When you’re getting divorced, it’s easy to think only about the short-term. You can be in panic mode, where every issue seems like a crisis that brings uncertainty and raises the stakes. But if you don’t lift your eyes from the moment-by-moment emergencies to think about your long-term goals, you may not be doing all you can to create your best future.

One way to avoid that trap—and bring down your stress level—is to relax (or escape) into a vision of your post-divorce life by doing what I call mental time travel. Essentially, you step out of the stressful present and use your imagination to visualize yourself when the divorce is over, doing and having what supports you, energizes you, and makes you happy.

If you do this regularly, you’ll create a  connection to your desired future that’s so vivid, it pulls you toward it—and gives you the energy to stay committed to all you need to do to get it.

Want to take an easy step into mental time travel? One powerful and enjoyable tool you can use is a virtual vision board. When you start to get stressed, playing with a vision board can help you get back in touch with what you want, how you want to feel, and what you want to do in your post-divorce life. And you can easily turn it into a tool for planning that will inspire you as you use it.  

Make a virtual vision board. There are many tools you can use for this, but one I particularly like is Trello, which is easy and free. It has the advantage of making it simple for you to turn your dreams into plans.

How to do make a board using Trello.  

• Sign up, create a board: Get a free Trello account at trello.com. Then follow the simple instructions for creating a new board. One easy way is to customize one of their templates.
  
  

• ​Label your vision board: Call it something like “my post-divorce life” or “Freedom!” or whatever inspires you.
  
  

• Build your life with images: You can create columns with categories like “my home” or “dreams”—whatever appeals. Then daydream a little: What does your home look like? What are you dreaming of? Gather images online that feel like what you want to surround yourself with in your post-divorce life, images you can connect to emotionally. In the old vision board days, you’d be going through magazines and cutting out photos. Now you can search infinite Google images.
  
  

• Add your images to cards: In Trello, you add cards to your board by clicking an “add card” button that shows up in each column you create. Then you can drag the images you like to cards.

What it looks like in practice. Say you are daydreaming, imagining your new life, and you see a blond, longhair dachshund named Frankie. Find an image of a dog that looks like him, and label the card Frankie. There’s space in the “description” box of the card to make notes. Now when you pull up the board and step into your future, there’s Frankie.

The key questions to ask as you do this. What makes me happy? What energizes me? Where do I want to put my energy?

Once you’ve created the first cards that capture the feeling of your new life, use them as vivid reminders, and add new ones as you’re moved to.

A next step—getting practical with all these dreams. When you’re ready, you can use your vision board to help you plan by adding a time element. Think about when you’d like to aim to have these elements in your new life. Create new columns with labels like: A year from now, 3 years out, 5 years out. Now you can set and see your priorities by dragging your cards into the new columns. If you see yourself cozying up to Frankie in two years, for example, slide his card into the “2 years out” column. Once you’ve done this, you can refer to this board regularly to stay focused on working toward the goals and feelings that are most important to you.

Come back often. Click over to your board anytime you need a reminder of why you’re doing the hard work of being strategic and calm to get the results you want in your divorce.

Level up: For the most power, learn the deeper art of mental time travel. This is just a taste of how you can visualize your future. You can also learn a simple visualization process that deepens your imagination and becomes the core of a powerful visualization practice. As you go, this basic vision board idea will keep you connected to the post-divorce life you want, deserve, and can create for yourself.