How to Use a Vision Board to Achieve Your Family History Goals

Whether it’s New Year’s Day or a random Tuesday in July, there’s never a bad time to set new goals or start new positive habits. However, taking the steps to achieve those goals can be an entirely different beast. We're here to let you know that there is hope on the horizon for reaching your new goals, and it comes in the form of a vision board.

It’s one thing to say you want to write your novel's manuscript, be able to do 100 push-ups, or know every in and out of genealogy research, but it's another thing to actually take the steps to reach those goals. Many people can agree that maintaining consistent motivation until your goal is achieved is a remarkable feat.

Those who are successful in achieving their goals use different techniques to keep themselves focused on their goal, and one technique you can try is creating a vision board.

What Is a Vision Board?

A vision board is a collage that represents your goals and ambitions. It is a physical representation of what you want for yourself, a way for you to be reminded daily of what you’ve set out to do.

The idea is that creating a vision board will improve your motivation and focus by allowing you to frequently see a physical reminder of your goal. It is tied to manifestation, the belief that by frequently thinking and focusing on your dreams or goals, they will come into existence, or "manifest."

It’s important to remember that neither vision boards nor manifestation claim that by simply creating a collage or thinking about what you want will spontaneously give you results.

Instead, both are tools for focusing your mind and becoming intentional in your actions. They encourage self-reflection, allowing you to become more mindful and learn more about yourself.

In short, a vision board and manifestation are tools for your goal-setting and habit-making, not instant solutions. It’s important to remember that accomplishing your dreams takes work—and that work is still up to you!

What Goals or Dreams Do you Want to Visualize in Your Vision Board?

Your vision board can be focused on one particular goal or a group of related goals. Be sure to write these down before you get building, because having a clear purpose will make knowing what to include on your vision board that much easier.

For example, say your overarching goal is to learn more about your ancestors. Sub-goals may include learning how to search for records on your family, adding memories of the family members you do know, and connecting with your living family to learn more about your ancestors.

Your vision board can include images and quotes to remind you of these goals, images of the ancestors you do know about, an image of a filled-out family tree, and quotes about the power of connecting with your family.

Family History Goals for Your Vision Board

Maybe you know that you want to connect with your family as one of your goals but aren’t sure where to start. Here are some ways to help you connect with your family and family history that you may not have thought of:

• Interview older members of your family, and record their stories. Learning their stories can bring you closer to them You can record and save your family member’s stories for free using the recording feature in the FamilySearch Memories App. Looking for questions to get the conversation started? Try perusing FamilySearch’s “Record My Story” activity page for dozens of subject prompts!
• Build out your family tree—or work on a particular line in the tree. Recording your family tree has never been easier, especially when you connect to FamilySearch’s shared tree. Even if you don’t know much, simply start with what you do know and work from there. FamilySearch has numerous tools and tips to help you through any brick wall you might face.
• Strengthen your family relationships. Whether you simply live apart or have a difficult time connecting, try finding new ways to connect with your family. That could be as simple as committing to calling or texting more often, setting up a time for a lunch date, or finding another way to spend time together.
• Meet new relatives for the first time. Maybe you’ve discovered extended family you didn’t know you had thanks to a DNA test. Maybe you just never got to know your second cousin twice removed thanks to distance, time, or any other number of factors. In any event, connecting with a new relative can be an incredibly special and rewarding experience. Get together with some friends, and try Relatives Around Me!
• Learn how to search genealogy records. Knowing how to search genealogy records can make a world of difference in building your family tree. We don't expect you to become an expert genealogist overnight, but taking small steps to learn the basics can expand your abilities drastically.
• Learn about the surnames in your family. All names have significance. Surnames might tell you an ancestor’s occupation, notable features, or homeland—all of which can help you get to know your ancestors better. FamilySearch has a surname activity to give you this information and more. Try it! It’ll only take a few seconds to learn more about your family!
  

  

• Learn more about the people in your family tree. It can be all too easy at times to look at the names on your family tree and think of them as just that: names. In reality, each of your ancestors were people with likes, dislikes, and dreams—just like you. What was your great uncle’s job? Did your great-great-grandmother have any hobbies?
  Learning the answers to those questions can help you feel a deeper connection to those who came before you. A good place to start is the FamilySearch Fan Chart view—using the fan chart, you can view which of your ancestors have photos and stories you can view.
• Try FamilySearch's Discovery Activities. FamilySearch has several fun family history-related activities. Some, like Picture My Heritage and Famous Relatives, will help you get into the family history mood—and learn more about yourself in the process. Others, like Cemeteries and Discover Missing Ancestors, can give you valuable information to help you grow your family tree.
• Visit places your ancestors lived, or learn more about them. This is a super-fun idea to spice up any travel goals you have for the year, or you can do some virtual exploring of your ancestor's homeland. The Where Am I From? experience on FamilySearch is a great place to help you get started with this, or the heritage travel series on the FamilySearch Blog.

How to Make a Vision Board

Now that you know how a vision board works and have some ideas of different types of goals you could make, it’s on to the fun part: making your own! Where to start? Well, it entirely depends on what you want for your own vision board. There’s no step-by-step tutorials here, as your vision board can be made at any size, of any material. These materials includes (but are not limited to):

• poster board
• printer paper
• printed pictures and quotes
• scrapbook
• magazine clippings
• hand-made drawings
• calligraphy
• stamps
• digital collage

Even macaroni mosaics are on the table, if that’s your medium. The most important thing is that it be meaningful to you. Consider the following questions as you begin.

Where Are You Going to Put Your Vision Board?

It should be in a prominent place, where you can look at it and reflect on your goals regularly. That might be your office desk, your nightstand, your kitchen counter, or somewhere else not mentioned here! The most important thing is that you look at it as often as possible. Whether that means it becomes your phone’s lock screen background or your vision board is plastered to the inside of a kitchen cabinet doesn’t matter—after all, a vision board is for you and nobody else!

Digital Vision Board or Physical Vision Board?

There’s no wrong way to make your vision board. A physically-made product can be hung in a prominent place in your house, but something digital is perfect for your phone or computer screen. Digital may also be easier for those with less space, fewer physical resources, or those less confident with their arts and crafts skills. You can also do a hybrid approach: make a digital vision board, and then print it out.

Vision Board Examples

Looking for some inspiration to get started? Check out these vision boards made by staff at FamilySearch!

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More Vision Board Facts and Guidance

What Should a Vision Board Include?

Once you’ve decided your goals, your vision board’s location, and how you’ll make it, you’ll need to decide what sorts of things to put on it.

The most important things to include on your vision board are things that are meaningful and inspiring to you. Inclusions should be related to the goals you’ve set.

This can be images of you or others working towards said goal, such as athletes exercising to represent being more active, a jar of coins to represent saving money, etc.

You can also include words related to your dream or goal (including simply stating your goal itself), and quotes to provide inspiration and motivation. You can find the pieces for your vision board in books, magazines, online, or any other source you like—or you can make them yourself.

How Do You Lay Out a Vision Board?

There’s no right or wrong way to organize your vision board, but here’s a few guidelines to help you.

1. Arrange, then glue. Perhaps the most important piece of advice: if you’re using physical materials, be sure to plan the layout before gluing anything down! If you work haphazardly, gluing as you find things, you may quickly discover that there’s not room for everything you want.
2. Avoid visual clutter. If you have multiple goals or dreams on your vision board, try to visually prioritize the most important ones by making them larger and putting them in the center.
3. Group similar or related ideas. Allow your smaller goals to visually support the larger ones by placing the small goals around the larger ones, create a linked chain of how your goals will lead to success, or use any other sort of visual symbolism that’s meaningful to you.

How Do You Make a Vision Board on a Budget?

Making your vision board doesn’t need to be pricey. Here are some inexpensive ways to get started:

• Ask around for discarded magazines and newspapers. If you want to make your vision board out of preprinted material but don’t have any subscriptions, ask your neighbors! Your local library may have old newspapers and magazines they can give or cheaply sell to you, and you never know what you might find by asking on your community’s social media page. Someone, somewhere will probably have what you’re looking for! It might be your own parents or grandparents, giving you a fun thing to connect over!
• Use a free collage-making software. If you want to make your vision board digitally, but you don’t have access to software like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Publisher, look for online resources. Many online services can help you.
  
  • Canva and PosterMyWall are designed to help you make high-quality posters and images. Though there are paid elements to both, most of their services are completely free.
  • Pixlr and Photopea are both free photo editing programss similar to Adobe Photoshop, allowing you to crop and edit images to include in your vision board. You can also completely build your vision board within them!

Do Vision Boards Really Work?

Whether or not vision boards are effective is still hotly debated in psychology communities. Some argue that the "law of attraction," that manifestation is based in, has no scientific basis. On the flip side, others say that the very act of goal-setting is proven to be good for our brains.

In addition, vision boards are a type of visualization, a technique that helps the brain create a picture of what it wants for the future.

Visualization can be helpful in many ways: it can boost your confidence and reduce stress and anxiety; it can improve your performance by allowing you to practice succeeding; and it can increase your motivation by training the pathways in your brain to want what you are thinking about.

Visualizing Action versus Visualizing Success

There’s a caveat, though—studies have shown that simply visualizing positive results can be less effective than visualizing the process or the practice it takes to get them. As an example, one study of college freshmen showed that students who visualized themselves studying for an exam did better than the students who simply visualized themselves getting a good grade.

This is an important principle to remember in making your own vision board. As you create your vision board, visualize yourself in the process of your goal, not just enjoying the end result. This can help train your brain to want to do it, leading you to be more successful in your efforts!

Create a Vision Board to Accomplish Your Family History Goals

Vision boards can be an incredibly helpful tool in goal setting. However you decide to make yours, the most important thing is that it reflect your own dreams, goals, and values. As you set forth to create your own vision board, remember that FamilySearch can help you achieve your family history goals. Create a free account today!