Has your blog ever lost its purpose? How can you visually keep your ‘why’ front and center to maintain much your focus? Welcome to the world vision boards for blogging. Learn How to Create Actionable Vision Boards for Blogging Victory and you will keep your mission statement front and center!
Has this scenario ever happened to you?
You’ve worked hard on blog posts all month. They’re getting a good response, but you don’t feel fulfilled. Something is missing. You’re not where you expected to be. You have traffic, you have social shares, but you feel far away from your overall blogging vision.
So often, we get deep into the weeds of the daily work involved in running a successful blog and forget about our original vision and mission. Our “why” can get lost in the shuffle and our blog begins to lose focus or passion. Vision boards are an efficient and creative method to maintain focus, prioritization and obtain goal success!
Vision boards are a DIY collage of images that represent your goals and dreams. (In fact, some people call vision boards “dream boards.”) They should evoke a feeling, something to help inspire you and remind you of your goals.
The theory behind the effectiveness of vision boards is that if you have a daily reminder of something, you are more likely to achieve it. Your vision board could be as simple as putting a picture of yourself on the fridge to help motivate you to lose weight or something as lofty as an image of your dream house or dream vacation on a bulletin board.
Some believe that if you send your dreams out to the Universe, they are more likely to come true… like making wishes. However, as we all know, the only fairy godmother out there lies within you. You have to make your dreams a reality yourself, and that’s where Actionable Vision Boards come in.
[bctt tweet=”You have to make your dreams a reality yourself, and that’s where Actionable Vision Boards come in. ” username=”IBAbloggers”]
What is an Actionable Vision Board?
Well, an Actionable Vision Board combines action steps and milestones with the end goal to help you view a more realistic path to your fulfilling your Vision.
Let’s look at this a little bit further.
We all have dreams and aspirations of being a top influencer or blogger in our area.
- But what are the smaller goals we need to meet to get there?
- How will we create a loyal following and consistent reader base?
- Do you want or need to create e-books, webinars, or maybe live stream videos?
These smaller items are all projects and milestones that need visualization too. They need attention and action!
How do we begin? Well, like any business we need to identify our overall vision and mission statement.
The vision statement is the very basic goal of your business/blog.
For example, The IBA’s vision is “To see all bloggers succeed.”
The mission statement is how we achieve that vision; “to provide an inspirational, friendly, encouraging, and engaged setting to allow for the share of knowledge, resources, and support.” Learn more about IBA’s mission statement and how we help our members succeed!
How to Create Actionable Vision Boards for Blogging From Your Vision Statement
Start by brainstorming images and words that represent your vision.
Continuing with our IBA example, I would brainstorm different images of successful bloggers—folks living happy, fulfilled lives doing something they love. I’d grab images that represented fulfillment and happiness. Maybe that’s a sunset or a beautiful beach. Or maybe it’s an image of someone working in a remote destination since they have flexible hours as a blogger. Maybe it’s an image of a parent spending time with their kids incorporating work and family. Or perhaps it’s an Amazon logo to represent successful book sales or a TV to represent TV engagements.
There is no right or wrong answer. It’s whatever evokes positive feelings reflective of the vision and inspiration.
See how simple it is to create actionable vision boards for blogging!
How do vision boards maintain focus?
As we get into the daily grind of writing and content creation, sometimes we drift in a different direction.
There’s nothing wrong with that if it aligns with our vision. However, if we find that it takes away from our vision (or strays too far), then we need to adjust either our content or revisit our overall vision. For example, part of my personal blog’s vision is to help women and mothers navigate their breast cancer journey, and I realized one day that hadn’t written on this topic in over a year, nor were my older articles easy to find. So I had to reevaluate my content calendar and adjust my blog interface to address this.
Where should we keep our vision boards?
Actionable vision boards should be kept in a place that will inspire you every day!
Here are some ideas:
- Create a collage for your office bulletin board
- Make a private Pinterest pinboard
- Create an inspirational image album in your iPhoto library
- Or my fave: Make it a part of your décor! Put a pretty inexpensive frame around your vision board so it becomes part of your décor.
Whatever you do, make sure it becomes part of your life—something you look at every day.
Give it Value. Honor the importance. And visualize YOUR blogging victory!
Don’t forget to join us for our next #IBAChat Wednesday, August 3 at 12 Noon EDT where we’ll discuss this further. We’ll see you then!
If you missed our #IBAChat, never fear! You can check out our transcript here or view our slideshow at the end of this post.
[bctt tweet=”Grab these great tips to help you create your own Actionable Vision Board. ” username=”IBAbloggers”]
Here are the awesome tips that we shared:
Mark your calendar for our next #IBAChat “Create Blog Content Like a Champion” Thursday, August 11 at 8:30 PM EDt. (*Note the new evening time.)
How to Join in:
If you haven’t ever joined a Twitter party/chat, it’s easy. Just type “#IBAChat” into your Twitter search window and follow along. Or you can use this handy link to #IBAchat!
#IBAChat Slideshow