The new year is finally upon us, making it the perfect time to set goals for ourselves to help churn out some motivation for self-improvement. There are so many ways to take the vague ideas in our heads and turn them into concrete goals to strive for the rest of the year. However, as someone who already loved collaging in their free time, my favorite method is making a vision board.
Something I don't see as often but believe could be a powerful tool for reaching our goals are specific vision boards. Usually, vision boards cover a broader spectrum of everything we want to change in the upcoming year. That can be helpful in some ways for seeing the overall vibes of the life we are trying to create for ourselves. However, it has been shown that sometimes the best kind of goals are concrete and actionable.
As this is a blog geared (in-part) towards the reading community, I wanted to write about how to make a vision board specifically for your annual reading goals and why this can help you knock it out of the park in ways you didn't think you could before.
Define Your Reading Goals
Before you gather your images and try to make everything aesthetic, it's important to have a clear understanding on what your readings goals are in the first place. There are many directions you could go in with your goals. The most obvious one is how many books you want to read in a year. If this feels good to you, then great! Some other options to consider include:
Medium: How many books (or percentage of books) do you want to be a certain format like print, audiobook, eBook, graphic novel?
Diversity: A number of the year's reading must feature characters or authors of color, who are disabled, who are immigrants, who are poor / working class, translated work, etc. to diversify your reading
Lifestyle Changes: Shifting your routine to carve out more time for reading like listening to audiobooks in the car or scheduling "book dates" with yourself once a week help make it a lifelong habit
Community: Find a way to engage with other readers either online or the outside world. Setting intentions for the kinds of people you want to find and the way you want to interact in these spaces also helps.
Decide on a Medium and Gather Materials
You have options when it comes to the way you want to make your vision board. First up, analog or digital? I've done both in the past and like them for different reasons. Creating a vision board by hand is great if you want that tactile experience of cutting up images and gluing them down exactly how you like. However, you will be limited based on what materials you can get your hands on.
I personally went with digital this year (specifically Canva) because I knew it would be faster, I would have access to way more images, and the typeface would look far better than any handwriting I can produce 😅. Depending on how it's made, this can use full page of printer's ink, however, so make sure that is doable for you if you want to print out the final product.
If you decide on the more hands-on approach, then gather your physical supplies like paper, magazines, print-outs, scissors, glue, etc.
Arrange and Decorate
This is your time to get creative! Arrange your elements to your heart's desire. Layer or not. Use a ton of colors or not. It's your vision board. During this process, you may suddenly come up with a new reading goals and/or decide you want to change ones you had established earlier. That is totally fine, and if anything, shows that your mental juices are really flowing during this process!
Add Quotes and Other Text
While images will likely be the bulk of your vision board, don't be afraid to include some text as well to more clearly convey what your goals are. Another way to use text is to find a reading quote or a quote from a book you love that feels motivating. Either way, you'll find that your vision board has a more balanced look when you incorporate both visual elements as well as text and purely decorative elements together.
Display Your Vision Board
Now you are almost done! The last part is to display your vision board in a place where you will see it on a daily basis. This could be your reading nook, beside your desk, or even as your computer background. The key is that you put it somewhere that helps remind and motivate you towards reaching your reading goals.
Conclusion
Utilizing vision boards is a great way to help you reach your reading goals for the year. Whether you have one main goal, five goals, or even more, it's important to keep in mind that at the end of the day this should be about making reading fun as well as improving ourselves along the way.
And of course, I highly encourage you visit your local library to help you reach those goals! Libraries are great for helping you read without spending a ton of money, giving you new spots to read at, and even accessing digital resources like free audiobooks and eBooks. Your particular library may have even more to offer like book clubs and resources for those who are visually disabled. You won't know till you drop by for a visit to find out!
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