If you are going to achieve your vision – you must be able to see in the dark! But, HOW? How do you quiet your today-mind to make space for your tomorrow-mind to show up? What are the steps to defining your vision?
I find it helpful to place emphasis on creating a future vision – for yourself, your family, and your business.
Recently, there have been a few people who have come to me to tell me they do not “have a vision.” From where they stand, they literally feel incapable of seeing their future; which, in my heart I KNOW is not possible.
I firmly believe everyone is able to see (visualize, conceptualize and describe) a future state of being, with the right tools and state of mind. If you feel challenged in this arena, here are a few steps to defining your vision.
Step #1: Audit Your Today-Life
In order to figure out what you DO want, it is sometimes easiest to start with identifying what you DO NOT want.
Pick a time in your day – where you are most aware, alert and least interrupted (typically early morning hours or later in the evening) to take inventory of ALL the results your life is producing that you no longer want.
Literally, take a piece of paper (journal) and write at the top “I do not want.”
Think about a specific timeframe, such as all of last year. Make a list of what life produced for you last year that you do not want to perpetuate:
- Not enough income
- Lack of motivation or direction
- Ungrateful customers or clients
- Crazy co-workers
- Too much running around
- Not enough quality time with the family
Purge all of it on your piece of paper.
Step #2: Dream About Your Tomorrow-Life
Now that your head and heart are fully excited about purging-out all the ‘I do not want’, take another piece of paper and write at the top “I want.”
Take a deep breath, and begin to list – with joy in your heart and with full optimism that IT IS possible – what you do want:
- Every week, I receive at least 1 new opportunity to help someone
- I spent 1-week in Hawaii with my family
- My coworkers and clients/customers appreciate and value me
- I am known as a specialist in my field
- My kids tell me how fun I am
- I take time to move my body 15-minutes every day
Speak in first-person. Describe it as if it is already accomplished. This is the first seed, that is now planted in dirt – all it needs now is some love, water & light.
Step #3: Understand It’s All Erasable Ink
I, more than anyone, understand the apprehension of putting something on a piece of paper that makes it feel permanent. And, permanency makes me feel nervous. Perhaps it’s my non-committal nature? Because, oh by the way, that gives me ‘the shpilkes’ (Yiddish term for anxiety).
Putting it on paper can make you feel like you will now be forced to accomplish it (think about that, will you REALLY be forced?). I can relate! Rather, my past self can relate.
You must know and trust that none of this is permanent: it’s like erasable ink.
It can all change…IF and when you want it to. A vision should be WAY more fun and fluid. For me, it helps to think in buckets.
As an example, consider the North&Co. 2022 vision we just published. Each paragraph references a different group of people (it describes who we are known to be: internationally, locally, to our clients/customers, to our agents, to our support team).
What’s awesome and has some built-in accountability, for us with our recent vision, is that each sentence is trackable. As we move through the next three years, we can use this as a checks-and-balance for whether or not we completed it.
Defining Your Vision
Come from the mindset that anything is possible. And, since anything is possible; have fun dreaming about what outcome you want to achieve, for what outcome you will achieve, for what outcome you already did achieve!
