Why Your Vision Board Looks Amazing But Your Life Hasn't Changed

In this episode, Shannon breaks down the core difference between a vision board and a vision diary, why desire alone will never change your life, and how the vision diary method works with the belief underneath the desire. Because once your brain actually believes something is possible for you, you stop forcing it and start living it.

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Transcript

Why Vision Boards Stall Out

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, and welcome back to the Manifest She podcast. I'm Shannon, and this is where we talk about the real psychology behind manifestation. We're not talking about all that, oh, be high vibe all the time. We're talking about the version that actually works. And today I want to get into something that maybe you've been feeling, but you couldn't put it into words. And you made your vision board and it looked incredible. And you're super proud of it because it's everything that you want, you desire. That's your perfect life, baby. But your actual life is still looking a little bit the same. And today we're going to get into exactly why that is, because it is not because you did something wrong. It's really about the foundation of every traditional vision board. And those foundations of what we put on vision boards is desire. You sit down, you find the images of what you want. That can be the house, the body, the relationships, the business, vacations you want to go on. You arrange it beautifully, you put words of affirmation or just power words, you know, around that. You glue it all down. Somewhere you see it every day is where it's finally displayed. And that process feels very good because it is very intentional. It's being clear about what you want, it's putting it out into the universe. It's finally saying, heck yeah, this is the thing, and I'm owning it. But desire is literally where you start. Desire is telling you where you want to go, but the desire is not telling you how to get there. Because you don't experience what you want, you experience what you believe. And that is really where we get caught up and get taken off track. Most of the vision board parties we go to or the girl parties, or even when we sit down and do it alone. Nobody is talking about beyond what you want. Nobody is talking about how do I get from point A, where I am right now, to point B, what I want and desire. You have this beautiful map, but you have no GPS telling you how to get from one place to the next. And then you wonder why the hell am I not moving? Why isn't my life changing? Why isn't I shift? Like all the gurus say, and how comes I'm not quantum jumping? What am I doing wrong? Not a damn thing. You're not doing anything wrong. There's just this really big gap out there of what it takes to manifest your life. And guys, I promise you, it is not so far-fetched that you have to, you know, really figure it out or get into this certain kind of state. It's not that deep. I know we want to make it seem deep. I know the manifestation world wants it to seem deep. And I get a little frustrated because you have one side of the spectrum that wants everything to seem so deep, like it's a mystery and it's mysterious. And you have to be one of the chosen to be able to tap into it. And I can't stand that. And then there's the other side where it's like, this is just pretty and cute and aesthetic, and you know, girl, boss, girl, power, whatever. Vision board side where you just put pretty sparkly things down. And what really gets lost in the sauce, so to speak, is how do I actually change my life? How do I actually create my life using my mind to do it? So I don't have to hustle. So I don't have to have seven side gigs to have the life that I want. And it all really boils down to belief and what you believe. That's it. But our vision boards touch on desire. It doesn't touch on belief. And last week we talked about how your brain filters your reality based on what it believes is possible, not possible, what it could be for you or not for you. And all of that is filtered through your belief system. Now, I guess the mystical part or the part that people try to make, you know, mysterious is the fact that all of this is happening in your subconscious mind. 95% of what you experience comes from your subconscious mind, day to day, the things that you do. It's just an automatic thing. I want you to think about when you go take a shower, like tonight, or whenever you shower, morning, night, middle of the day, after the gym, whenever that is. How do you wash? You actually wash in an automatic way. Because it became this automatic thing in your life. Because you just believed like top to bottom, or however you decided that you were gonna wash, you know? So it's what you believe. You know, I wash this because I feel like when I put finally put my washcloth on that, my washcloth is tainted. I just believe that, you know, once it touches your feet, it's all over, right? So I don't I wash my feet last, whatever, because that's what you believe. But it's automatic. You don't even have to think about it. It just happens. Everything that you experience from the shower to your money to your career path to your home to your relationships, all of that, 95% of that is automatic. It's not something you're consciously doing positive thoughts around. And so you have to build the belief. And maybe that's where people are like, well, I don't know how to build the belief. Through your thoughts, your emotions, your actions. That's simple. Okay. So what does this have to do with vision boards? Well, if I'm experiencing what I believe, but I'm putting what I want on a vision board, there is a disconnect. And that is why I developed the vision diary method instead. Because your vision board works with desire, but the vision diary works with belief. And that is the one significant shift that is going to change everything for you. And because yes, we start with our desire. Same as a vision board. You think about your desire, you identify what you want, but instead of stopping there and then starting to just paste pictures, you go a little bit deeper and you say, okay, so what belief do I have right now that's blocking this desire? Because if you believe something that's not aligned, oh, there's that word alignment. If I believe something that's not aligned with what I want, I'm in misalignment, right? What that just really means is that this belief is blocking you from experiencing this desire. Okay, that's it. That's all it means. Because I'm filtering my life through what I believe. Then you have to think about, okay, well, if that's what's blocking it, then I go a little bit deeper and I say, what do belief do I need to have so that desire comes into my life? What do I need to believe to experience what I want? Not so I'm forcing it into my life or white knuckling it with that 5% of my conscious brain, but what do I need to believe so it just becomes automatic? Like when I go wash myself in the shower. What is that genuine belief? Now that you know that, you fill your vision board page with what your life looks like with that belief being active. So instead of just having this picture of like a thriving business with some kind of caption or affirmation that's like my dream business. It might be like if I believed that my experience and my story are what somebody needs, I show up consistently, right? And so now if I believe that, then what happens in my life? Because this is the beauty of it to me, which is also kind of a knock on vision boards. But on vision boards, they want you to put the categories of your life. But all of the categories of our life are interconnected, they're not isolated. So if I put some sort of belief behind the pictures in my vision diary, if I believe I have a wildly successful business, like I'm building some belief, whatever that would look like for you, behind having a wildly successful business, then what pictures are now on that page? It's not just success, like some sort of representation of successful business. There's actually more pictures because it's all interconnected. You can work on one thing and get many things. And the vision diary allows you to do that. So when you have a thriving business, that looks like more vacations because you control your time. That looks like only working the hours you want to work. If you're more productive in the wee hours from, you know, 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. because that's your time, baby. Do that. If you're like me and you're more productive at 6 a.m., then it looks like that. When you think about if I have a thriving business, y'all, and this is just this applies to anything, right? This is just an example, but this applies to anything. If I think that, what does my life now look like? It looks beyond just the thriving business. It looks like not being stressed out because I can pay bills. What does it look like? Now you're starting to see a lot of pictures in your mind. And so the vision diary not only moves past just pasting down pictures of things you want, but it expands one belief into many areas of your life. Because our lives are not categorized on like the board is here's my home category, here's my job category, here's my relationship category. Maybe if I had a thriving business, my relationships would be better because I'd have more time to go out and eat with my girlfriends because I'm not exhausted all the time. Like, see how that spills into everything else. And so that's why it's the better tool. I know I'm supposed to say something nice here, like it's an alternative, or you could no, it's just better. It gives you more of what you want because you're not focusing on the desire, but you're focusing on the belief. And once you start to focus on the belief, and that is the foundation of the pages you make, it spills out into every part of your life. Because when you're simply posting what you want, but you're not doing belief work. So say I posted a nice big house. Well, now the only way to get that big house is to have a big down payment, and I have seven side gigs and I'm tired and I'm exhausted all the time, and I'm white knuckling myself through the to the desire instead of building the belief around it that allows it to flow automatically in my life because that's what belief does. Once I believe it, once it's now in that 95% of my brain, my brain is filtering my life to match that belief. And you know, I could say, I don't think vision boards are bad or they don't have a place. But I am saying that absolutely desire matters, but it's the starting point. You know what you desire. You've been making vision boards for years and your life has stayed the same, or you're literally burning yourself out trying to make it happen. It doesn't have to be that way. It can be easier, you can have the things that you desire without stressing yourself out or exhausting yourself. Yes, it takes work. I'm not gonna sit here and say that if you spout off the right affirmation on a Tuesday, you'll have what you want by a Wednesday. But once you understand how to build belief, then you'll just start building those beliefs through your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions. And the vision diary is your help with that. So remember at the beginning when I said your desires were like that point B, but how do you get from point A to point B? The vision diary is the tool. Because I also am not going to sit here and say if you put the right things in your vision diary, it works like magic and you don't have to do anything else. You still have to work on your belief, but now you actually know what you're working on. Now you actually know the thoughts, emotions, and actions that line up to where you're trying to go. So instead of always feeling like that stupid GPS lady when you miss a turn and they're like rerouting, and then they reroute you, but you miss that turn too because it took them so long to reroute you. You've already passed it. Like that's what it feels like working with a vision board sometimes. Like I keep getting rerouted, but not in the right way. But a vision diary is that GPS. It is literally your map that says, turn here, go here through your thoughts, emotions, and actions. And once you understand the belief that you're building, you can align those thoughts, emotions, and actions, solidify the belief instead of saying, well, this is what I want and stopping there. So if you want to build a vision diary, and guys, I don't promote this lightly. It's not just something that's new and aesthetic and fun. It truly is, dare I say, a game changer. It changes everything. I used to use vision boards, and they didn't do jack crap for me. I would talk to other people and they would have vision boards, and they didn't do jack crap, or they had a vision board and five years later they finally got it after white knuckling their way there. The vision diary works because it's based in belief. And the more you work with building beliefs, the easier it gets. Just like anything else. Anything that you do. If I do this for a long period of time, it gets easier, right? So for me, building beliefs now doesn't take as long as it used to. And also, there's a couple other things that go into it. I talk about this in the Vision Lab on more detail in this stuff. But one time I put something, it was October. That's the beauty of vision diaries, too. I could go on and on about all the benefits, but they're not once a year or like they're not full and you don't have room to put anything else in there. They grow with you. You can work on one page at a time, two pages at a time. I just work on my desires whenever they come to me. That's it. If a desire pops up, it goes in the diary. Okay. I put something in there in October because vision diaries aren't time bound. So I put something in there in October that came to me. It's something I had closely desired. And within three hours, I got a phone call of somebody saying, Hey, let's do XYZ. And it was exactly what I wanted that I had put into that vision diary three hours ago, not five years ago. Fast forward to this year, like another big one for me. There's lots of stuff that goes in there, but there was a big one for me, and it was something I really truly needed for my soul, honestly. And I put it, I had the idea, I had the desire towards the end of February. Once I was super clear, I put it in my vision diary in March. Within eight days, that desire had been fulfilled. So I wasn't waiting for years. It wasn't like January with a December 31st thing. It was building a belief. And because I have been using the vision diary for so long, when I put things in there, it comes quicker to me. At first, it took some time. And I hate when people come on and be like, well, it took me three hours and it took me eight days, and you think, well, that's going to be me. I mean, it might be you. I don't know. It's different for everybody. There are some desires that take me a couple months to work with and build beliefs around because they're a little bit larger. I was just really shocked with the eight-day one because that was a humongous desire of mine and it happened in eight days, just mind-blown. Great. But once you learn how to build belief around the desire, so you can have the desire and so much more, once again, the process gets easier as you go. It's a learned skill, like anything else. And that's why I want you to understand manifesting and mindset and creating your reality the way you want it to be on purpose is a learned skill. And the vision diary is a tool to help you with that. I want you to think about it when you learn how to cook, you were opening a recipe book, right? And you were like, okay, a fourth cup of this, two teaspoons of that, and following this exact recipe. And as time went on, it got faster for you. And even as time went on, certain recipes, you're like, oh no, I'm so good with making different things with boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Like I don't even need a recipe. I know these things will go into it. So it starts to become like that when it comes to building beliefs. Because there's some things I don't have to put in my vision diary at all because I just can go through the process really quick, but there's other things I do. And so it's like your recipe book for life. So that's my please start using a vision diary rant of the week, because it goes so much further than vision boards, it goes so much further than high vibes and positive thoughts, because it works with what matters, and that's belief. And if you want to start, if you want to get working on your vision diary, the first thing to do is to get an actual vision diary. And for those of you who may be watching this on YouTube, you'll be able to see it. If you're just listening on other platforms, podcast platforms, audio only, that's fine. I do have a YouTube version of the podcast that goes out every week as well. But I have a specific size vision diary that I use because we're not using teeny tiny journals because we still do need space, but we don't want it to be so bulky that it takes up space. So I found to me what I believe is the perfect size and honestly, just very cute. It's still okay to be aesthetic. Y'all know I'm an aesthetic person. Cute vision diary. I'm actually adding diamonds to mine right now on the front. So if you're on YouTube looking, you can see that. But I have the supply list that you need, everything that you need because there are still pictures in there. There's things in there, but you can just get the free supply list of everything that I use. We use these in our workshops from pictures to the actual vision diary itself. That way you don't have to scroll for hours and hours to try to decide what's the best one and what size you should get. Like just skip all that. Grab the supply list that we always use around here. I'll link it in the show notes so you can start to get that ordered and get it shipped over to you. Or even you can just look at it. So if you want to go to the store and find something that's the same size and hold it in your hands, you can do that too. But go ahead and grab the vision diary supply list because you do need some stuff to start it. But once you get it, you got it. So grab that in the show notes. And remember a vision board works with what? What class? Desire. A vision diary works with belief. What is responsible for what we experience on a day to day basis? What we believe. So start your vision diary this week, and I will chat with you next week.