My Favorite Micro Habit: Make It visual

Written By Wendy Harrison

As someone with ADHD, I’ve often struggled with keeping my focus on a long-term vision when it seems like mastering the day or week feels like the real win.

And as a real estate agent, with or without the additional challenge of ADHD, you face the same struggles. The requirements of the job have you constantly pulled in multiple directions. So, when it comes to planning epic success for the coming year, you might already feel on oncoming defeat.

Here are a few ways I’ve made my “North Star” goals visual to hold myself accountable, maintain focus and excitement, and celebrate my wins.

Tracking Tools

Let’s start with the most obvious way to make goals visual: tracking tools. This could be a spreadsheet with rows and columns dedicated to the activities you want to track and the specific dates on which you completed them.

Digital tools are shareable and make it easy to run reports, but printing out your tracking tool and posting it front and center in your office, kitchen, or bathroom mirror is even better for making sure you don’t fall off the wagon.

The Accountability Mirror

In his book Can’t Hurt Me, David Goggins talks about the concept of the accountability mirror where instead of focusing on massive goals or overwhelming timelines, he breaks success down to the smallest possible unit: the next controllable action.

Goggins believes most people wake up already defeated, hitting snooze and starting the day behind. His antidote is to “win the war in the morning” by building mental armor before life starts throwing punches. The accountability mirror is where you track (on sticky notes) the real work—what you did today, what you didn’t do, and what’s yours to own. The goal isn’t to reach a finish line and collapse into happiness; it’s to enjoy the small victories along the way and continually define your “new 100%”.

The Vision Board

There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who love vision boards, and those who hate them. Jokes aside, vision boards have a very powerful role when it comes to reaching goals with a longer time horizon:

  • A daily anchor: Vision boards provide a physical or visual reminder of what you’re working toward.

  • A motivation amplifier: Seeing the future-self version of life (the home, the travel, the business, the lifestyle) gives you an emotional connection to the goal that gets stronger over time.

  • A clarity tool: visuals give you direction when you get overwhelmed by abstract goals.

  • A ritual: For many, creating a vision board is a reset moment that feels grounding and hopeful.

My current phone background

Phone Backgrounds

The average person picks up their phone 50–200 times per day, depending on the person and context. With that much repeat exposure, your phone background can be a powerful focusing tool throughout the day.

Take a photo of your vision board or select an image that reminds you of your big “why”.

My current phone background is representative of the idea of having a “seat at the table”. This image is not calming and visually stimulating, it represents my goal for belonging in a community of successful leaders.

Wendy Harrison