Stop Making Vision Boards; Make An Action Board
How a simple mindset shift can supercharge your drive in life.
About a year and a half ago (January 2024), I started making vision boards every month. It began as a way to center myself every month with an image of what was inspiring me, colors that I felt represented me, and where I wanted to see myself at the end of the month.
With Pinterest at my side, I fell in love with vision boards! I would start adding pins to a board during the previous month and then throw them together into a Canva document and call it a day.
But after a while, I noticed that My boards were beautiful… but they weren’t changing anything about the way I lived my life. I was pinning inspiration without turning it into action. Month after month, the images became very similar — and my progress was going no where significant.
Why Vision Boards Often Go Stagnant
Vision boards are beautiful and inspiring, but often fall short of their purpose. They’re aspirational, not operational — a map with no directions. They focus on the what without the how, offering images without the concrete steps to make them real. And they can trick your brain into feeling accomplished just by imagining the goal, releasing dopamine without you taking action.
Neuroscientists have found that when we imagine a goal in vivid detail, our brains release dopamine — the same feel-good chemical we get from real progress. The result? You might feel satisfied just picturing your future… without ever building it.
Introducing the Action Board
An Action Board flips the script. Instead of being a wish list of what you hope will happen, it’s a blueprint for what you’re committed to making happen.
On an action board, each photo or element has a clear connection to a task, a habit, or a timeline. It’s not just “I want to travel more” — it’s “Book a weekend trip by April” or “Set aside $200 a month for travel.”
Dreamy “someday” imagery is swapped for tangible, measurable goals. You still get the visual inspiration, but it’s grounded in proof of progress — things you can check off, update, and celebrate along the way.
How This Benefits You
By turning goals into a plan, you are setting yourself up for success. Often times, the biggest speedbump to achievement is the nitty-gritty detail planning. By turning you vision board into an action board, you can identify all of the small details you need to get in order to achieve short and long term goals.
This process keeps you accountable, it shows your progress in a visually pleasing way, and it helps keep your motivation high when you hit roadblocks along the way.
But, What Does it Look Like?
Honestly… whatever works best for you!
I make my action boards in Canva, I choose images that describe states of being that I am actively stepping towards or goals in my career I am embodying. I make it my computer background, my desktop lock screen, so I am always reminded of where I am going.
But your Action board can be physical too; it can be a page in your planner, or a cork board on your wall. The best part of the process is that it is completely customizable to you.
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