By Molly Ann Quigley

You have probably heard of the idea of a vision board.  I define a vision board as a collection of images and words that speak to you in your life right now. People often use them in business as another form of goal setting, to design their house, or in their personal lives to help them define what is important to them. Martha Beck has a good explanation of it here, but if you go back to your teen years when you made poster boards and magazine cut-outs of images and words, you’ll get the idea.

I was watching Oprah’s Master Class the other night with Steve Harvey and Steve was talking about how he had his vision board as his screen-saver, on his wall, on his phone to keep him centered on what he wanted in his life. He has visual reminders everywhere, even having messages sewn into his shirt sleeves and the cuffs of his pants.  So, you can’t do this about your love life, or if you go on a date, you might look like a freak, but you could:

• put a post-it on your refrigerator or bathroom mirror

• keep a quote on the inside of your calendar, your journal, or as a daily reminder on your phone

• keep a secret one behind your car visor or in your drawer at work

• if you love Pinterest, start a private pin board of images of couples or quotes that will inspire you

I didn’t have one quote, I had many.  But I had one story that I kept in a little inspirational book I made for myself on my nightstand. I found this story in a book called Powerful Prayers, but I cannot remember the whole title or author.

I looked at this all the time.  I am a firm-believer that you have to know what you want before it can manifest in your life.  This is why I start every Leisure Learning class and the questionnaire I give clients with asking them to list every quality you want in your significant other.  There are things that are dreams, things that are needs, and things that are deal breakers.  You have to know them and be able to distinguish what are the mandatory things you need, and what things you can disregard.  I wrote more about this here. Remember, dating is a process to find not just who we want, but what we want.

I made the one pictured below in a class called Soul Collage here in Houston.  It is on a card that is only about 6″ x 9″, so no need to buy a big piece of poster board – you can use a piece of cardboard from an old box sitting around, a shoebox or even a cereal box side.  My primary thing I wanted in my next relationship was someone I could grow old with and be my companion.

Why is it people spend more time visually what job they want or the house they want someday, than visualizing who they want by their side to share it with?

Molly Ann Quigley is founder of Online Dating Cheerleader, a writing & coaching service dedicated to helping online daters write authentic profiles that reveal more about themselves than the standard schlock. Through constant research, she teaches classes on how to use dating sites to your advantage and helps people understand the science behind the sites’ algorithms. Every day that she does this is like eating cupcakes barefoot while drinking mint flavored tea with a chevron striped straw. Email her for a 20 minute free consultation and let the dating & cheering commence!