How’s your vision?
Let me ask it another way … do you have a picture in your mind of how you want to show up or what you want your future to look like?
You may have read that and smiled, thinking about the picture you have had in your mind for quite some time, or just that question alone may leave you feeling anxious, or pressured.
Maybe you feel like asking, “do I have to have vision?”
“What if I don’t have clear vision of the future?”, does that mean I am not going anywhere?
Vision is the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom.
It’s a mental picture of what you want to achieve, or who you want to be. Stronger than just a snapshot, it is a strong, clear picture. The clarity helps your picture become reality, because you know where you want to go.
Vision is clearly pre-framing the future.
I love that term pre-framing. It reminds me that I can choose who I want to show up as.
I may not be able to change circumstances that will happen to me and around me, but I sure can determine and choose how I will respond.
Truth – if we want to respond, to show up in a certain way, then we will need to determine and set that long before we need it!
Vision is not just vague wishes, dreams, or hope. The clarity of the vision gives us a clear picture of real results.
So what is your picture of your future?
I am such a visual person. I need to see it and not just describe it. When someone is describing something to me I very often will say, “can you show me?”.
When designing my everyday journal with my graphic designer, we would often need to zoom so she could share her screen and get an active picture of what words, fonts, layout, and design we wanted to change. Simply using attachments in emails was just not working for me! But given the visual we were able to create the journal in a fraction of the time.
I think that is why I love vision boards so much. They literally put a picture to what is most important to you.
Years ago, as I was homeschooling my children this became super clear to me. My son was working on, and really struggling, with memorizing his math tables. I was trying to think of any way I could help him get them memorized, and I was getting a little stressed about it. A friend said to me, “just let him use a calculator”. What? The kids in schools can’t use a calculator, they have to memorize them! Then she said, “if he types in 7×7 100 times he will know by memory that it equals 49.” That was the lightbulb moment.
So often thinking outside the box works even better than in the box.
Vision boards put pictures to who you want to be and where you want to go. Just like a favourite framed picture reminds you of who and what is most important to you, vision boards keep your core values right before you.
Here’s some tips to help you keep your vision clear and strong:
- Be big. We usually think of the future in safe ways rather than bold ways. If we can’t imagine it, we usually don’t think we can accomplish it. Reality check? We can accomplish more than we can imagine! Honest. You can. Super clear vision to what is most important to you will give you the resiliency to keep moving when things aren’t easy.
- Include clarity on who you want to be. What attitudes do you want to be purposeful to develop? My vision board includes just as many words, phrases, and quotes as it does pictures. It reflects the priority I want to give to gratitude, rest, time well spent, and how I want to live. When I look at it I am reminded of how I want to show up today, and every day.
- Include different areas of your life. Career, personal, family, health. Be clear so you can set action steps and own your everyday. How we show up is up to us.
- Let it come from your heart. Don’t overthink it. Truthfully, most of us have been thinking about our vision for a long time without giving it any actual time or focus. What do you think about consistently? Is there a picture of what you want to do but you never wrote it down, and maybe never spoke about? Use your imagination and put some words to what has been in your imagination and heart. How often do you hear people say, “someday I would love to …”, or “I have always thought about ……”. These are dreams and goals that have not been acted upon.
Vision comes from the heart. It is more than goals or objectives.
It is heart goals.
It is a difference you want to make.
What is your vision? Now’s the time to put some action and clarity to it, and that will help you show up as your very best you.
If you would like to create your own unique vision board and give yourself clarity, come join us for our next virtual vision board workshop. It is all online and can be done hands-on or digitally. Start creating your personal reminder that will help you stay on track and focus on what is truly most important to you.