How to Create Vision Boards: Where Neuroscience Meets Spirituality
Introduction
If you follow me on Instagram you will see I have spent the first two weeks of 2025 considering what I want to achieve this year. I didn’t rush to set new year resolutions only to fall at the first hurdle. Instead, I’ve taken my time to really connect with what is important to me these coming 12 months. The next step has been to create a vision board that represents my reflections. As part of this process, I created a set of reflective questions and you can download a free PDF here and while you’re here on the website, why not sign up to receive my newsletter too?
Here is my board for 2025
It’s a beautiful mix of letting go, rising, achieving success and feeling abundant in all areas of life. Each image represents a powerful metaphor of all I want for the year ahead.
But vision boards, mood boards, or action boards? — whatever you call them — are a collection of pictures, sometimes words and phrases. Now some will dismiss them as wishful thinking, however, when done mindfully, vision boards can be inspiring and life-changing.
On a spiritual level, vision boards are about setting intentions and aligning them to your soul's purpose.
On a scientific level, they activate the brain's neural circuits, driving behaviour and shaping how we perceive opportunities.
In my experience, creating vision boards with intention and pairing them with consistent visualisation taps into both spiritual energy and neuroscience to turn your dreams into reality.
Let’s do a short deeper dive into both the scientific and spiritual aspect of vision boards.
The Neuroscience of Vision Boards
In the excellent book The Source, Dr. Tara Swart, a neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and Senior Lecturer at MIT, Dr Swart highlights the science behind vision boards by explaining how the brain’s Reticular Activating System (RAS) plays a vital role in goal achievement.
The RAS is like your brain's personal filter—it helps you focus on what matters most. By visually representing your goals on a vision board, you train your RAS to prioritise opportunities, ideas, and information that align with those goals.
The Spiritual Side of Vision Boards
From a spiritual perspective, the well-known book, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne presents vision boards as a tool for harnessing the Law of Attraction.
By combining visualisation with intention-setting vision boards help you focus your energy on the life you want to create. Byrne teaches that your thoughts and emotions emit energetic frequencies that attract similar experiences into your life.
How to Create a Vision Board
Clarify Your Intentions
Reflect on your goals and desires. What do you want to achieve? How do you want to feel?
Gather Materials
Select the size of card you would like your vision board to be, scissors, glue, and magazines out of which you can cut out meaningful images and quotes.
Choose Spiritually Aligned Goals
Pick images that evoke how you’ll feel once your goals are achieved. Let emotion guide your selection.
Select and Arrange Images and Words
Cut out pictures, affirmations, and symbols that resonate with your goals. Arrange them in a way that feels natural—there’s no right or wrong here. Then create your board.
Engage with Your Vision Board Daily
Place it somewhere you’ll see it often. Spend a few minutes visualising the life it represents, feeling the emotions of already achieving your dreams.
Take Inspired Action
Vision boards aren’t magic on their own—pair them with consistent action. Stay open to opportunities and trust the process.
Why Vision Boards Work
Dr. Swart explains that visualising activates the same brain circuits as performing the actual action. Just like athletes who visualise their races to prepare for success, using a vision board primes your brain for confidence and achievement.
Spiritually, vision boards work by aligning your intentions, emotions, and energy with the universe to manifest your desires. By visually representing your goals, you engage the Law of Attraction, sending out powerful vibrations that attract aligned opportunities. This practice combines focused intention, positive visualisation, and trust in the process, creating a sacred space where your dreams can unfold. As you regularly engage with your vision board, you raise your energetic frequency, inviting abundance, growth, and transformation into your life.
I hope this blog has convinced you of the merits of creating vision boards.
Why not give it a go, enjoy the process and let me know, or share your creation—I'd love to see it.