Living & Working with Vision
The New Year is here! There's something about the New Year that gives us the sense of a fresh start. You might have spent the last few weeks in reset mode -- decluttering your space, planning your year, and setting your goals. You may have even designed a vision board plastered with images for how you wish to live out this year. But have you thought about the vision you have for your life?
While we may enjoy the rituals of setting New Year goals and resolutions and making vision boards, many people find themselves stuck in the same place year after year, and it's not because they didn't have a good vision board; they don't have a vision for their life.
Your vision is a picture of your purpose, hopes, dreams, and aspirations laid over your future. Defining what matters most, vision provides a blueprint or a map for where you are going and how to get there by outlining purposeful priorities that define and shape your life and work. Without vision, it's easy to slip into reactive or passive living, just floating through everyday life. In this state, it's easy to let daily crises, firefighting, and hapless opportunities, lead us further into chaos and confusion. That is why vision is so important. Without it, people perish.
Vision is one of the fundamental forces that drives everything in our lives -- our decisions, lifestyle, work, and relationships. With the power to evoke emotion, leadership author Andy Stanly notes how vision enables us to experience emotions associated with our desired and anticipated future ahead of time. Along with evoking emotion, it elicits meaning and fulfillment by guiding goals that challenge us and give significance. In his book How to Get Unstuck, Matt Perman shares that developing a clear vision for your life is not exclusively critical for personal leadership and effectiveness but the key to getting and remaining unstuck and living a purposeful and intentional life. That is because vision influences our choices and how we spend our time. Perman shares how developing a vision for your life and work provides four things:
Direction. I've always shared with my clients that while purpose grounds you and serves as your foundation, vision gives you direction. It operates less like a GPS offering step-by-step instructions and more like a compass pointing you in a general direction. No matter the twists and turns you might encounter along your journey, you know that if you stay headed in the right direction, you will arrive at your destination.
Power. Perman shares that in addition to direction, vision fuels your journey with the power to get there by generating passion, motivation, and commitment within you. When you encounter bumps in the road or get stuck in the mud, power gives you the extra push to keep going, trucking forward to your destination.
Focus. Vision helps you stay focused on what matters and minimizes distractions that get you off track. It gives you insight into what needs to be accomplished, which you can utilize to set goals that will provide focus areas and highlight the appropriate actions to execute and manifest the vision. In this way, it serves as a mental model providing direction and strategy that enables and frees you to focus on the big picture and your ultimate impact.
Unity. Vision motivates you and mobilizes others who can share and serve your vision. That is why it's critical to reflect on the vision and also write it down. Writing brings clarity, which is needed for sharing the vision with others. In Habakkuk 2:2-3, the prophet is encouraged to write down the vision so that the others could run with it, or in other words, make it happen. Vision inspires unity in action.
It's not enough to create a vision board and set new goals. To have direction, power, focus, and unity you must have an inspiring vision. If you desire to live and work with more purpose, meaning, and intention this year, it first starts with getting clear on your vision. In our private coaching program, we help guide you in casting your life vision through our signature Purpose Discovery Framework. Learn more and book a complimentary consultation by clicking the button below.
