Last month I spoke about living your vision now and gave you some additional links to resources for discovering your vision. As visioning, along with goal setting are important precursors to achievement and success, I thought I would dive into this even deeper this month…
- Do you have a vision for what you want to be doing next year?
- In the next five years? In the next 10 years?
- What about specific goals for your work and life?
Develop a Vision
- What do you want your life to be like, look like and feel like?
- How are you defining what personal and professional success means to you
Try this exercise:
Write a narrative of what you want your life to be like in five years’ time, yes five.
- What you would like to have accomplished?
- How you would like to have grown and developed for yourself, your family, your career, your home and your community?
The first key with writing this narrative is that you are writing it as if it is five years from nowalready. Your sentences, then, will all begin with “I am…” and “I have…” instead of “I will”.
The second key is to write this vision in such a way that it evokes a strong visual – so much so that you can actually “feel” the excitement and joy of the experiences you have had and are having.
Now try going ten years out, then twenty years – while it may be hard to think that far ahead, remember you do not need to identify exactly where you will be or what you will be doing, just the essenceof it, the feeling you want to have, or perhaps thelifestyleyou want to have.
Take your Vision to the next level
When you know where you want to be in five, ten or twenty years, it helps you begin to create the goals that will make your vision come alive. They give you specific targets, milestones and tasks to begin to build or make your vision become reality.
You can have some long term goals and short term goals. By breaking your goals down to more focused steps, your large future goals become more attainable and less overwhelming. As you complete each of your smaller goals, they build upon each other, bringing you closer and closer to your vision. Before you know it, you are living your vision now!
Try this exercise:
Taking your vision, begin to write all of the large goals you see (ex: move, start a business, etc). Next, working your way backward from the ultimate goals you want to achieve, take these large goals and break each down into smaller, more specific goals (ex. research places to live, business that I would like to start) – and then into even smaller goals (ex. decide what I want in a community, what my passions are)
Some things to consider as you are creating your vision and goals…
Are your goals “wants” or “shoulds”? (hint: you must truly wantto achieve your goals) (ex. I should go back to school vs. I want to go back to school because…)
- Which parts of your vision/which goals are most importantto you?
- How do your goals relate to your vision for your future?
- Which of your goals relate to each other? (ex., running a marathon, mastering golf, learning tennis – could all relate to getting fit, physically challenging yourself…)
- Which of these do you have the most control over achieving? Remember, a goal that is directly dependent upon another person is not a goal, it is a wish. (ex. wish: I want my partner to be more attentive, I want to be hired by ABC company vs. goal: I will ask my partner for what I need, I will be prepared for my interview with ABC company by clearly knowing what I am offering and how I can prove that to them)
My 20 year visioning experience
When I was embarking on my own transformation (moving and starting my business) one exercise asked me to write my 40 year vision. My first reaction? 40 years?? At the time I found it easy to plan my weeks and months, even loosely knowing what I wanted to accomplish that year, but the next 40?? After a brief challenge of wrapping my head around the concept that one can plan that far ahead, I began to imagine what I wanted my life to be like 5 years from then, 10 years, 15 – I think I was able to get to 20. So I sat at my table on my deck and began to write, letting my imagination run free, thinking about my big goals and dreams – especially those that had lain dormant for a while. It was fun, it was easy – the ideas began to flow so that a giddiness took over. Could this really happen – I asked myself. Why not I answered. And that marked the beginning of my life and career transformation.
Now it’s your turn.
Take 30 minutes to let your imagination run free and see what you can come up with.
