There’s a specific kind of stuck that almost everyone knows: the feeling that your life is on pause while everyone else’s is moving. That’s exactly where I was on January 8th of my senior year, sitting in environmental science lab, completely checked out of whatever my teacher was saying and ready to break out of the cinder block walls of my high school.
Something has to change this year, I thought.
And technically, I knew it would. I was in the purgatory of waiting on college decisions, with no idea what the next year would look like. But I also knew that one acceptance letter, one school, or one “bed party” wasn’t going to hand me the fulfillment I was looking for. What I actually wanted was a different outlook on life.
Every New Year’s season, I’d heard the same advice: skip the lofty resolutions and make a vision board for how you want your life to feel. Supposedly, the results could be insane. In the weeks leading up to January, my For You page was flooded with “vision board vs. real life” posts. Someone would show a photo they’d pinned of a woman in a tailored suit giving a presentation, and then a photo of themselves, months later, doing exactly that. Someone else would pin a random beach in January, and by summer, there they were, standing on that exact beach.
I’m the resident “don’t believe everything you see on social media” friend, and I’d never made a vision board in my life. But something about this trend hooked me. Sure, plenty of those moments came down to luck and planning. But some of them were just pure, unexplainable kismet.
What do I have to lose? I figured. So right there, in the middle of environmental science, I started making my first-ever vision board. I definitely didn’t do it perfectly, and I’m no manifestation expert, but a few things I tried ended up making a real difference for me.
1. I started with a blank page (not Pinterest)
Most of the vision boards I’d seen online seemed to be all about the aesthetic. What I rarely saw was the intention behind each piece. So before I touched a single image, I opened a blank Google Doc and free-wrote my way through a few prompts about the year behind me and the one ahead:
- What did I learn this year?
- What drained me?
- How do I want my days to feel?
- What kind of work do I want to be known for?
I wrote without judgment, pure stream of consciousness. By the time I was done, I had six pages, and now that doc is one of my favorite time capsules to look back on.
2. I looked for my patterns
Going in, I half expected that putting something on my board just because I wanted it would make it show up. Once I finished the prompts, though, I read everything back and paid attention to what kept coming up, the things that clearly mattered to me. If you’d asked me beforehand, I probably would’ve said I wanted to travel more. But reading my own words, I realized what I really wanted was to take a few meaningful trips to visit family and friends scattered around the country. So that’s what I focused on instead.
There’s something eye-opening about seeing your thoughts written out in front of you instead of floating around in your head. For me, it showed what I actually wanted, not just what sounded good.
3. I only added things I’d be okay Seeing everyday
The part I struggled with most, as a high school senior still more than a month away from hearing back from (and, thankfully, committing to) my dream school, was deciding what made the cut. I wanted my board to be something I could look at all year, whether or not everything on it “came true.” For me, that meant not slapping a giant GW logo in the middle of it. If I didn’t get in, I knew I’d be pretty upset staring at that logo for the rest of the year.
Instead, I focused on how I wanted my life to feel. I added a photo of the Capitol Building and some of the signs you pass on the walk back from the Georgetown Waterfront, images that captured the essence of what I was going for. Now, every time I pass either of those landmarks, it feels a little more intentional, knowing it’s something I pictured myself walking past at the very start of the year.
4. I kept it somewhere I’d actually see it
Only after all of that did I finally open Pinterest. I pulled together a small handful of images, trying hard to stay intentional. Nothing went on the board just because it looked inspirational or cute; every image had to connect back to what I’d written. Then I made the finished board my laptop background, so I’d see it countless times a day.
Almost a year later
Looking at my board now, I’m honestly in awe. Yes, my more straightforward goals, like getting into GW and settling in here, have happened. But what gets me is how much the board feels like a snapshot of my actual life. A lot of what I wanted was less concrete, like building deeper friendships and connections once I got to college, and so many of the images now look like direct glimpses into my days.
There were some eerie coincidences, too. I’d added a photo of someone pressing an elevator button, mostly to represent my new “city girl” life. They just happened to be pressing floor 12, which meant absolutely nothing to me at the time. Then I found out I got into GW on February 12th. Some people might call that a coincidence. Personally, I see moments like that as signs I was headed in the right direction after putting in the work to build a life that actually fulfills me.
Safe to say, I’m already excited to make my board for this coming year. And after how formative this turned out to be for me, I’d love to find a way to bring people together to make theirs, too.