me to really rethink my life thus far. With everything that was going on, I decided I needed to take a serious look into a new year tradition I usually gloss over: creating a vision board.
I have never ever EVER been one to make resolutions but I do believe in trying to set the tone for my year. In the past, I’ve created a vision book, started a gratitude list, and chosen a word of a year…just to name a few of the ways I’ve always attempted to ensure I have a great new year.
While I won’t say that those failed, because they definitely did serve me in some way, none of those was really impactful because I would usually forget about em or get distracted by life’s curveballs. This year I wanted to do something different. This year I needed to do something different.
Going into 2020 I was in desperate need of a reset and decided to take creating a vision board seriously this year.
What is a vision board?
As far as I’m concerned a vision board is a visual representation of all the things you want or hope for in the new year. While traditionally people create em at the very top of the year (or end of the previous year), I have come to adopt the thinking that you can create one whenever you want/need to establish some clarity.
In 2018, I used Trello to create a digital vision board and while it did give me something to reference as I tried to work through my goals, it wasn’t really inspiring.
And that was usually the case with my vision board-esque projects in the past — I would forget about them, never really checking in on the imagery, and they would just lose inspiration.
Being that I am a nerd who loves lists, going into 2019, I took a new approach, creating verticals for different areas of my life. Instead of images, I wrote out three focuses for each of these areas — faith, family, marriage, finances, health, and business. A great idea at first, all this ended up doing was giving me anxiety around meeting these goals.
Which brings us to my 2020 vision board…
Inspired by Brittany aka @pinchofhelp, I decided to try my hand at Amber Housley’s method of creating a vision board. What most attracted me to this idea was that my vision board could be on display in my home and actually part of my home…
…not something hidden on my computer
…not something stashed on a shelf
…not some janky cardboard compilation
It could be totally functional and inspiring and pretty!
Creating my 2020 Vision Board
I decided to check our Amber’s vision board workshop to get mentally prepared for creating my 2020 vision board. Really, I just wanted to get some insight into her mental headspace for creating one, but little did I know that by the end of the night I would’ve been ordering mine.
“make your vision so clear that your fears become irrelevant”
After hearing everything that Amber had to say on vision boards, I really fell in love with the idea of curating a visual representation of what I wanted to manifest. Yes, I know that’s what a vision board has always been, but for some reason the old school way of cutting out words & images never really seemed to really quite fit the way I process & get inspired. In any case, to get started I downloaded Amber’s worksheet and got to work. Her worksheet is basically a guide fo brainstorming your vision board and it was super helpful. It’s not so much that it made any grand revelations, so much as it just helped me cut through a lot of the noise & fluff, and really think about the new year in terms of what I wanted more of and what I wanted less of.
Because 2019 was a pretty shitty year, figuring out what I wanted for 2020 was pretty easy: change.
Once I started to peel back the layers, I realized I quickly knew my vision for 2020 because I spotted a recurring patter. From there I went straight to getting my images, which were a combination of Pinterest, my camera roll, and graphics I created using Over.
On Pinterest, I already have a dedicated board for uplifting quotes and daily motivation, so I was able to pull a lot of graphics from there to start but I also searched for specific words on Pinterest to see what else I could find. Once I had a pretty large stockpile of graphics — specifically word graphics — I began culling the ones that would visually inspire and aesthetically please me. For some, where I loved the quote but maybe hated the typography or color or whatever, I made my own images on the Over app right on my phone.
For my photos, I knew I wanted a few things…
to show myself, since I knew for 2020 I wanted to prioritize myself
to show my family in the moments that I wanted to cultivate more of
to include quotes that reflected my intended mindset for the new year
After pulling together a bunch of graphics and images I started to work on actually creating my vision board.
Creating a Shutterfly vision board
“the leading retailer and manufacturing platform for personalized products and communications.”
I started using Shutterfly for photo prints when I moved into my studio apartment in 2011. Since then I’ve used them for address labels, event invitations, custom photo books, notepads, and now, my vision board! With so many different custom projects to choose from, I knew Shutterfly’s collage poster prints would be perfect for creating what I had in mind.
When I started working on this I had no idea I’d actually be finishing my board that night, but since I was already scrolling Pinterest on my phone, I decided to play around with laying out the images on the Shutterfly site. I could’ve used Shutterfly from my computer or the app but they have a super responsive mobile site! It was super easy — one thing lead to another and before I knew it, I’d completed the perfect vision board for the new year I was looking to manifest.
I dragged, dropped, and adjusted everything right from the comforts of my bed on my phone…and I didn’t even use the app (I’m signed into the app for work and didn’t feel like signing in and out). I started out with their verticial 20x30 collage squares photo print for 24 photos. After playing around with the layout I decided to go with a horizontal collage for 28 photos — 7 across and 4 down — which allowed me to create the symmetry that I wanted, with columns for myself, my family, my lifestyle, and quotes.
Once I had a format that I loved and that really spoke to my vision (and aesthetic of course), I chose my background and spacing, then I took advantage of their half off sale. I couldn’t wait to get my new vision board, and while I could’ve opted to have it also framed by Shutterfly, I decided I would simply pick up a frame at the store.
In case you’re wondering, it’s hanging right at the very beginning of our hallway leading to the bedrooms, so that I always pass it but can also see it from the sofa. I didn’t want it so in your face like part of our gallery wall but I also didn’t want it hidden in the bedroom. The hallway is perfect.
