A Vision Board Expert Reveals How to Manifest Your Perfect Summer
We know it sounds crazy, but summer is less than two months away!
Where does the time go, right? Well, that said, there are still enough weeks to set your summer goals, manifest them and see them come to fruition.
You want a fun summer job? Check. You want a summer romance? Check. You want a trip across the country? Check. Yes, according to vision board expert Joyce Schwarz, with the help of some meditation, visioning and selecting meaningful photos, you are on your way to the life you want.
Sweety High chatted with Joyce, who wrote the book, The Vision Board, the Secret to an Extraordinary Life. Joyce broke down how you can create your very own vision board and make those summer dreams a reality.
Keep scrolling for her four pointers and prepare for your best sunniest season yet!
1. Get Yourself in Picture-Perfect Mode
"You want to start with a picture of you in the center," Joyce says, of taking the first step toward vision board success. "So maybe you have a picture of you offhand or maybe you want to get fit, so you take a body of a different person and put your head on it and put it in the center."
She adds: "You're going to have a strong [ideal] image of yourself, how you want to look this summer—hopefully that can just be a happy face—if you want to, you can go to faceinhole.com or you can make a giphy of you and put your head on somebody else. Or get a feeling for if you want to be at the beach, or you want to be a carefree mountain climber, or you want to be a swimming champion, or you want to be a dancer—just put your head on there and it's really kinda cool because you are that person then. See yourself as that person. As soon as you start seeing yourself differently, you have really kind of changed your point of view."
2. Practice Visioning
"Visioning is a combination of meditation and soul-searching," Joyce explains. "So the idea is that the vision board comes from the inside, not the outside. You want to go inside yourself—it could be intuition or whatever it is."
Colorful photos are key to visioning, Joyce says, noting, "You want to make sure that you don't put black and white. And you put 5-8 pictures as well, because you know for example when you see the dancers in the background of a music video, it's great for mood, but you don't really get a look at it—you're getting glances."
Next, it's time to focus.
"What kind of summer do I want to envision?" Joyce suggests you ask yourself. "I'm closing my eyes and seeing my internal movie. If you're having trouble with that, you could always go into Google Images and search for 'summer.' Which pictures appeal to you? Or you could open a magazine and see somebody rock climbing or see beautiful hair and walking down the beach. Even if you're doing this in Iowa it doesn't mean you can't walk on the beach or that you can't get close to nature and that's part of it. Begin to envision your vision as soon as possible—don't wait until the summer!"
She adds: "Start prepping now, start getting fit, start eating the right foods, start looking at maybe taking a family trip or helping in a community with some kids at risk—something where at the end of the summer you're really going to feel like you accomplished something."
3. Find Your Power Words
"You want to have 3-5 power words appear on your board," Joyce says. "These are how you feel and how you want to feel, because it's the feelings and emotions that change our actions. If we feel bad enough we'll start eating right, or it's something that will help us move forward. Part of this is the idea of reaching into your emotions and not denying them."
She further explains, "If it's a negative emotion, you'll want to immediately switch to the positive emotion. If I'm feeling fear, I want to look at it and see that fear is the same neurological expression as excitement. So instead of saying, 'I'm fearful of taking that violin class,' say you're excited about it! You have to watch your words, too, and you have to walk your walk. Part of it is beginning to immerse yourself [in whatever it is]."
For example, she says, "If you want to go to France, organize a French-themed party, feel it in every part of your life because you need to feel Parisian. Maybe you buy yourself a beret, watch a video about how berets are made, maybe you talk to somebody who has been to Paris. You have to follow up every lead, this has to become like a hobby for you."
4. Let Your Vision Board Guide You Down the Road to Success
"Once you know where you're going, the vision board becomes your GPS," Joyce says. "It is your visual map. It's a way to visually map out and plan your life. This is really based on strategic planning. You can add new things to it, you can do another one, you can do one just on getting a summer job, do one for Mother's Day, do one for Father's Day. You can also do a fashion board, do more of a mood board. I would suggest doing some of the other ones that are more life changing."
A vision board is set out to help you, but if you're looking for ways to make other people smile, follow these eight free ideas HERE!