Hiya, how’s your January going so far? There are so many ways to get inspired for the coming year (or even the next few days or weeks, depending on what floats your boat) and this time we’re going to use some images. We’re going to create a mini mood board for the year.

Most of us are inspired by pretty or striking pictures – and as they say, a picture paints a thousand words. It’s a good way to capture the gaze which then drives the imagination, and our imaginations are often far more powerful than any of us realise. Never underestimate how amazing the imagination can be!

What is a mood board, then? It’s a collage of images, materials and optional text. It can have a common theme, or communicate a concept or collection of ideas, and can be physical or digital in format. Some people really go to town on them and make ‘vision boards’ complete with intentions, goals and inspirational quotes.

The picture above is an example that I put together in about 12 minutes using one of the free collage templates on Picmonkey. I saved the collage and then edited the picture to add some quick text. Whaddya think?

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Today’s mood board is based on the big wish list for 2017 that we did on Day 6 of Week 1 of this Jump Start Challenge. If you haven’t done this yet, take a moment to think about all your ambitions and dreams for the year, then pick out the three things you’d most love to do. Put the most important main goal at the top of the list, and put two smaller or simpler goals after that.

For example, you might decide to get out of debt for your main goal, and have two smaller goals such as, say, starting your own blog and getting fit enough to run 5k. Or anything else that’s important to you this year, the choice is yours.

How to make your mini mood board

To make today’s mini mood board, use an A5 piece of paper or card (i.e. half a sheet of A4), or make a small-ish digital collage. Now collect three or more images that represent your main ambition or goal for the year, and one image each for the two smaller goals. You can use old magazines, fliers, photos and printed out images for a hand made mood board, or you can use digital images and put them together with free software such as Picmonkey or Canva.

Fix all the images onto your board, then add some words or phrases too if you like. Make sure one of them is ‘2017’, and the rest can be the names of what you want, or words and phrases that motivate you personally. Make it eye catching and fun to look at, but don’t worry that you need to create a masterpiece – enthusiasm is the most important thing here.

Put this picture somewhere you’ll see it often. For example, it could be stuck inside your wardrobe door or on a pinboard, or a digital version could be the wallpaper on your tablet or laptop. It’s a reminder of what’s motivating you this year, and who knows, it might spur on your imagination or even your subconscious mind to help you get moving on your projects and reaching for those dreams.

What’s going on your mood board for 2017? There’s a sandy beach and palm trees on mine!