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Achieving 2018 Goals with a Weekly Action Board from your Vision Board

Vision boards help so many of us find the inspiration and motivation that we need to focus on and accomplish our annual goals.  As I have said before, I choose to skip the lengthy list of New Year's Resolutions each year (sort of) and, instead, focus on one word of the year.  In 2016, my word of the year was RiskIn 2017, my word of the year was Healthy.  No matter the year or the chosen word--I think there is always a second word required every year:  Action.  In order to achieve our goals (or our resolutions)--we simply must take action and work toward each goal in small steps.

I was introduced to the concept of a vision board many years ago--and do find that creating a vision board is very inspiring--but, it shows me only end results--it doesn't do much to help me actually reach those visual goals.  In 2016, I began putting my yearly goals and visions to action, literally, and created weekly action boards to allow me to set a week's worth of small, do-able, positive changes in motion to achieve those big, vague goals of my vision board.  What are a few tips for creating an action board from your vision board?


Begin by Creating your Vision Board of Goals.  In order to achieve your goals (or New Year's Resolutions) for the month--or the year or for your life in general, you must first identify them.  I think a vision board is a great way to visually identify your goals.  Seeing all of your goals in one group does motivate and excite you to achieve them!

Let me show you my Vision Board for 2018...

Your own goals may be very similar to my goals--or very different. So many seek to live healthier, happier lives, spend more time with family, create stronger relationships, lose weight, earn more money, create stronger businesses.  Whatever your large goals are--write them down, create pictures for them and turn them into a visual, motivating collage.

Now What?



Take a Step Back and Look at that Vision Board.  

How do you reach those goals?  

This is, in my opinion, where vision boards crash, resolutions fail, and the depression and blahs set in!  Deep down, I do really want to achieve those visual goals on my vision board.  I do.

But--the distance between where I am at this moment in each of those areas and those final, beautiful goal images on my vision board some days really seem just too great.

It's Time for an Action Board.

What Small Actions can You Take to Work Toward your Big Vision Board Goals? 

Weekly action plan boards work best for me--but, you may be better suited to a monthly action list or board instead.  Working on a weekly list of activities helps me stay focused on short term goals, one at a time, as I make the many (sometimes many, many, many) small steps toward the "big pictures".

I look at each one of my long term goals and ask myself a tough question.....

"What can I do this week to help me reach that goal--or a group of my goals?"


Now.  It's time to Brainstorm--and Create an Action Board that Multitasks.



You will find that many of your goals for the year are related--and that you can work toward many of your goals at the same time with carefully planned actions.

For example, I know that I want to lose weight, eat better, spend time with my family and my husband, check some items off the bucket list, and find time to relax this year.  I also want to give back to the community, grow our family's businesses, get more organized, tackle some home improvement projects, become more mindful and practice some green living.

Well.  That seems overwhelming from that "big picture", doesn't it?

While I created an action board last year, I didn't create a completely effective action board.  My action board tasks in 2017 were often too vague to be actually useful to me.  Stating that I was going to "spend more time with the kids" or "Choose a Weekly Home Improvement Project" were no more useful, in reality, than posting a "More Family Time" or "Improve the House" vision photo.  How was I going to do this?  When was I going to do that?

In 2018, I am going to take some lessons from 2017--and improve my weekly action tasks.  The actions are going to be more specific, more detailed--and better planned so that each action is working toward more than one of my year's goals. 

Well.  That STILL seems overwhelming from the "big picture", doesn't it?

Accomplishing goals requires planning and often requires actual scheduling on the calendar and on the to-do list!  Now that we know what we want to accomplish in 2018--we need to pick some steps (some actions) from each spot on our vision board to reach our goals.  It is a do-able task.  It just really requires that you break down your actions into true, single tasks--and maybe break them down further to smaller, single tasks as you set up your week's action board!

You can see the breakdown of the action tasks toward my various goals in my first week's action board here.


Keep an Eye on your Action Board.  If your action board is out of sight--it will be out of mind.  You will go through your day as usual--and realize at the end of the day that you didn't accomplish any of the actions necessary to reach your vision board goals.  Keep the action board accessible--and visible.  I have a printed copy on a cork board on my office wall--and a PicMonkey collage on my computer desktop.

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If I see my action list frequently throughout the day, I am more likely to complete my actions.  If I write my actions down in a journal and close the book--I may not remember to tackle a task until it's too late in the day.

Update your Action Board on Schedule.  If you plan to accomplish weekly actions toward your goals--don't let the action board set unchanged for a month!   Reevaluate that week's actions at the end of the week.  What worked?  What was unreasonable?  Perhaps one of your actions was too generic to be effective.  Suppose my action, "Try Infused Water", wasn't successful.  I should change it to something more specific like,  "Try a Citrus Infused Water" or "Look up Recipes for Infused Water", and try it again next week!

It is possible to create a successful action board to accomplish your vision board goals--you just need to take it one, active step at a time!

Good luck with your own goals!

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