This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UCLA chapter.
As the new year comes around, I’m always struck with a feeling of motivation to change up my life and really focus on goal setting and what I want to accomplish for the upcoming year. There are a couple ways that I love to remind myself of these goals throughout the year, but my favorite (by far) is by creating a vision board.
If you have never seen or heard of a vision board before, the basic idea behind it is creating a collage of sorts (there is so much creative freedom in this as well! You can use magazine clippings, draw it all out yourself, do it digitally) with images that represent your goals for the year, or the kind of vibe or image that you want your year to look like.
This has become something that I look forward to every year. I create my vision boards on Canva, using photos that I’ve saved on a Pinterest board. If you want to see the images that I created for my vision board this year, here’s a link to my Pinterest board for 2024!
I like to create my board on Canva so that I can make my vision board the screensaver for my computer. I love to do this because it always makes me feel more aesthetic and creative, and it also serves as a constant reminder of what I’m working for, and looking forward to.
There are a couple things that I always try to think about before I make my vision board, in order to make sure that it has all the right things to inspire me throughout the year. And I wanted to share how I reflect on these elements and how I incorporate them in order to hopefully inspire you to make your own vision board for 2024!
1. My Academic Goals
Being in college means balancing so many aspects of life, but I always want to make sure that doing well in school is one of my biggest priorities. My goal for this just tends to be getting better grades, but this can mean so many things. It can mean actually going to those non-mandatory lectures and discussions, going to office hours, even something as simple as committing to lecture review once a week to stay on track. In terms of incorporating this into my board, I like to always put a picture of aesthetic studying, with a nice set up of notes and coffee to help me romanticize doing my school work!
2. My Fitness Goals
Being active and moving my body tends to be the first thing that I neglect when I start to get busy, even when I know that exercise is one of the only things that really helps to relieve my stress. So one of my biggest goals for the new year was to prioritize exercise, and to incorporate set times to exercise into my schedule, rather than just “getting to it when I get to it,” which has been my strategy in the past.
In order to inspire myself to exercise more, I made sure to include a couple exercise related photos on my vision board, including a picture of a gym set up with fun little accessories like colorful water bottles and fun shoes, as well as a picture of a cute workout set (because workouts are ALWAYS more fun when you feel confident; “look good do good” is so, so true!) Also semi-related to fitness goals, I always try to include a picture that inspires me to drink more water — this year it was a glass of lemon water that just looked absolutely delicious.
3. My Mindset Goals
This is probably my favorite piece of my vision board, because I tend to incorporate my mindset goals in my vision board by adding quotes, and I like to make them some of the larger photos in the collage. In terms of finding the quotes that I want to include (I tend to choose between two and three), I like to first think about what I want to focus on this year, and then go from there. This tends to be pretty vague, but for example, this year I wanted to focus on growing and pushing myself out of my comfort zone, so I tried to look for quotes that would remind me of this, and hopefully inspire me to do so, even when I get scared. I found one quote that I really loved, which was, “nothing changes, if nothing changes.” This quote is front and center on my board, and every time I see it, it makes me think about how I can change my life and my habits for the better. I definitely recommend finding a quote that really speaks to you to include in your board. It can really help inspire you in ways that sometimes pictures can fail to do.
4. My Social Goals
This category is definitely more so just pictures of the vibe that you’re going for, rather than defining a specific goal. I love to include some photos relating to travel, because traveling more is always something that I aim for when thinking about a new year. I also love to put some going out-related photos, because I’m always searching for that fun getting ready with my friends, wearing cute outfits, and having a great night out vibe. Again, this one just really depends on what you’re looking for, and can look like any sort of vibe or image that you want your upcoming year to look like.
There is so much creative freedom when it comes to creating a vision board, and it can truly look like whatever you want it to! I wanted to share the things that I always try to incorporate because that’s what works best for me. Any sort of photos or ideas you want to include, go for it! As long as it helps to inspire you, it belongs on your vision board.
- 2024
- academics
- beauty
- college
- goal setting
- goals
- health
- manifestation
- mental health
- mindset
- quotes
- socializing
- style
- vision board
- Vision boards
- visualization
