How do vision boards work?

Have you ever stood in front of a painting and started to weep? Or listened to a concerto and felt shivers run down your spine? 

Images (and music!) carry instant, powerful, emotional messages that bypass logic and reasoning. They move so fast that our minds can’t keep up. 

“Images track instantly to your brain’s visual centres, bypassing conscious thought, which means the brain’s filtering system can’t edit them out or dismiss them,” explains neuroscientist Tara Swart in her amazing book, The Source. 

At this time in the year when we’re making resolutions, setting intentions and goals, we typically spend a lot of time in our thoughts, telling ourselves what’s wrong or missing or in need of improvement with ourselves and our lives. It’s just the way that our brains work (negativity bias—ugh!). 

Entering a heads-on battle with our thoughts, especially when we’re trying to decide where we want to focus our creativity and energy for the upcoming year, can be exhausting and futile. 

Our brains will tell us the answer is to take on more, be more disciplined, control the outcome. But they rarely show us how we want to feel about ourselves and the world we inhabit in our journey forward. 

That’s where images, and more specifically vision boards, can come into play in a really interesting way. 

What’s a vision board?

A vision board is like a mood board, but for your life. It’s an assemblage of cut-out images that speak to you on some deeper level by tapping into your hidden dreams, aspirations and goals. 

What’s the purpose of a vision board?

Vision boards help you sidestep the whole mental goal-setting showdown by using visual metaphors that speak the language of your heart rather than the logic of your mind. Because images can circle around your policing mind, they make for amazing tools when deciding what you deeply desire at critical junctures in your life. Like when you’re shifting careers. Ending a long relationship. Moving countries. Saying goodbye to a familiar way of living (aka 2020). Or welcoming in another trip around the sun (aka 2021)! 

How do vision boards work?

Your vision board is like a dressing room for your future. You try on the "future you" outfit, let your brain get comfortable with it so it green lights the vision, allotting energy and resources towards bringing it to life. This is the law of attraction at work. You’re putting a highlighter around your deeper goals so that your conscious and unconscious minds can team up to help you achieve them. The vision board acts like an intermediary between your heart and your mind—kind of like a couples' therapist for your dreams. 

How can I make a vision board?

I’m so happy you asked,! I’ve got a couple of ideas for you: 

1. You can go back to the free Guide to Great Goal Setting I have on my site and follow the instructions. 

2. If you speak French and want to have a collaborative, energy-lifting experience, I’d be thrilled to see you on January 24th with my dear friend, author and kundalini yoga teacher, Lili Barbery-Coulon for our Atelier Kunda & Creative Flow for 2021. During the two-and-a-half hour webinar Lili will lead us in a communal mediation to help us tap into our intuitive, creative cores before creating our vision boards. To sign up click the link here.

PS. Vision boards help sidestep the whole mental showdown going on in your brain, making them amazing tools for 2021 intention-setting! If you speak French and want to have a collaborative, energy-lifting vision board experience, come join me on January 24th with my dear friend, author and kundalini yoga teacher, Lili Barbery-Coulon for our Atelier Kunda & Creative Flow for 2021 webinar. Lili will be leading us in a mediation to tap into our intuitive, creative flow before creating our vision boards. To sign up click the link here.

Desperately seeking validation

Last week I bought myself one of those Sesame Street, muppet-like sweaters from Unliqlo that looks and feels like a fuzzy stuffed animal. 

And it was a good thing I bought that warm comfort mop. All weekend I used it to soak up my tears after getting passed over for a prestigious part-time mentor position that I really thought I'd be perfect at. 

My face buried in Snuffleupagus’s arms, I thought a lot about why this rejection stung so much. 

It wasn't because I didn’t get the job, it’s because I didn’t get the validation I was secretly seeking.

To my insecure mind, being chosen for the role would have been proof of my value. Proof that I could play with the big kids. Proof that I was stepping up my game. 


I essentially handed my agency and sense of self-worth over to the recruiters, and after examining me, they decided there were better fish to fry. 

My friend Ajiri coached me with this honesty bomb: “Zeva, you don’t need their validation, even though you feel like you do.”

Working for yourself has a million merits, but one thing it doesn’t have is a solid self-validation system. 

It’s hard to give yourself objective praise. We’re not really taught how to do that. What we are taught is how to seek validation outside of ourselves through degrees, promotions, prestigious titles and projects.

So, since I didn’t get the position, I decided to take a scalpel to the experience in search of some self-empowering lessons:

Here’s what I’ve come up with:

• Every time I decide to pursue, or am invited to participate in a project, I'm going to be really freaking honest with myself about WHY I want it. How much of it is a need for external validation? How much of it is because I really want to spend my time and energy and focus on that pursuit? If I didn’t feel the need for validation, would I still want to do that project?

• What in me needs nurturing in order to feel more self-validation? What struggles, doubts, insecurities and fears need some sweet love and attention?

• What would I allow myself to do or create if I had all of the self-validation I ever needed already within me?

As we approach the end to this crazy year and think about what’s on the horizon, the goals and pursuits we’d like to work towards, I invite you to join me in exploring these questions. 

What would it be like to have a year where you stopped chasing external validation and instead sought ways to create a deeper relationship with your internal compass, your own self-satisfaction and creative stimulation?


What would a year like that look like?


PS. I don't have all of the details yet but mark your calendars for a special 2021 Road Mapping Vision Board workshop that I'm doing on January 12th with a pretty phenomenal co-host. More info in my next newsletter, so stay tuned. 

Taboo vaccines and fear inoculations

She looked down at the screaming woman’s face and instantly felt her stomaching tightening up into a tense little knot.  

The fierce and wild expression seemed out of place with all of the softer pictures and words in her collage.

Like someone else had stuck it there by accident, or worse, glued it there intentionally to make her sick.

Over the last few weeks I’ve done four vision board workshops and spoke with dozens of women about what they see in their collages.

Each collage is made up of cut-out images and words that my clients choose quickly and then edit and arrange on their boards with care.

When the collages are all done and everyone has started talking about the lovely things they see in their boards, I shift speed and throw out a doozy of a question. 

What part of the collage makes you feel uncomfortable?

That was the question I asked that led us to “the scream.”

The question hits hard, especially since all of the other questions are as sweet and cuddly as a basket full of puppies. 

It’s my favorite question. (And no, I’m not a sadist.)

So, why do I love that question so much?

What we recoil from and find irritating, repulsive or just flat out unacceptable (mostly in others) is the proverbial “pot of goal” of personal development. 

It helps us uncover a desire or need that seems totally off-limits to us. Unauthorized. Unorthodox. Taboo. 

Watching others nonchalantly behave in that taboo way feels like nails across a chalkboard. Just plain wrong! 

But, you want what, it’s not about them, it’s about you. 

The reason that image or behavior shocks us is because we need a little bit of it in our lives. Let me explain.

Like a vaccine shot to protect us from getting deathly ill, we need a little bit of what repulses us to balance out the rest. 

What we can’t stand in others is what we’re missing (to a certain degree) in ourselves. 

Here are some examples:

Repulsion: That “pretentious snob” of a co-worker who’s loud and outspoken in meetings even though his ideas are so basic and boring.

Vaccine: Accepting imperfection. 

Next steps Don’t kill your ideas before they’ve hatched. Share them even when you’re not 100% convinced others will appreciate them. 

Repulsion: That “selfish” and “insensitive” friend who always arrives late. Always. And never apologizes for it. 

Vaccine: Living in the present. 

Next steps: What’s most important to you right now? If there were no consequences to any of your decisions, what would you decide to do?

Repulsion: That “rigid” co-worker who’s “inflexibility” and “hesitation” keeps everything stuck in standstill.   

Vaccine: Slowing down the process. 

Next steps: What would happen if you slowed down the process and embraced the journey without racing to the destination? 

You see where I’m going with this?

Now let’s get back to that screaming face in the first sentence of this post. What did my client find so repulsive about it? 

As a new entrepreneur starting out in the wellness business, it was a reminder of how scared she is about speaking publicly about her new profession and how terrified she is that she’ll never get over her insecurities.

What she realized during the workshop was that the scream symbolizes brazenness, intensity, determination. The exact qualities, in vaccine-size-doses, that she needs to develop in order to live off of what she loves. 

It boils down to identifying (and accepting), rather than reacting to and recoiling from what makes us uncomfortable, like the dragons in this famous Rainer Maria Rilke quote:

“How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races—the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”

Where does this mean for you?

• Next time you have a strong reaction/repulsion to someone’s behavior, move beyond the “EEK” feeling and try and see what bothers you so much. 

• What has this person allowed themselves to do/be that offends you so much ?

• When you peel back the onion, what permission in its purest form is at the root of their behavior (honesty, spontaneity, self-love )?

• What vaccine-size-dose of that permission could you inject yourself with?

• What one thing could you try differently now that you’ve been inoculated?

Keep me posted on what you uncover, and if you want to go further and tackle some more of taboos, reach out and book a call with me.

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Photo by Gabriel Matula on Unsplash

Anne-Sophie Roquette finds her "pelote de laine" at L'Atelier13

“Pelote de laine”

It means “ball of yarn” in French.

And it's crazy how often my clients use that expression in our sessions. 

Not because they’re knitters, or obsessed with sweaters, or particularly manual. 

But because unraveling their web of fears and desires feels a lot like untangling a jumbled ball of yarn. 

You know what I mean, right? When you're searching desperately for that little thread at the beginning of the spool so that those tight intersections can start opening up and letting loose?

And when your fingers finally it everything starts to settled down —your shoulders relax, your eyes soften, your breath calms down. The relief and satisfaction is huge. At last, you can start getting on with your stuff!

I'm fascinated by the “pelote de laine” stories of everyday women who figure out how to loosen up their tangled web of interests and doubts and confidently put their ideas into action. 

That's why I’d love to introduce you to Anne-Sophie Roquette, founder of the French fashion and accessories brand L’Atelier13, who found her career calling by listening to what her fingers were telling her as they worked through a real “pelote de laine.” 

Read my interview below with this super inspiring women who went from corporate life to entrepreneurialism while raising three small kids below.

*On Friday January 25, 2019, I’ll be giving vision board workshop at Anne-Sophie’s showroom as part of her Inspirants community events for her clients. Click here to reserve your spot.

Anne-Sophie Roquette at her L’Atelier 13 Showroom

What inspired you to start making your own accessories considering the amount of work you already had going on (career, kids, etc)?

It all started while I had my young daughters. Being stuck at home for long nap hours and early nights, I had to get busy with something, and I found out that manual activities were a great satisfaction to me. It gave me the happy feeling of using my time with something productive. 

How did you find the time to devote to that passion?

I really wonder now how I did find the time. I guess when something becomes your priority (for sanity or for pleasure), you always find the time! My days were really packed but I had that urge to make them even more, which, now that I think about it, and at the time where I try to take things and life slower, seems crazy to me. 

I believe that I was in this age where being productive and making the most of every minute was the most important to me. I would never sop. As soon as the kids were in bed, I would work on a project. At the park watching the kids ? In the subway ? I started knitting before I was even sitting. Conference calling with lawyers ? A knitting project in my hands. I was doing something all the time. That's hilarious when you think about it !

When did you know that it was the right time to switch full-time into your new career? 

It came as a conjonction of different moments. I never thought I would switch. I loved my job, and was fully aware of the ups and downs of launching a business, especially in the quite crowded fashion industry. So it took a while before I even envisioned it, at least a year. 

By then, that little project had been flourishing and meeting some success, and at the same time I wanted to have my third child and some time to take care of her, and on top of it, the company I was working for was growing too much, evolving into something that I no longer felt connected to. I had turned 37 and felt it was now or never. So I allowed myself a two year break to have that baby and cherish every moment of her first years, and concentrate on working on my project. It's been 4 years now, and I don't regret any of it!

What fears or doubts did you have to overcome? 

The main fear is that you leave something that you know and enjoy, for the unknown, the uncertainty, the unpredictability. That was my biggest concern. But once you realize that, if you want to go back to that job, two years from now, you'll still have that same back ground and experience, and be able to interview and find another job, everything seems much easier. I always decided to think that if things were going to turn bad, I would always be able to find a job. That's a great security.

Behind the clothes, the bags, the shoes — what does your brand represent to you?

My brand is really a concentration of what I like most in the way that I envision work. It embodies my values :

Work: Work with people that you are happy to work with, that you get to choose, whether they are interns or suppliers that you care for, that you help grow and help you grow. 

Perseverance: Being an entrepreneur is not an piece of cake. Some days are harder than others. But I strongly believe that if you keep your vision in mind, no matter what path your days are following, you will end up achieving your goals.

Fulfillment and Happiness: I think you do things much better when you're happy to do them, preferably under the least pressure possible.

Balance: My business could develop faster, probably, but my life is full of many things, and I choose to devote some time for them all: my kids and their projects, my yoga practice, my husband and our well being as a couple (which involves spending time together, but also cooking good food ;-))

What do you want you clients to feel or experience in your creations?

I want them to feel comfortable and sexy, different but with a sense of belonging. I want them to dress in the morning and accessorize with no headache and always feel good no matter where they are, at school with the kids, at work, at a cocktail that same night. 

What made you decide to launch the Inspirations series of workshops for your clients?

I noticed that most of my clients have the same aspirations and hopes as I do. Thinking about the way to balance our busy lives, find moments of joy and well-being, discover new things, in order to improve, become better moms, professionals, wives, friends... The community behind L'ATELIER 13 is eager to share and discover, know better, feel better, and I thought that a good way to serve that community was to bring that kind of value. I'm driven by what I feel like doing, and learning, and I really hope that it could interest more women, so I was very enthusiastic about bringing that value through my brand. 

What piece in your collection means the most to you?

Probably the first one, the Cosi Bag, as it really launched the project. I came up with the design as I was sewing a dress. The top of that dress made me think of a bag, and I decided to test it out and found out that it was a very convenient one, and yet stylish. That I could make it with the fabrics I wanted and therefore really design it to match my style. 

It was the bag that I could fold in my purse, and use when I stopped after work for grocery shopping. It was the bag that I could use to carry my kids stuff, no matter how many pieces there were to be carried (sweaters, scarves, gloves, hats, snacks...), that I could wash if necessary, in a word, my daily companion.

I started to make some for people who asked, and I believe I sew nearly a hundred, at night and on week-end, before I thought it could be smart to find a workshop that could help me out. This is how the venture started!

If you’d like to meet Anne-Sophie in person come join us on Friday, January 25th 2019 at her showroom where I’ll be giving a vision board workshop as part of her Inspirants evens series for her community . Click here to purchase your spot.