A vision board is a powerful way to set intentions and visualise your dreams for the coming year.

With 2026 around the corner, creating a vision board is a beautiful ritual to set intentions and get excited about the year ahead. A vision board is a visual collection of images, words and symbols that represent where you’re heading – helping your future goals feel clearer, closer, and more real.

Vision boards work not because they magically deliver outcomes, but because they help train your focus. One of the key mechanisms behind this is something called the Reticular Activating System (RAS) which is a network of neurons in the brain that filters information and decides what deserves your attention.

Your brain is constantly bombarded with far more information than it can consciously process. The RAS acts like a gatekeeper, prioritising what feels relevant based on what you repeatedly think about, see, and value. When you consistently visualise your goals through images, words, and symbols on a vision board you’re essentially teaching your brain what matters.

Over time, this heightened awareness makes you more likely to notice opportunities, ideas, habits, and decisions that align with your intentions. By keeping your goals visible, your brain becomes better at spotting pathways that move you towards them.

To put it plainly: what you focus on shapes what you notice, and what you notice influences how you act. A vision board keeps your intentions front of mind, helping you take small, aligned actions that compound over the year.

• A quiet space: Find a place where you can concentrate without distractions.
• 1-2 hours: This project can take anywhere from an hour to an afternoon, depending on how detailed you want to get.
• Supplies (for a physical vision board): Scissors, glue, a poster paper or corkboard, printed images, magazines, and any decorative extras like stickers.
• Design tool (for a digital vision board): You can use tools like Canva, Figma, Adobe or PowerPoint/Google Slides.
• Computer or phone: For browsing and collecting images, especially if using Pinterest or another image source.

Here’s our step-by-step guide to creating a vision board that will help you stay inspired all year long.

STEP 1: Reflect on 2025

Before diving into your vision for next year, take a moment to reflect on your achievements in 2025. It’s easy to move through life without acknowledging how far you’ve come, so take a minute to write down your accomplishments. Whether big or small, they’re all worth celebrating.

Ask yourself:

• What was the highlight of the year?
• When were you most proud of yourself?
• What did you achieve, big and small?
• How did you surprise yourself?
• Did you push yourself outside of your comfort zone?

This practice helps you start the year with gratitude and sets the stage for what’s to come.

STEP 2: Define your Pillars

To create a vision that’s meaningful and balanced, focus on core areas of life. Rather than setting goals in isolation, these pillars help you look at your life as a whole: from how you feel in your body, to how you relate to others, work, and your environment.

This pillar covers your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. It includes nourishment and nutrition, movement, mindfulness, sleep, stress management, and the everyday habits that support (or detract from) how you feel in your body. It’s about both adding supportive behaviours and gently releasing any that no longer serve you.

Your inner world. This pillar encompasses self-connection, spirituality (however you define it), creativity, learning, emotional processing (like therapy or shadow work), and personal growth. It’s about how you nurture your relationship with yourself, your intuition, and the unseen aspects of life.

This pillar relates to how you connect with others and the wider world. It includes romantic relationships, friendships, family, boundaries, communication, sensuality, and your sense of belonging within community. It also extends to how you give back and feel supported by others.

Work Wealth is about your purpose, and financial flow. It includes your career or business, passion projects, skills development, money mindset, and how you earn, manage, invest, and receive resources – without separating success or abundance from sustainability or wellbeing. It isn’t just about hustling, but working in rhythm and with intention.

This pillar focuses on your physical and energetic surroundings. It includes your living space, routines of care, decluttering and organisation, nesting, aligning to seasonal rhythms, and how your environment supports rest, creativity, and calm. It’s about creating spaces that feel nourishing rather than draining.

You can choose whichever pillars resonate most with you, but we find these five create a grounded, holistic foundation to build from.

STEP 3: Set your intentions

Spend 10-20 minutes jotting down any goals or aspirations for each pillar. Your goals don’t need to be huge to be meaningful, but they should strike a balance between being stretching you to achieve your dreams and actually possible for you in the 12-month period (or at least progress enough to be close). The aim is to get a mix of achievable, exciting and inspiring milestones for each area.

You should dream big! Just keep your goals for the year realistic: chunk larger, long term goals down into achievable milestones.

Here are a few thought starters to get the juices flowing:

In 2026, how do I want to feel in my body day to day?

• How do I feel in my body right now?
• What does it need more or less of?
• What does an ideal wellness routine look like for me this year?
• Are there specific habits (sleep, movement, nourishment) I want to prioritise?
• What steps would support my health goals over time?

How do I want to feel within myself in 2026?

• What practices help me feel most alive and connected?
• How would I like to deepen my relationship with myself or the universe?
• Are there mindfulness practices I want to embrace?
• What rituals would help me feel more grounded or centred this year?
• What am I curious to explore or learn?

How do I want to show up in my relationships, and how do I want them to feel?

• How do I want to feel in my relationships?
• What kind of connections am I calling in?
• Who are my people, and how am I nurturing those relationships?
• Where do I need clearer boundaries or communication?
• How am I giving back or receiving support?

What am I building, and how do I want that process to feel?

• What am I building or moving towards?
• How do I want my work to feel day to day?
• What skills would I love to develop or strengthen?
• What does abundance look like for me in this season?
• What financial or career goals feel aligned for the year ahead?

What kind of spaces help me feel calm, inspired, and at ease?

• How do I want my home to feel?
• What kind of environments feel most nourishing to me?
• What’s within my control to improve or simplify my space?
• How do I connect with nature more regularly?
• Where do I feel most at peace?

STEP 4: Gather inspiration

Now comes the fun part – getting inspired!

Once you have your goals and habits outlined, it’s time to bring them to life with visuals! Head over to Pinterest or a similar platform and create a board titled 2026 Vision Board.

Search for photos, quotes, and anything that visually represents your goals. Start pinning images, quotes, and anything that resonates with the goals you’ve written down. Don’t overthink it, just pin what feels right. You can always refine later. The key is to gather as much inspiration as possible to get your vision flowing.

Tip: For each goal you wrote down, try to find a meaningful image that makes you feel inspired to weave this goal into your everyday life.

A key approach in this step is to include images of your goal and the habits or practices that will help you to achieve this goal. For instance, if your goal is to build a muscular physique, include an image of the build you’re wanting to achieve AND images of the habits it’ll require you to implement to get there: meal prepping, lifting weights, waking up early. Your vision board will only be a pretty picture of your idealistic life without including the daily habits needed to help you to achieve your visions. Focus on the practices that will help get you there.

It also doesn’t need to exactly demonstrate whatever you’re trying to manifest. For instance, you may be trying to call in more stillness or peace into your life, so you might include a picture of a beautiful location which makes you feel relaxed. Its about including things which are meaningful to you.

STEP 5: Create your vision board

This is where your vision board really takes shape! Choose your preferred format – digital or physical – and begin bringing everything together.

Open your design tool (Canva, Figma, PowerPoint, etc.) and create either a portrait (for your phone background) or landscape canvas (for your computer screensaver). Tip: A quick Google of “screen size dimensions” will help you design to fit your device perfectly.

• Arrange images: Import your favourite pins, resize, and position them in a way that looks inspiring. Remember, there’s no “right” or “wrong” layout! This board is for you only, so let it come together in a way that feels meaningful – try to avoid perfectionism.
• Add text and unexpected elements: You can layer in quotes, keywords or even angel numbers for added inspiration.

• Arrange and glue: If you prefer a hands-on approach, use a poster board or corkboard. Arrange your images, then glue them in place. You can add decorative touches like tape, stickers or handwritten quotes.
• Placement: Choose a spot where you’ll see your board daily like your workspace or bedroom.

STEP 6: Check in throughout the year

What a vision board is: a visual to-do list that keeps your intentions front of mind.

What a vision board is not: something you ‘set and forget’ and expect to achieve without hardwork, focus, and aligned action.

"I manifested, but I also did the f*cking work."

Having your vision board in a prominent spot means you will look at it daily to remind you of your goals and keep you on the path toward achieving them. What’s more important though, is to have check-ins throughout the year where you analyse whether what you have been doing is helping to move you toward achieving your goals.

We hope this guide helps you approach 2026 with clarity, intention, and excitement for what’s possible. We’re so excited for what’s ahead! At Oskaya, we have big things planned, and we can’t wait to share them with you. From new product launches to exciting collaborations, we’re focused on inspiring you to cultivate your physical and spiritual wellbeing.

To stay in the loop and be part of the magic, make sure to follow us on Instagram at @oskaya_