The Solulu method vs vision boards: is a vision board enough?
A vision board is a great start. It helps you decide what you want and keeps it in sight. On its own, it is often not enough. It usually shows strangers and things, not you. And after a few weeks on the wall, it is easy to stop noticing it. For most people the Solulu method is the better pick. It puts you inside one scene from your board and makes looking at it a daily habit, morning and night. That is how the life on your board becomes your real life.
Why everyone makes a vision board
A vision board is a collage of pictures and words about the life you want. It is the most popular way to start manifesting, and for a good reason. It makes you decide.
Before you can stick anything on a board, you have to choose. Which apartment? Which kind of relationship? Which city, which job, which version of you? That choosing is real work, and it is easy to skip without a board.
A board also keeps all your goals in one place. It is fun to make, especially with friends, and it costs almost nothing. A lot of vision board advice on TikTok now says the same thing. Use fewer random pretty pictures, and more pictures of the life you have really decided on.
So a vision board does the first job of manifesting very well. The question is what happens after you hang it up.
Is a vision board enough?
A vision board is enough to start. But on its own it often fades, for two reasons.
It usually shows strangers. Most boards use pictures from magazines and Pinterest. There is a beautiful couple who are not you, and a kitchen that belongs to someone else. There is a girl on a beach whose face you cannot see. The board shows the things you want, not you living with them.
You stop seeing it. Psychologists call this habituation. When something stays exactly the same, you react to it less each time you see it. A board on your wall is the thing in your room that changes least. In the first week, it excites you. A few weeks later, it can feel like part of the wall, and you walk past it without feeling anything.
Vision boards do work. These two problems only mean a board needs two things added. It needs you in the picture. And it needs a moment each day when you look at it on purpose. That is exactly what the Solulu method adds.
Each method in three lines
Both methods hold the same wishes, but they work in different ways. A vision board keeps your wishes in sight, so you keep coming back to them and believe they are coming. The Solulu method comes from the Law of Assumption. You see yourself living one wish as already done, until it feels like a memory.
A vision board
- What you do: gather pictures and words for your goals and put them on a board you see every day.
- How long: an afternoon to make, then a glance in passing.
- What you need: pictures, a poster board or an app, and a spot on your wall or phone.
The Solulu method
- What you do: write one specific moment from the life you want and see yourself in it. Watch it every morning and night, with fresh pictures every few days.
- How long: a few minutes, twice a day.
- What you need: your scene, and a photo or mind movie with you in it. A mind movie is a short video of your wishes, with words and music.
Side by side
A vision board is made once and seen in passing. The Solulu method is a scene you come back to on purpose.
| A vision board | The Solulu method | |
|---|---|---|
| Minutes a day | A glance, often without noticing | A few, at two set moments |
| Effort | High once (making it), then none | Low: you look and feel |
| Needs a strong imagination? | Partly: you imagine the moment behind each picture | No, the scene is in front of you |
| What you need | Pictures, a board, a wall | One scene, and a photo or mind movie of you in it |
| Best goals | Seeing all your goals together, and deciding what you want | Any goal you can turn into one moment |
| How people track progress | Taking down pictures that came true | The scene feels like a memory, then it shows up in your life |
Where a vision board is better
A vision board does several things the Solulu method does not try to do.
- The whole picture. A board shows love, home, money, career and how you want to look and feel, all together. You see how your whole life fits.
- Deciding. Making a board is one of the best ways to work out what you want. The Solulu method starts with one scene, so it helps to know your scenes first.
- Fun and hands-on. Cutting, gluing and arranging is creative and calming. A vision board night with friends is a good night.
- Always there. A board on your wall is in sight all day, with no phone needed.
- Cheap. You need magazines, glue and a poster board.
Where the Solulu method is better
For manifesting itself, the Solulu method is the better choice for most people. There are four reasons.
1. You see yourself living it
A vision board gives you pictures, but usually pictures of strangers. It is someone else’s couple and someone else’s kitchen. Even when you glue your own photo in the middle, you stand next to your life, not in it.
The Solulu method shows your own face, already living the scene. You are at the café table with your person, or on the balcony of your apartment. It feels like a memory, not a magazine. And what feels like your memory is what comes into your life.
That difference matters. In one well known study, people pictured themselves voting, seen from the outside as if in a photo. They were more likely to actually vote. Seeing yourself in the scene is powerful. When you see yourself living it, you assume it is yours. A picture of a stranger cannot do that for you.
2. It does not depend on your imagination
A board gives you a still picture and leaves the rest to you. Who are you with? What are you saying? How does it feel? To get any feeling from it, you have to imagine yourself into it.
That is hard for many people. About 4 in 100 people have very dim mental pictures, or none at all. For them, it is not possible.
The Solulu method gives you the scene itself, with you already in it. You look, and the feeling comes from what you see.
3. It never goes stale
Most methods give you the same words or the same pictures every day. After a few weeks, your mind gets used to them and the feeling fades. That is why so many people keep switching methods. The Solulu method makes refreshing part of the practice. Every few days, you swap in a fresh picture or the next moment in the same life, so the feeling stays strong.
4. It is easy to keep doing
A vision board is easy to make and easy to forget. Because of habituation, it slowly blends into the wall. A Pinterest board just sits unopened on your phone.
The Solulu method is made for coming back to. It takes a few minutes at two set moments: when you wake up and before you sleep. Research on habits shows that deciding exactly when you will do something makes you more likely to do it. The method sets the “when” for you, so you never stop seeing your scene.
Use both: your board is your scene list
You do not have to choose. The easiest way to use both is to treat your board as a list of scenes. Then step into one of them each day.
- Make your board, or keep the one you have (how to make a vision board).
- Go picture by picture. Ask yourself what the first normal moment would be, on the day this is true.
- Write that moment as one scene. Write it with “I”, as if it is happening now. Make it hyper specific.
- Put yourself in the scene with a photo or mind movie that has your face in it.
- Each morning and night, look at one scene for a few minutes. Move through your board across the week, or stay with your favorite.
Here is what that looks like for one board, with love first:
| Picture on the board | The scene inside it |
|---|---|
| A couple sharing dessert in a café | “My person steals the last bite of my cake and grins at me across our table.” |
| A sunny kitchen with flowers | “I put fresh tulips in a jar on my kitchen counter and turn up the music.” |
| A passport and a plane window | “I press my forehead to the plane window as we come down over the sea.” |
| A laptop on a bright desk | “My manager says, ‘We want you to lead this,’ and I keep my face calm until she leaves.” |
| A girl laughing in a summer dress | “My best friend takes a photo of me in my new dress and says, ‘You look so happy.’” |
Here is the SP scene from that board. SP is short for “specific person”, the one person you want to be with. The scene is written out in full, so you can feel the difference between a picture and a moment:
It is Friday night at our café. My person reaches across with their fork and steals the last bite of my cake. Then they grin at me like they have won something. I pretend to be annoyed. I am not.
The picture on the board was two strangers with a dessert. The scene is you, your person and your Friday night.
The verdict, by reader
For most readers, the pick is the Solulu method. Your board is where your scenes come from.
| If you are… | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New to manifesting | The Solulu method, with your board as your scene list | The board helps you choose, and the method gives you a daily practice |
| Someone who can’t picture things | The Solulu method | You see the moment instead of imagining it from a still picture |
| Busy | The Solulu method | A few minutes at two set moments, instead of a board you have stopped seeing |
| Crafty and creative | Make the board, then turn each picture into a scene | You keep the fun and add a daily habit |
| Manifesting your SP | The Solulu method | A couple on a board are strangers. A scene of the two of you is yours. |
How to start the Solulu method
You can start today, by hand or with an app.
- By hand. Pick one picture on your board and write the scene inside it. Find or make a photo with you in it. Look at it when you wake up and before you sleep. It is free. To see how a board compares with a mind movie, read mind movie vs vision board.
- With the Solulu app. Solulu is the iPhone app we make. It works like a vision board you can step into. You describe the life you want and add your photos. You can also add photos of your SP, places, outfits, pets and things you want. The app makes mind movies with you in the scenes. Each one has a calm kaleidoscope opening, scenes of you living that life, affirmations and music. You get up to three new mind movies each week as your goals grow.
- Other tools. Make a digital board on Canva or Pinterest, or try the photo method. Or make a mind movie yourself from your board’s pictures.
Of these, Solulu is the easiest way to do the Solulu method. The reasons are the same four reasons the method beats a board alone. You see your own face inside every goal, not strangers. You do not have to imagine the moment, because you watch it. Fresh mind movies keep it from going stale. And it is made for morning and night, so it never blends into the wall.