The reason vision boards work so well is because they keep our goals up front and center.
When you are constantly reminding yourself of your goals, it makes it easier to follow through with the daily (sometimes boring) tasks that it takes to get to those goals.
Today I’m sharing a tutorial on how you can create a vision board for your phone’s wallpaper.
Resources Mentioned:
Canva (free graphic design platform): https://canva.com
Unsplash (for free stock photos): https://unsplash.com
Renew180 Christian Coaching: https://ashleyvarner.com/180
Highlights From the Episode:
I am a huge fan of vision boards. In fact, my vision board is right up behind me. It’s in a place where I can see it every day. And really, that is the biggest benefit of a vision board. If you have a vision board that just gets tucked away in a drawer, then that is gonna be, it’s gonna be hard to really experience the benefits of a vision board. So today I want to share with you how to create a vision board on your phone. Let’s jump in and get started.
Hey there, my friends, and welcome or welcome back to The Renewed Mind. I am your host, Ashley Varner. And all of this month we’re talking about goal setting. Now, I know that this is something that most people talk about at the beginning of the year but I wanted to give you guys a head start on really accomplishing the goals that you have set for yourself. And one great way to do that is with a vision board.
I wanna share the importance of having a vision board and then talk to you about how I set mine up as well as give you a step-by-step tutorial on learning how to create a vision board that can go on the wallpaper of your phone.
I just want to encourage you to go to the YouTube channel and actually see the tutorial to see exactly how you can create this.
Why It’s Important
But first, let’s talk about why it’s important to have a vision board and why there’s so much hype about him. Well, a vision board is something that you create that you can look at and see every day that really keeps your goals at the forefront of your mind.
There are a lot of different ways that you can do this but the biggest important aspect of a vision board is that you see it every day. Now, it is really easy to spend all your time, you know, decorating a board or you know, copy and pasting things, pasting them on and all these things and making it really pretty.
But as soon as you just set it aside or you put it in a room that you don’t go in very often, you don’t see it every day. That’s when there’s really no point. I mean, it was fun and it was like a little project but there’s really no benefits to having a vision board if you’re not gonna see it every day.
Habakkuk 2:2
Now, Habakkuk 2:2 says, “Then the Lord answered me. Write down this vision and clearly inscribe it on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”
And I think that this is a great example of why we have to have a clear focus and have it written down, have it on paper, have it in front of our eyes. Because if you, just like this example where Habakkuk was saying, look, the Lord is saying this message, this is the message that he wants to give. And it wasn’t enough just to share it but he wanted it written down. He said, “Write down this vision. Clearly inscribe it on tablets so that the herald may run with it.” The heralds were the ones that took the message to like all the provinces. And if the message wasn’t sent to the provinces, it wasn’t going to get understood. It wasn’t gonna get followed, right?
Creating A Vision Board
So in the same way, we can kind of apply this principle to our lives and say, all right, I have a vision. I have goals that I feel like the Lord has placed on my heart. And in order to keep these at the forefront of my mind, I really wanna have a vision board or some type of way to have it in front of my eyes.
Now, like I said, I do love vision boards. I like how pretty they look in this room, which is my home office. It’s also where I do my Bible study in the mornings. It’s where I play the piano, I work out in this room. I see this vision board all the time.
However, I think it is also important to keep it in front of our eyes all the time. What we keep in front of our eyes is what we focus on. So vision boards on your wall are great if you see them every day, but one way to stay on top of your goals is by putting them on the surface that you look at the most every day. And that is your phone’s screen.
So today I wanna show you how you can have a vision board right on your phone, something that you see all the time that can encourage you and really keep your goals at the forefront of your mind. And I wanna show you exactly what I do to create a vision board on my phone. Let’s jump into the tutorial.
Canva
Okay, my friends. So as we look at creating a vision board on our phones, what I want you to do is go to canva.com. Now, this is a free program that you can use. You can also do the Pro version, which is what I have because I use it a lot. But you can have a free plan and really everything that you need to do this is on the free plan.
Choose Your Template
So the first thing that you will do is go into what will you design and you’re going to type in phone wallpaper. And as you do this, it’s gonna bring up a bunch of templates. There are a lot of different templates you can use. I think that you can choose any of these. You can also start with a blank one, but remember, any of these are just templates. So you can just use them for the background. You can add things to them, which is what I’m gonna show you how to do.
If you see anything that has this little crown on there, that means that it’s gonna cost money unless you have the pro version. So there, as you can see, there are plenty of just free ones. There’s some really pretty colors. I would recommend that you just look at the backgrounds and see what is going to just speak to your aesthetics.
We’ll use this one right here. Now, remember, you can take all these out. If you like this little quote, you can do that. But for this sake, let’s just start with the background.
Add A Frame
Now I want you to come over to where it says elements. And we are going to find a frame. These grids here. So what these are, if they have this little picture with the cloud and like the grass here, those are frames that we’re gonna paste pictures into. So if you press See All, what you’re going to see is these collages and you can choose any of these. And really it’s just based on how you want your vision board to be.
Collect Photos That Represent Your Goals
So as you are creating your vision board, you can collect pictures and photos of what really represents your goals the best. So in this aspect, let’s do, I kind of like this one, and we’re gonna make it smaller though ’cause I have more than three goals. And then let’s do, let’s try this one. And again, we’re gonna make that smaller as well.
Okay, so you can rearrange these photos however you want. The sizes, I mean so maybe you want a little bit of background. And then this one, let’s do the same thing. One thing I really like about Canva is that it gives you grid marks. So you can put things right in the center.
See how there’s a little bit of space between here and here? Let’s zoom in just a little bit. See how there’s space in between these? Maybe we’ll do the same thing here. We’ll give it kind of a similar look. Now, you can go as crazy and wild as you want or you can really do things simple. But on this site, in this aspect, I really like how this looks.
The next thing you’re going to do is you are going to fill this with photos that really pertain to the goals that you have. Now, you can do this in a couple of different ways. Canva actually has photos available and you can type in say one of your goals is to get fit.
So you’re gonna type in fitness. Now it brings up a bunch of photos. Remember, if it has this crown here, it’ll cost money but there’s a lot that is free. You don’t even have to really spend anything. What you’re going to do if you see one that you like is you’re going to click it and drag it over to one of these boxes. So after you click on this, you can zoom in, like maybe you just want the water bottle. You can rearrange things if you want to just have that. Again, just double-click it and then drag it if you need to change how it looks, okay?
Then the next thing that you might want to do is maybe you are looking at moving to a new town. So say Chicago is where your new workplace is gonna be and that’s something that you are gonna think about and plan for. There are all these pictures here that you can use. Some are Pro, so make sure that you avoid those if you don’t have a Pro subscription. But the same thing, maybe we’ll put that right here. Now, it just depends on what your goals are. I’m just giving off ideas. I’m not planning to move to Chicago but I just wanna give you different ideas to add to this.
Maybe you really want to work on your relationship with the Lord. So maybe you wanna be really consistent in your Bible reading. They have a lot of pictures of the Bible here. Let me see any of these pictures that I like. I like this one. You could do this. It’s Pro. I have the Pro version, so if I used that, I could. If you don’t, what it’s gonna do is have like a watermark so it’s not gonna look very nice. You can also filter to just free and apply that filter. So that is an a nice feature. So you don’t even have to worry that you would see a photo that you liked and couldn’t use it. Let’s use this one with the cup, and I’m gonna put it right there. So that would be representing my spiritual goals.
Unsplash
Then maybe I have another goal to spend more time with my husband. Let’s say that. Now, there’s all of these cute pictures of weddings and stuff, but I wanted to give you another resource that you can use to come up with photos that are free.
So if you go to unsplash.com, these are all going to be free photos. So I don’t even think you need to log in or sign up for this. You can just type it in. Let’s say marriage. So there’s all of these photos. If there’s one that you like, they all seem to be more wedding than marriage, huh? Let’s see, maybe let’s just do this one.
If you like something, you can just press this Download button and it gives you like if you’re gonna be using it on social media, you can just say thank you to the person who created it. But that’s not always. I mean, we’re just putting this on our phone. So for me, I am going to… Let’s see, here it is. Just gonna drag that photo over to this area here.
Now, on this menu bar right here, you have templates, elements, which is where we were for the grids. You have photos, which is actually canvas photos and then you have one called uploads.
So if I have pictures of myself or pictures that I have that I need to add, I can do that here. You can look for other photos anywhere and then attach ’em here and really use whatever photos you already have. If you have a picture of your own family that you wanted to list on there, you can do that as well.
Okay, so we have a couple more spots. So you might want to, let’s think about some other goals that we might have. Maybe you want to remodel your bathroom and so you see a picture, maybe you found it on Pinterest or something like that. And you really have this beautiful idea of this bathroom that you wanna remodel. Okay, we might put that right there.
And then maybe you want to remind yourself to read more to your kids. So you can even type in something like reading to kids. It can be really easy and simple just to grab that. So here’s a picture of a mom reading to her kids. Actually a whole family, maybe we’ll put it up there. So what that would do is remind you, hey, I wanna read to my kids every night.
Whatever your goals are, I think that that’s great. You can find pictures that represent that with no problem.
And then maybe you have one last one that you really wanna focus on your own self-care. I would say maybe find something like this. I think I have some on my own, but let’s see. Maybe part of your self-care is gardening or learning a new hobby and you wanna try that. Well, you might put that in there and think, I don’t know, I don’t really care for that. Or you might say, you know, this picture right here really represents self-care.
Now, maybe there’s a hobby that you wanna start like cookie decorating and you wanna have maybe here, this is a good picture so maybe you wanna be starting a new hobby and you could use that picture for that.
Download Your Vision Board
Then you can also rearrange pictures if you need to. You can change things around. And then all that you have to do when you get to this point is you can make a new name for it, like Goal Wallpaper or you could even put Phone Vision Board, whatever you want. Then you’re gonna hit the Share button and then you are going to download it.
Canva actually has an app that can be done on your phone but if you just have it on your computer, you can also just save it to your phone and then attach it to the front of your phone. This is gonna be the exact size that you need.
Other Items You Can Put on Your Board
And another thing that you can do is come into these elements and you can just put shapes. So let’s see here. We’re gonna click on that and we’re going to, maybe we wanna have something that says like our word for the year. I don’t know if you do a word for the year. I always do. So you can put a text box, you can put little stickers on there. I don’t know if these would really show up on the wallpaper though. So you just kind of have to play with that.
There are graphics that you can use. So here we have this little flower. This is really however you wanna do it. Just remember you’re not putting the graphic in one of those photo boxes, otherwise, see here how it changed the picture? You just wanna make sure that you are not filling it in. So you may just have to set it there and then just use the arrow key to set it on there if that’s something that you like.
Then you can go to text and add a heading and say something like, say your word for the year is renew. We’ll just use that since this is The Renewed Mind. Okay, you can drag it over here. Really center it. You can change your fonts. Maybe I like this one. We’ll really make it larger. Let’s see what this one looks like. I’m gonna put it in small letters and then maybe we wanna change it to white or like this off white. Make it larger.
One nice thing about Canva is it pulls colors from other parts of the photo. So see this, it took photo colors from the background from the marriage photo, from the cookie photo. And then you can really make things look really nice and aesthetic without a lot of experience with like graphic design. So that’s our new word.
You can do that if you wanted to put like marriage, if you wanted, you could choose a different color here. Let’s try that. Let’s do it so that it kind of matches the background a little bit more. So you could do something like that.
I know for me, whenever I’m doing my vision boards for my phone, I usually leave this space, this center space on the top open because that’s where on my iPhone, that’s where the time is. And I don’t like that to be, like you could even put this up there instead so that you can still see that wording and things like that.
So just play with it, put it on your phone, see what you think. This is saved, after you have your free account, you can just come back and it saves everything for you. So you need to scroll down and it’s right here under recent designs. And then you can make changes if you need to.
That is how you can make a vision board on your phone. I really recommend it. Like I said, there’s tons and tons of templates so if you want something more simple, you can use this. If you want something brighter, there’s something for everybody on Canva and it’s completely free. So make sure to check that out.
Make sure to go over to the YouTube channel so that you can see actually the step-by-step guide on how to create this vision board.
I am so really praying and hoping that your goals, as you partner with the Lord, and come up with the goals and dreams for your life that they are something that you keep in front of your mind and keep yourself focused on so that you can have them at the forefront of your mind and really see the results of what you focus on is what you end up doing.
It’s not any kind of hocus pocus. Really, it’s what your mind is focused on. That’s what you end up thinking about, dreaming about. That motivates your emotions to actually accomplish those tasks. I know for myself that whenever I want to maybe save money, I start watching videos on YouTube about saving money.
If I want to build up my stock in my pantry, then I start watching videos about that. If I want to dream about Paris and take a trip to Paris, I might watch videos about that because what you put in front of your mind, in your eyes is what you think about. And we know that our thoughts lead to our emotions, which lead to our actions and then ultimately, our results or outcome.
I want to encourage you to go through this tutorial and really just accomplish the goals that you have set for yourself. I wanna encourage you to do that. And one of the best ways I know is to keep them in front of your eyes. And where do we look mostly every day? On our phones, right? So this tutorial can be used for your phone, your laptop, your iPad, or whatever it is that you use. And I really hope that this is beneficial for you.
We have a couple more weeks where we’re talking about goals. We’re gonna talk about investing in your dreams and then also how to live out your dreams.
I hope that you will stay tuned. All right, I will see you guys next time.
Have a great week.
