As you know, I’m a great believer in having a vision!
You’ve heard me say before that having a vision for what you want to create in your life is the starting point of all successful achievement. So hopefully, this is something you’ve taken on board and you now have a compelling vision that gives you direction and provides you with a north star during times of confusion or challenge.
For the most part, I encourage people to have a vision for a 2-3 year period, with smaller milestones envisaged within that. This could mean annual targets for business growth or monthly targets for income generation or weight loss. You might also have plans for specific times during that 3 year period, e.g., special celebrations or family holidays. Everything is a bit strange with the impact of Covid but we still have life occasions we want to mark, milestone birthdays and special events, so it’s important to plan for them.
Once you’ve written your vision, the intention is to work with it daily. The greater the relationship you have with your vision the more you’re installing it as an operating system. With my coaching clients, if they tell me they are feeling confused or have lost focus, the first place we return to is typically their vision – is it clear and are you engaging with it regularly?
This doesn’t necessarily mean reading a long vision every day, but you do want to be thinking about at least an element of it daily and taking aligned action.
Such aligned action could include anything from phoning a friend, refusing a chocolate biscuit, getting fresh air to handing in your resignation, starting a new business, joining a dating site or buying a new home. It all depends on your vision and what’s on your agenda at any given moment.
Sometimes though, even when we’re committed to our vision and doing the work, we lose a bit of our mojo when it comes to engaging with it actively and consistently. If we really are thinking about it daily and taking action, it can risk becoming a bit like our wallpaper, we stop noticing it and become a bit passive around it.
So I wanted to share with you some great ways to stay connected with your vision.
- Vision Board – create a compelling picture that captures your vision for the year. I encourage you to have 4 domains so it captures your full-spectrum life: health and wellbeing; relationships, personal and professional; career and how you share your talents and time and money freedom. You may wish to also have a fifth domain in the centre that captures your spiritual life. Then paste pictures, words or phrases, motivating quotes and even decorative pieces that give life to what you would love to create in each domain. You can see a previous one of mine in this week’s image. Keep your vision board where you can see it regularly albeit that it might be a place where only you can view it.
- Create an Audio Recording. Use your phone or computer to record your vision. Then, when you’re out and about on a walk or on the way to the grocery story, or even standing in line at the grocery store, you can listen to it. There’s something very powerful about hearing your own vision spoken back to you in all it’s detail, especially when it’s in your own voice.
- Have a clear short statement of your vision. Create a short sharp statement, just 1-2 sentences that capture your vision, e.g., I am the woman/man who … which gives me the freedom to…. Use it almost like an affirmation, to infuse your day with your intention and keep you focused on taking aligned action.
- Create a Staffolding Image – a scaffolding image in the context of dream building and vision achievement is a powerful image that represents ‘I did it’! What would that look like for you? Maybe it’s marrying the partner of your dreams; starting a family, walking across a stage; winning an award, publishing a book, opening your business? Capture that image for yourself and think of it regularly. Any time you feel you’re off course or experience a set back, or notice that your energy has become contracted, engage with this image.
- Have a morning routine whereby you write a few sentences every day to connect with your vision. How do you want to be today and what’s an action you are going to take in service of your vision today? This is an excellent way to actively engage with your vision in real time and take small steps on a regular basis. Remember, just one degree change every day, means you can come full circle in your life over the course of a year.
Which of these ideas resonates most with you? Capture it and write it in the discussion below. Better still, post a picture of your vision board when you’ve created it!
And remember, as my great mentor Mary Morrissey says, “vision without action is merely entertainment”.
If you’ve taken the time to create a compelling vision for your life, you want to honour it by keeping it front and centre and taking action in support of achieving it every day. Use one of these steps to support you in doing just that.