Last May, my friend Melanie at Dose of Creativity hosted a Visioning Party where we created visual collages called vision boards. Equipped with stacks of old magazines, scissors to cut them up, and glue sticks to construct, we began with a brief meditation to center ourselves on the goals, aspirations and dreams we wanted to clarify with our creations.

I had been collecting clip-outs for months in advance, snipping any images, phrases or colors that stuck out to me when flipping through catalogs. The party was a great ‘excuse’ to finally carve out time to put the project down on paper, and organize my thoughts into a tangible reminder of what I want.

From friends and family to faith, farms, and far-off destinations, with plenty of random traits, achievements and indulgences sprinkled between, I created this vision board to visualize my dreams:

I used a large, poster-sized board to give myself a big canvas, but Melanie had some great vision board ideas for smaller projects that don’t take up as much time or space. She suggested using:

• Plain manila folders, to give your vision a beginning, middle and end.
• Small cardboard jewelry boxes, to create a ‘wish box’ where you can write dreams on small slips of paper and tuck them away.
• Index cards, to make a ‘character card’ focusing on a certain trait or single aspiration.
• Cardboard children’s books from the Dollar Store (some come in funky shapes like flowers), with the glossy pages sanded down, to make an album of collages.
• Or any size of card or paper in between!

I stole her idea for my next visioning project, and decided to create a business vision folder. I browsed through my leftover cut-outs and extra magazines to find words, illustrations and images related to my freelance writing and digital marketing business, BantaMedia. I decided that the front of the folder would represent what I want my business to be known for. Inside, the left flap would represent my work flow, tools and tasks, while the right flap would represent my work-life balance. The back of the folder would depict the results and achievements of mastering the two collages inside.

The front of my business vision folder: to be known for bold content built on bright ideas, creativity, connecting dots, kicking butt and rejecting status quo.

The work flow (inside left) of my business vision folder: to crush to-do lists, bring motion where there was obstruction, keep the content machine running and do more in less time. And the work-life balance (inside right) of my vision folder: to stress less, master multi-tasking, find more time and energy in each day, destroy distractions, and live, work and play happily.

The desired results of my business vision folder: to achieve a standard of grace not perfection, excellence in journalism, balance, stability, and freelance success.

One image worth explaining is the impossible “blue” rose in the bottom right corner. Literature and art often portray blue roses as a symbol of love and prosperity, but roses lack the gene responsible for producing blue naturally. There’s literally no such thing as a blue rose. So for centuries, people have been dying white roses artificially. It took two companies more than a dozen years of collaborative research to genetically engineer a white rose with blue pigments, and named the flower Applause. However, the genetic modifications don’t entirely block the flower from producing some of its own natural color, so the resulting “blue” rose is more of a lilac or lavender.

The point? Don’t let anything stop your true colors from showing.

Happy visioning!