Why Your Kid Needs a Vision Board
Vision boards aren’t just for grown-ups anymore.
The vision board, a visual representation of your goals and how you’ll get there, has an unfair reputation for being a leadership retreat time waster.
But putting your desires on paper and seeing how all the pieces fit together has a real impact on following through on goals.
Great leaders have strong skills in critical thinking, organization, and managing expectations, so creating a vision board can help kids practice these skills.
It also develops self-awareness as kids have to make decisions about their values and what they want to achieve.
Creating a vision board with your child can also help you to get to know each other better, bonding over your dreams and goals and brainstorming how to get support along the way.
In the video below, Aly from our psychology team gives you some example prompts of what to put on a vision board so you can help your child create their own.
Video Transcript
Hi I’m Aly and I am on a psychology team here at the Young Leader Project and today I'm excited to share with you how to create your very own vision board.
The summer is an exciting time to do self-reflection and think about how you want to grow in the next year.
I'm going to show you how to set up your vision board with all the components and where all the different components and topics can go and then you can use this video to create your own vision board.
The first thing you're going to want to put in your vision board is your name and draw or paste a photo into the center of this document.
Maybe you are a really good artist and want to draw a self-portrait or maybe you have a photo that you really like of yourself. You could print it out and paste it here onto your vision board.
The next thing--up here--”the things that make me happiest are…” What are some things that you really enjoy?
Things that make you really happy--maybe that's hanging out with your friends or spending time with your family, anything that you find that makes you happy and that you enjoy doing.
Here in this box--the next thing over here--”my biggest dream in life is…” What do you hope to accomplish?
Maybe it's something you want to do when you grow up or a certain job you want to have or something you want to accomplish in the future that you feel that you want to really master and get really good. Put that in that box been over here.
“Things I am proud of myself for…”--some things that you've done really well that you feel really proud of yourself for doing that you've accomplished that were difficult but you made it through and you were able to be successful.
Put those in a box near “things that I am good at.” What are some of your skills?
Maybe you’re a really good soccer player or dancer or drawer or reader. It's always really good to write down and reflect on what your skills are. And, “what are some of my goals for next year?”
What are some of your goals for next year? Maybe they're related to school. Maybe you really want to master that English class that you maybe had difficulty with this year or you want to go even above and beyond in science and do really well with science experiments.
Maybe it's related to an extracurricular that you're doing like sports or dance--any of your goals for next year you can put in this box.
Finally, here are quotes and pictures I liked and find inspirational. So, in this box, I made it the largest box so here you can write down the clothes that you like.
You can draw different things that you find inspirational. You can also go to a magazine or something where you could cut out a picture and put it here in this box--anything that you find inspirational.
Now you have all the tools you need to create your own vision board. You can always add in any other categories that you want to and add any sections to create your own vision board.
Don't forget to use a combination of drawings and writing but also any pictures that you have or any pictures that you can find. I hope that you enjoy making your vision board!