The beginning of a new year is accompanied by a multitude of different emotions, including joy from the holidays, anticipation for a fresh start, disappointment at what you failed to accomplish last year, and anxiety over setting new resolutions and sticking to them. All of these emotions can often overwhelm us and take away from the reflection and gratitude that should be the main focus of starting the new year.
Two years ago, in December of 2023, I decided that I was done feeling anxious on New Year’s Eve and resolved to find a new form of inspiration to help me reach my goals. That year, I began doing research on alternative resolutions and found a video of a woman discussing how she makes a vision board and how this visualization had caused her to have tangible results in her goals, when in the past she struggled to see the changes from mere resolutions.
In her video, this woman explained that an effective vision board is broken up into four distinct sections: health and wellbeing, career and academics, relationships, and personal growth. These four categories encompass a plethora of different aspects of life. For instance, health and wellbeing refers to both mental and physical health; career and academics can include finances or job promotions, or, if you are in school, you can set goals for a certain GPA or degree achievement. The relationships category focuses on any relationship type you are hoping to improve in the new year, including familial, romantic, or platonic relationships. Lastly, the personal growth section, arguably the broadest of all categories, is an opportunity to visualize what aspect of your life you’d like to focus your energy on. This can cover expanding your hobbies, learning a new language, setting a reading goal, or confronting your social anxiety.
These four categories are the main focus of creating a vision board. Once you have this framework, it’s so much easier to narrow down from there and brainstorm a few feasible and specific ways to improve in these areas. I broke my goals down this way in 2023 when I first heard of it and haven’t departed from this method since!
The most effective aspect of creating a vision board is that you are able to visualize the actual actions that will allow you to achieve your long-term goals. It is unrealistic and overwhelming to write down a resolution of wanting to lose 30 pounds; instead, on your vision board, you can find a photo of a specific form of exercise that you like or that you’d like to try and paste this image on your board. Visualizing the action that is necessary to accomplish the goal is so much more effective than setting an overwhelming goal for yourself without providing yourself with the tools to accomplish it.
This year, when crafting my vision board, I set the following goals for myself for each category:
- Health and wellbeing: Walk on my walking pad more, take at-home Pilates classes. I illustrated these goals using photos of a treadmill and a photo of a yoga mat with Pilates equipment.
- Career and academics: My goal in this area is to graduate in winter of 2026 and to secure an internship in politics. I represented these goals by using photos of a cap and gown and photos uploaded by another student working as a campaign intern.
- Relationships: In 2026, I hope to travel to Italy over the spring/summer alongside my close friends. Since this was my main goal for relationships, I chose photos of friends spending time together in various spots in Italy!
- Personal growth: For this section, I copied images of a stack of books to represent my reading goals for the new year, as well as an image of various skincare and self-care items, which would inspire me to take care of myself and prioritize self-care.
These are just a few examples of how I began the framework for my 2026 vision board!
Not only is a vision board effective for visualizing taking actionable steps, but in the case of things that feel impossible at the time, a photo of the end goal can also help you envision yourself having completed that goal! A vision board allows for a blend of images that portray both the actions required to achieve an end result, as well as the end result, which somehow seems so much more realistic when you are seeing an exact photo of your dreams coming true.
Another reason why I love vision boards is that it allows for your creativity to shine; it can be molded to your individual likes and needs. You can be as abstract or as specific as you want when choosing the images that will showcase your vision. The actual creation of the board depends on your personal style as well. My favorite app to find aesthetic photos for my board is Pinterest, but another direction you can take is taking photos of you doing the specific tasks you want to continue to do in the new year. For instance, if you want to go for more runs in the new year, a good idea would be to take a selfie or have a friend snap a photo of you while actually running—this makes it easier for you to conceptualize yourself actually doing it more.
Another stylistic choice is whether you choose to curate your board online using a collage app or tool and then printing the whole poster, or if you prefer rearranging the images tactilely on a board with physical copies. I have done both formats, this year being the first time I have assembled the board using physical images. The pros of compiling on an app or website is that the end product comes out much cleaner when you print the final collage. This option also decreases your chance of making mistakes, since online you can easily erase something or rearrange something if you make an error. However, in my experience, choosing to compile photos online can be much more time-consuming and frustrating because you have less control over the exact configuration of the product.
Conversely, the pros of physical compilation are that you have more control over your creation, and it proves easier to arrange the photos how you like. Additionally, a vision board allows for other craft embellishments. This year, I pasted some fabric flowers that I had left over from a previous project and added ribbon along the edges of the canvas to make a makeshift frame. In the past, both formats proved to be close in cost as well. When I created a vision board using a collage site, it cost around $20 to print it to the size I wanted. This year, physical compilation cost $22 for a canvas to paste images on and for physical prints of photos. However, I already owned hot glue, tape, and other craft materials required to assemble. Online creation took considerably more time, however, as it took me a few days to create the exact board I wanted online. This year, when physically compiling, it took me only a few hours to choose the photos I wanted and even less time to arrange the board the way I wished.
While vision boards require more time and effort than simply writing your resolutions for the new year, in my experience, the results speak for themselves and make this effort worthwhile! Personally, I have found so much more encouragement in creating a vision board rather than simply writing my resolutions, and I have a personal testament to this method helping me achieve my goals. On my vision board for 2025, three “goals” that I hoped to achieve were to lead a more active lifestyle, publish some of my own original writing, and travel abroad to the city of London. Each of these objectives was achieved in some way! One picture I included on my 2025 vision board was a photo of a yoga class—in 2025, I began taking regular yoga classes and even lost 15 pounds, which was part of this goal! Additionally, my desire to have my own work published came to fruition with this very article! On my vision board, I used a photo of a woman writing in a journal to convey this goal. Lastly, I was so lucky to study abroad in London in May of last year, which mirrored the images on my vision board.
The creation of a personalized vision board is a fun and inspirational way to prepare for the new year and allows you to hone in on the specific actions that are required to achieve your goals. I have found that vision boards help me stick to my goals much more effectively, and, additionally, the creation of a vision board allows you to focus on growth rather than failure, which is an encouraging way to approach the new year. I hope this breakdown has encouraged you to try something new when approaching your resolutions for the new year—your mindset is the most important thing when aspiring toward growth, and I believe that the creation of a vision board is just the first step in readying your mind for these accomplishments. Wishing you all the luck and success in the new year, which I’m confident will be a happy one!