The Vision Board Specificity Test
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- —
A decision rule for what belongs on a vision board and how to write it. Nafousi's distinction is that most of what gets tagged as vision boards are mood boards — pretty images with no specifics — and specificity is the entire mechanism, because a clear goal primes the subconscious to filter information and seek out aligned opportunities. Her own boards are pure bullet-point writing on a large sheet of card, with a future date at the top and life split into categories. The inclusion rule has two filters: authenticity (is this what I want, or what I think I should want?) and agency (do I have any influence over this?). Outcome goals you don't fully control still qualify, because aligned behaviour moves them; pure luck events like the lottery or wedding-day weather do not.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Set the format: card, date, categories
Get a large sheet of card, write the target future date at the top, and split your life into categories. Nafousi uses bullet points rather than images — the visual cut-out approach is what produces mood boards.
Pro tip It doesn't have to be a physical cut-and-paste exercise. Bullet points are the format Nafousi personally uses.
Watch out If it looks pretty but has no specifics on it, you've made a mood board and it won't prime anything.
- 2
Apply the authenticity filter
For each desire ask: when did I first want this? Was I influenced by someone telling me it was a good thing? What do I think it will really bring me — validation from family, peers or community, status and power, or actual fulfilment, joy and contentment? Nafousi's tell is emotional: genuine alignment feels exciting with no worry attached; a 'should' goal carries excitement laced with anxiety or apprehensiveness.
Pro tip Journal around this. Nafousi recommends sitting with it as a sacred, reflective practice rather than rushing the list.
Watch out A goal you don't authentically want won't be filtered for by your subconscious — you'll conclude the practice doesn't work when the problem was the goal.
- 3
Apply the agency filter
Include anything you can influence, even when the outcome depends on other people — subscriber counts, a specific podcast booking, a publishing deal. Exclude only pure-luck events: Nafousi's cut-off examples are winning the lottery and the weather on your wedding day, because there is nothing you can do about either.
Pro tip For a person-dependent goal, name the person. Nafousi wrote 'Jay Shetty podcast' — then also emailed him.
- 4
Write each item at maximum specificity
For a book deal: which publisher, and how far along by year-end. For a podcast: exactly whose. For a promotion: the salary, the job title, what kind of boss, what colleagues, what the office culture feels like. Go big — Nafousi says seemingly impossible things become possible once you know the steps work.
- 5
Put it away and revisit on a slow cadence
Nafousi makes hers roughly annually and reviews around every six months, plus occasional journaling or team goal-setting sessions. The board sets direction; it isn't a daily object.
Watch out Keeping the board in front of you and checking it obsessively is the failure mode — that desperation is what blocks the outcome.
In the wild
Ali asks how ambitious a vision is allowed to be — can he write 'billionaire in six months'? Nafousi's answer draws the line not at the size of the number but at its source. A billion pounds in six months reads to her as fantasy, not a meaningful or soulful place. But 'I want this many subscribers in six months' can be as high as you like if the why underneath it is real — to entertain, teach, or inspire that many more people. Even 'on a yacht by next year' passes, if you can honestly say that sits in your deepest core and name the purpose behind it.
→ The filter is the why behind the number, not the size of the number.
Ali raises the standard goal-setting split: he controls publishing three videos a week, but not reaching ten million subscribers, which depends on other people. Nafousi says put both on the board. Ten million followers stays in because the internet is unpredictable — one thing goes viral, one person shares your channel, and numbers move. The only category she excludes is pure chance: the lottery, because you have no influence over the numbers. Ali extends it to manifesting good weather for a wedding day; Nafousi agrees that's a bad candidate.
→ Agency, not controllability, is the inclusion criterion.
Common mistakes
Making a mood board and calling it a vision board
Nafousi gets tagged constantly in beautiful magazine-collage boards with no specifics on them. Images of a lifestyle don't give the subconscious anything to filter for. The board must name publishers, people, numbers, titles and dates.
Listing goals borrowed from other people
If the goal comes from family expectation or peer status rather than your own values, your subconscious won't prime for it and nothing appears to happen. Nafousi's diagnostic: does thinking about it feel purely exciting, or is there worry and apprehension mixed in?
Including pure-luck outcomes
Winning the lottery is the one thing Nafousi explicitly refuses to put on a board, because there is no aligned behaviour available — you have no influence over the numbers. Filling a board with chance events teaches you the practice doesn't work.
From the transcript
“most people I see doing that are not making vision boards they're making mood boards”
“the only thing I wouldn't be putting down is something like win the lottery okay because that is just luck”
“when you repeatedly visualize your goals your the subconscious parts of your brain starts to Prime itself to reaching them so it filters out any…”
From the episode
Why Manifestation Isn’t Just A Trend: How To Manifest - Roxie Nafousi
Roxie Nafousi