At Seattle Life Coach Training, we teach our students that the Universe is a doing machine and only knows to do what you tell it to do. SLCT’s life coach training program is a transformational approach to becoming a certified life coach.
A transformational approach is that we ask our students to do their inner personal work first before asking their clients to do theirs. In fact, Richard Seaman who is the founder and director of Seattle Life Coach Training says, “How dare you ask someone to do their work if you are not willing to do yours”. In this case, our students are given the assignment to create their own vision boards and then present them to the teachers and their student peers.
One of the ways our trained life coaches help their clients is to invite them to create a vision board. The process of creating a vision board begins to activate the Universal doing machine because it bathes and stimulates the unconscious mind. A person’s brain is stimulated in two ways: Mental and emotional. By asking a person to create a vision board it starts the process of helping the client to get really clear on what they want their life to look like and become. One of the most powerful attributes of mental images, such a vision board is that the mind does not know the difference between an imaged event or a real event. Therefore, the mind tags the mental image as real and then elicits an emotional positive response. The side effect of this is what is on the vision board becomes real in their lives.
The client is asked to bring in their vision board to the next session and share it with their life coach. The coach will then begin to really dive deep into the client’s vision and then help the client create a plan of action that will support them to manifest the images and phrases into their lives. Can you now see why vision boards are SO powerful!?
Let’s take a deeper dive into how we teach our coaches at SLCT to coach their clients to manifest the life they really want to have. It is a powerful and time-tested process that can really transform lives!
What is a Vision Board?
A vision board is a simple, yet powerful, a visualization tool that helps open the door to the universal “Law of Attraction” and aids in manifesting your dreams into reality.
The concept of the vision board (also known as a goal board, goal map, or treasure map) has been around for generations but gained in popularity after success expert John Assaraf related his story, in the documentary “The Secret,” of using vision boards to achieve his dreams.
NOTE: If you have not watched the documentary “The Secret,” we highly recommend doing so. If you have watched “The Secret” you may want to consider re-watching it; most notably the segment on vision boards. It will help you speak with authority to your clients about the value and effectiveness of this powerful tool.
Vision Boards Explained
A vision board is simply a visual representation, or collage, of the things that you most desire. It consists of a poster, or foam board, with cut-out pictures, drawings, and/or writing on it of the things that you want in your life or the things that you want to become.
Where did the Vision Boards originate?
American author Napoleon Hill (1883-1970) is one of the greatest writers on success. His most famous work, Think and Grow Rich, is one of the best-selling books of all time. Hill’s works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal success. “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve” is one of Hill’s hallmark expressions. Although Napoleon Hill didn’t use the term “Law of Attraction,” he described the same process in detail in his book, Think and Grow Rich.
Is there science behind the “Law of Attraction” theory?
The “Law of Attraction” states that we attract into our lives anything that we give attention to—whether it be positive or negative. From a psychological view, the “Law of Attraction” is best explained by the information filtering system of the brain known as the reticular activating system (RAS).
Vision boards serve the role of programming the RAS to tune into external stimuli that can help us move closer towards our intentions.
At the base of the human brain stem, in between the medulla oblongata and the mesencephalon, there is a small finger-sized control center called the reticular activating system (RAS) that sorts and evaluates incoming data.
Your RAS is responsible for filtering all the incoming information that your brain receives, and it also acts as a receiver for information that is important.
A simple way to conceptualize the RAS is to think of it as a radio. You are surrounded by radio waves from various stations, but your portable radio can only tune-in to one at a time. So, it is manifesting. You must tune-in to what you most want or desire.
Is it important to use a person’s name when activating the “Law of Attraction?”
Yes, using a person’s name has power! It activates the RAS part of the brain. Imagine you are in a meeting room talking to several people and in the distant corner of the room you hear someone call your name. All of your focus gets diverted in the direction of the voice because that bit of information is tagged by the RAS as important to you.
The more you use your name or use your client’s name when talking to them or coaching them, the more alert and focused the brain becomes.
For example, your RAS is responsible for allowing you to sleep through the traffic noise outside but wakes you at the smallest cry from your infant child. Another example of the RAS at work is when you buy a new car and then realize that scores of people in your city have the same car.
See also: Raising your Intention Will Transform your Life and World
Who conducted the RAS brain research and what was discovered?
According to Hans Moravec, the principal research scientist at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, the human brain can handle up to 100 trillion bits of information at any given time. The RAS can’t distinguish between a real event and a “created” reality. We can take advantage of this fact by programming our brain to seek out stimuli in our environment that resonate with our goals.
This is why visualization and hypnotherapy are powerful tools in creating new realities. It is also why life coaches, who have the additional skill or tool of hypnotherapy, can truly help their clients create new realities.
How can create a vision board activate the RAS?
The process of creating a vision board is one of the best ways to program the RAS because it programs the RAS to pay attention to certain things in your environment that are in frequency with your goal or vision, in much the same way as you are able to pick up your name being mentioned in a conversation on the other side of a room while talking to others.
As you can see the training we provide at Seattle Life Coach Training fully supports our coaches in manifesting the lives they see for themselves and in turn the lives they touch in their coaching sessions.
Conclusion
Vision boards are one of the many tools and techniques you’ll use on your path to becoming a life coach. There’s so much more to learn about vision boards and we’re here to help.
