Why Your Vision Board Isn’t Working (The Truth About “Manifesting”)

I’ll confess… I love vision boards. 

Or more specifically, I love the idea of them.

I remember the first one I made, circa 2002, when I read “The Science of Getting Rich” and decided that I was going to get serious about having, being and doing everything I wanted in life, dammit.

I clipped several photos of beautiful homes out of real estate magazines. Photos of stylish women toting expensive luggage on jet-setting adventures. Photos of white-sand beaches and thatched-roof bungalows on the water in Belize (or wherever). Photos of women delivering speeches to large crowds. 

In short, I compiled visual images of ALL the “things and experiences” I thought I wanted.

I’m such a different human now, to be super honest.

I mean, two decades-ish of living’ll do that, first of all. 

But also, I wasn’t an entrepreneur back then, and running my own business for the past 12+ years has humbled me, helped me connect with my true values in life, and made me much more interested in service and contribution than in ego-driven desires.

(Not that I don’t still thoroughly enjoy all the pleasures life has to offer!)

And, the reason I say I love the idea of vision boards is that they’re fun. They’re pretty. They feel like an art project, or (for me personally) like playing editorial director at a magazine.

But let’s talk about what vision boards do NOT do.

In fact, let’s talk about what “belief shifting” often does NOT do… and why it matters when it comes to creating new results in your business.

For most of us, shifting a belief is much like creating a vision board.

Let’s say, for example, you find yourself stuck at a certain income level in your business.

You may tell yourself (or hear from someone else): “You need to shift your beliefs about money.”

Sounds legit.

So you work on beliefs about what you can have, receive, earn, keep, invest, spend, etc.

If you’ve ever worked on a money belief in this way, you’ve probably noticed – your belief doesn’t change all that much over time.

It’s not that you don’t have brief moments of “satori” where you truly feel able to receive large sums of money.

It’s just that they don’t last all that long, and you find yourself returning somewhat close to your original “belief set point” before long.

Here’s what’s REALLY going on, though, and why the belief isn’t changing.

You’re working on the wrong belief.

Yep, you’re working on a belief that is related to OUTCOMES, and not ACTIONS.

(In the same way a vision board is all about outcomes — and the somewhat magical thinking that presumes you’ll get those outcomes just by looking at them on a board.)

I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade — like I said, I think it’s fun to create a pretty vision board.

But I’m a pragmatic person. And I figure I only have so many hours in a day, so if I really want to create results in my life, I need to work with what is actually effective.

So I hope you’ll really hear this, because I can tell ya… it’s sorely lacking in the personal development space.

And it’s also what will make all the difference for you in creating new results in your business, when you really get it.

If you’re working on a belief that you need to be able to “receive” a lot more money, for example — what you’re NOT working on is the belief about how money comes into your life.

Money, for most of us, comes into our lives as a result of actions we take.

And by “actions” I don’t mean long hours of work. I just mean… ACTIONS.

Picking up the phone and calling someone.
Sending an email to a potential client.
Posting that powerful thought you had on social media.
Concepting, developing, and creating your offer.
Showing up for the conference.
Carving out time to meditate each day.
Taking a nap when you’re tired.
Acting on your inner wisdom instead of your frantic thoughts.

Actions. Some of them more seemingly “hard” than others. But nothing too terribly earth-shattering.

And yet these seemingly insignificant actions are where the magic happens. 

If you want to change the amount of money coming into your life, for example, you’re going to want to deeply explore your beliefs, attitudes, and stories about all the many actions you take on a regular basis to bring money into your life.

This isn’t to say, of course, that money can’t just magically appear on your doorstep. It can and sometimes does.

But manifestation work, to be truly effective, isn’t about those situational outliers. It’s largely about the way you show up in your day-to-day over time.

It’s the same with a goal you may have to attract a new type of client. 

If you sit around trying to get yourself to believe, “I deserve to work with XYZ type of client,” but fail to think on a deeper level — “What beliefs are stopping me from taking the actions that would attract that kind of client?”…

Well, you can do all the visualization you want, and nothing’s going to really change all that dramatically.

Here’s a brief list to help you see how this could work for you on something you’ve been wanting to change.

1) Think of an outcome you’ve been wanting to change in your business (income level, new client base, new positioning, new offer you want to create and sell, etc.)

2) Next, list all the beliefs you hold about how that outcome could come about. Don’t worry at all about whether these are the “right” beliefs to hold about it — if you are holding these beliefs, they are affecting your ability to change the situation.

3) Finally, begin to question each of these beliefs. Are they really true? What makes you think they’re true? Are they true for everyone? Have they always been true for you? What if they weren’t true for you? How would that feel? And so on.

This last part, properly attended to, will take some time. 

Here’s one example, though, if your desired outcome is (following on the example above) to “attract XYZ type of client.”

Beliefs: 

I’ll have to change my entire website to do that.
I’ll have to learn how to write better copy.
I’ll need to hire a strategist to help me with my positioning.
I’ll need to create a new offer.
Creating that new offer will take a LOT of time.
I hate creating new offers.
I don’t have time to create a new offer.
I don’t know where to market it.

And so on…

But you can see that the MAIN focus is on all the actions and behaviors that are associated with this new client attraction outcome.

If you take just one simple belief: “I hate creating new offers” and start to question it… 

What you’re going to find (if you look deeply enough) is that, even if you may have historically hated creating new offers, that doesn’t mean you hate creating ALL new offers.

It may just mean you haven’t been creating the right ones.

Or you don’t have the right process in which to do it.

Or you haven’t been asking yourself the kinds of questions that make offer creation easy.

Or you’ve been strangling the process with beliefs about doing it “right” instead of just following your soul guidance.

I hope you’re seeing how this can yield VERY different results than from sitting around trying to convince yourself that you have the ability to “attract XYZ clients.”

Put simply, you emerge from this inquiry with a totally transformed view of the issue.

And a set of new actions you can take based on that.

Like… what if you realized that, for years, you’ve hated creating offers solely because you didn’t have a framework in which to create them?

How might that dramatically shift your results in your business?

You might wake up tomorrow and put your offer together — BAM — and be attracting XYZ type of client by Thursday, and continue to do it consistently for several months, and find yourself with an entirely new business a year from now. 

That’s why I say that it is in these seemingly insignificant day-to-day actions that the magic happens.

This is how manifesting new results in your business gets to be SUPER fun.

If I can leave you with a single important takeaway here, it’s that…

The ONE belief you need to change, if you want a certain outcome, is the belief that you are able to take the actions that will lead to that outcome.

And that there is a way to take those actions joyfully and without dread, anxiety, self-doubt, or all the other things you may be experiencing from your unquestioned beliefs about the whole thing.

Start small. Pick one action you’ve been avoiding or overcomplicating – and instead of trying to force your way through it, question what’s really holding you back. 

When you free yourself from those unseen mental roadblocks, that’s when your vision board starts looking less like a dream and more like your life.

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Running a transformational service-based business is different than any other business out there. Your clients have to bring their own commitment to the process — so marketing hits different for them. The decision-making process requires you do the opposite of almost everything you may have learned. And your own mindset, energy, and heart need to be aligned for your work to work.

I’m Helen Hunter Mackenzie, positioning expert and business strategist for impact-driven entrepreneurs working in the transformational field. I’ll help you differentiate your work, create strong messaging to articulate that difference, and streamline your marketing & revenue strategy so can focus only on attracting high-quality clients and building $10K+ months (and beyond).

Book a complimentary 6-Figure Strategy Session with me, where together we'll uncover the simplest, most high-leverage shifts you can make right now to start building 6-figure success with more ease and a whole lot less overwhelm. 

Schedule your complimentary (no-obligation) 30-minute session today! 📆