Although I was late to the trend, I have been using vision board for a couple years now. I first published my post about doing a New Year’s vision board in December of 2023 for the following year.
I’ve always been good at manifesting things that I wanted (at least subconsciously), so I wasn’t sure how this would work, or if I was going to be successful at it. But I committed myself to the vision board and hung it in a place where I could see it nearly every day.
Since then, I have manifested 6 major things in my life from that board! Some of those things were major life events, and others were more about changing my daily life and mindset. And sure, there are more to gain in my life that I’m still working on.
Still, I would say that I’ve had a lot of success with my vision board and manifesting the things I need in my life! Here is my vision board success story!
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*Disclaimer: I am human. I write from the heart and from experience: not to suit any algorithm or perfectly curated feed.
What is a vision board?
Just for clarity’s sake, a vision board is a tool that you can create with images, words, affirmations, or symbols that help you to focus, both subconsciously and consciously (or passively and actively), on things you want to manifest in your life.
It can be a pin board or a poster board you glue pictures on, but whichever method you use, it’s a visual representation of what you want your life to look and feel like.
What is manifesting?
Manifesting is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days. Many people want you to believe that you need certain special things, or you can’t manifest if you don’t do x, y, z, fill in the blank.
That’s not at all true at all. Manifesting means taking a goal and using vibration and energy to pull it toward you, like a magnet. It requires belief, lack of resistance, and will require regular, sustained effort.
There are many different ways to manifest, and although they’re not effortless (it does require work!), it doesn’t have to be a struggle. It doesn’t need to be so convoluted.
You can use conscious manifesting, where you’re using intentional action to work toward a goal. This is you moving toward the goal.
There’s also subconscious manifesting, where you align your vibrational energy and remove all blocks to pull something else toward you.
Combination manifesting is simultaneously moving toward a goal while also aligning yourself with the vibration of that thing by removing blocks with your mindset.
When people talk about “manifesting” something, they’re usually talking about subconscious manifesting, where there are surprising or sudden ways that something is presented or offered to a person.
And that’s valid and totally doable! But in my life, I’ve found that conscious and combination manifesting work best. That might just be part of my spiritual path that I’m walking in this lifetime. Another part is that I’m still working through the blocks my parents created in me around wanting things in my life and the shame of having desires.
And that’s okay! (I’m not going to shame myself further that this is taking time.)
Either way, I’m talking about goals I’m actively working toward as well as surprising things that suddenly offered themselves into my life.
How does manifesting with a vision board work?
Vision boards help with both conscious and subconscious manifesting by helping your energy become like a magnifying glass, zooming in on the things that you want. They serve as reminders to actively pursue your goals, and can also change your energy.
But vision boards are only successful when you take time to look at them, to imagine yourself in this life you’ve created for yourself and really feel how you would feel if you had those things in the present.
A vision board must be somewhere you can see it regularly, preferably every day, and you must dedicate time for visualization. That’s how you can use vision boards successfully!
My Vision Board Success Story
There are plenty of vision board success stories out there to read, so make sure you read all of them. I spent some time once, when I first created my board, making sure I knew how to use my board and how it would work.
All six of these things came into my life at different times, but most of them were six months to a year out from when I first created the board. So make sure you give your board time to marinate, as it were.
My Vision Board
I don’t think it would be fair of me to talk about any success I’ve had without showing you the actual board.
While there are a lot (a LOT!) of problems with this board in terms of the words I chose and the images that aren’t as powerful as I’d like them to be, many aspects of this board worked for me.
Let’s talk about them!
The 6 Things I Manifested From My Vision Board
1. Healing and Better Health
In 2023, I was still suffering from the effects of my endocrine system crash that happened after I stopped breastfeeding 3 years earlier. I had managed to figure out some things that helped, but I wasn’t fully recovered yet.
On my board, on the left side, I had a section dedicated to health. There’s healthy foods to eat, play and exercise, rock climbing, and meditation!
While I didn’t do these exact things I had on my board (I never grew my own food in these two years, for example), I really transformed my eating habits. Between 2017 and 2020, I was not eating very healthy for my body. I have gluten, wheat, and dairy sensitivities, and would consume them all regularly.
Around 2020 when I did the Arbonne 30 day challenge, that was the first thing that truly changed my diet. I was on a better trajectory, but it wasn’t until 2024 and 2025 that I found that I was deficient in many B vitamins and found a few other herbs that increased my health. I was able to combine my healthy eating with supplements and really balance my health!
2. Healthier Mindset for the Sake of my Children
In the bottom left corner, I have several pictures dedicated to family and play!
In 2023 and even through 2024 and part of 2025, I had a terrible mindset when it came to playing with my children. I knew that my own mother had never played with me, but I could suddenly commiserate with her over finding it challenging to gain the energy just to play with them after school.
Part of the challenge with my health was that my energy was drastically drained at about 2:00 in the afternoon. I could not sustain a good mood and was completely frustrated, running on fumes by the time the evening rolled around.
Although it took until I found the Kind Patches over this most recent summer, I finally found something that sustained my good mood and helped me have enough energy to play with my children!
3. Solo Travel
When it comes to vision board success, this one might be the coolest!
In December of 2023, I wanted to go somewhere by myself and to enjoy my own company. I had a picture of a woman traveling alone, gazing out an airport window at the planes taking off. Little did I know that I’d get 2 opportunities to do that!
Trip #1
My first solo trip was back home to the Midwest, to visit my Grandmother before she passed. She was 101 years old (born in 1924), so I knew that this was coming, but I never expected to have the opportunity to visit her on her deathbed.
My mom’s family doesn’t believe in memorial services (not sure why) so I thought Grandma would pass, they would let me know, and that would be that.
But when she had a stroke and was taken off fluids and food, they gave her between seven and fourteen days to live. I had just the perfect amount of time to take some leave from work to see her one last time. It was completely worth it, to see my cousins, my uncles, and I even got to sing Happy Birthday to my grandma!
Trip #2
A couple years ago, I began to meet up with a small group of mom writers on Discord. There are seven of us, and I thought after a few meetings, we would get busy and stop meeting.
However, we actually grew closer and decided to meet up in person! This summer (1.5 years after making this vision board), we all traveled to the East Coast and met up for a long weekend! We did some writing, but we mostly just hung around the pool, ate some terrific food, and watched a lot of Ted Lasso!
It was the perfect, relaxing weekend for a group of moms away from our kids for a few days!
4. Impromptu Trip to Disneyland
In the top, right corner of my vision board, I have a picture of Cinderella’s Castle from Disneyland. I blurred it out on my blog because I’d really not like to get sued by the Mouse, but you’ll have to trust me that that’s what’s there!
My husband and I were hoping to get to take the boys to Disneyland in the coming years. My husband was going to be in LA for a conference just two months after I made this board, and we decided to take the weekend in Anaheim and go to Disneyland!
It was an absolutely abysmal trip… rainy and cold and dark, lots of complaints from the boys. Still, it was the most magical place on Earth, and we made it work.
Little did we know that we would decide few months later to go back in June that summer! The second trip was much more kind to us, weather-wise, and we really enjoyed being back!
5. Publishing My First Novel
I finished writing my current draft of my novel in November 2023, but as any novelist or author (self-published or traditional) knows, just because you’ve written the thing doesn’t mean that it’s ready for publication.
I had hours and hours of editing, slogging through beta reader comments, and crafting a Kickstarter for my debut that included artwork by artist Sunni Rae. It was a ton of hard work.
But in June of 2024, I ran a successful Kickstarter campaign that earned 2x my goal amount and published my novel to Amazon and Kindle in October 2024! (Not an affiliate link.)
While I haven’t quite made it to the New York Times Bestseller list yet, at least I’m on my way!
6. Increased Income
After the Google Algorithm crash of October 2023, I was in a deep despair about my blog. I lost most of my income and honestly didn’t even log onto my blog for over a year. In December of that year, I was hoping for a renewed focus on my blog, but it took over a year to regain the strength I needed to renew my interest in writing.
Instead, I focused on my career teaching music. In 2023, I was teaching 3 days a week, and by 2024, I had been given an extra day to teach library. Now, by summer 2025, I’m teaching full time, and my income has almost doubled.
In addition to that, my blog and novel income are slowly increasing as well, adding even more to that!
Sure, I’m not earning $20,000 a month yet, but, again, I’m well on my way!
Conclusion
Yes, some people hit the jackpot, they have sudden, massive change in their lives. But for me, these changes were enough!
I have made huge strides in having the kind of life that I want to live, and I am emboldened to take even bigger risks in the future.
Having learned from my mistakes on this last vision board, I am creating a new one for 2026, and I will happily share and update after a few years on this new board!
