Vision is my topic today, because it has begun, hasn’t it? All the “New Year – New You” stuff. All the articles about goals, resolutions, making changes and so on. All of which, if I am honest, I love. It seems pretty fashionable to say that we should be that way inclined and focused all year round, but I think it is good to have a period of time to re-focus, to turn a leaf, to let go if need be and new year is a great time for that. Goals, resolutions and everything else that gets spoken about a great deal at new year are advanced greatly if they are built upon the foundation of a vision. With today’s article then, I want to help you to clarify and craft a powerful vision for your life and for what you want to achieve. That vision transforms you into an individual with a mission. This spreads and echoes into every area of your life.
“The only thing worse than being blind, is having sight but no vision” ~ Helen Keller.
A clear vision for one’s life answers questions such as – Where do you want to be in the future? What do you want to accomplish? What is the destination that you want to arrive at? How does the destination look like? Why do you want to get there? When do you want to get there? However, asking yourself those questions first, is also a great way to start honing your vision. I’d recommend taking some time out and examining those questions as a means of working towards your vision for your life.
A clear vision points you towards what you want to be in life. Knowing your destination will keep you traveling on the right road, even if you go off track or get lost, you are able to reset and get back on track. When you have vision, it gives clarity going forward. Create a vision before you set your goals for the new year ahead. In simple terms, goals tend to be the “how” you achieve something; such as running every day, creating a business plan for the year ahead, spending more time with your family. Vision, on the other hand, is much more about your reasons “why.” When you reflect at the end of this year, what do you want to see? What do you want to get out of life?
Once you have started asking the above questions about yourself, you then want to start examining what drives you and what your sense of purpose is. Have a read of this article to help you with that:
What Is Your Life Purpose? 5 Ways To Discover It Today.
Your vision should embody a sense of your purpose in life and reflect who you are, what values you hold and how you view yourself and the life you wish to lead.
There’s nothing wrong with setting goals. I recommend doing that. In fact, a well-crafted personal vision for your life should be leading you to being more goal-focused.
The Power And Purpose Of A Vision Board:
A vision board is a board that you have divided into certain important areas of your life, and then you add pictures that inspire you and that form part of the vision you have fir yourself to the different areas on the vision board. I have a new one every year, it is part of the new year for me.
For many, vision boards are a bit old hat, but they have the potential to be awesome and create a major effect in your life. No matter what approach you take – big or small, tech or no-tech, physical or imaginary – the point is that vision boards are meant to serve as a daily reminder of what you’re working towards. They’re meant to consistently focus you and your efforts. Unlike resolutions, vision boards are not something that you say today and forget tomorrow. They’re not just a fleeting thought that’s easily forgotten. They’re not a potentially uninspiring to-do list that can easily get lost in pile of papers. Instead, they speak to you and remind you daily with words and images that resonate with the unique outcome that you want to come alive in your life. They can spark a fire in your soul that motivates you to keep going and pressing through when challenges and setbacks come your way.
“What you think, you become” ~ Buddha.
The concept is an old one, but as an added bonus, it’s backed by science and solid principles. You’ll know that we are all impacted by our own thoughts and feelings throughout each day. Many authors have highlighted how the subtle goings on in our everyday lives can add up to profound outcomes. For this reason, it makes sense to keep your vision board prominently displayed every day in a place that you’re sure not to miss. These days, using apps like Evernote, my clients and I tend to focus on goals, positive affirmations, gratitude lists and much more – your vision can be revisited regularly that way too.
Three Steps To Help Realise Your Vision:
Creating and realising your vision is not as hard as some may think. At the beginning of any vision, you start by envisioning the best version of yourself in any life area you choose. Let’s look at the 3 steps in more detail:
1. Create a Personal Vision:
As already mentioned, create a detailed description of how you would like an area of your life to be. Consider the external circumstances; imagine the experiences you would be having on a visual level, an auditory level, as well as an experiential and physical level. Write a detailed description and begin to rehearse and memorise this. As you do, create an internal visual, auditory and experiential representation about this detail – describe and feel the emotions you would be experiencing, the interactions and dialogue with people, what you would be noticing with how you see your vision unfolding and occurring. And continue to do this regularly. Do this as an exercise at least once daily for around 10 minutes. It’s powerful.
For a more detailed account of this classic process, read this article about creating future memories: The Generic and Classic Self-Hypnosis Outcome Generator – Creating Future Memories.
The key here is to describe the vision of you ideal life in detail. Don’t hold back, permit yourself to dream and imagine, and create a vivid vision. For some it might be how you’d like things to be in 1 year’s time, for others, you may be looking at 5 or 25 years from now. Do not edit what you do at this stage, be creative, you’ll have time to merge with reality later.
As you start to hone the vision, ask yourself what you will have accomplished and how you will feel about yourself? Who is in your life and what does each day look like? Creating this vision should be uplifting you greatly, putting a smile on your face and agreeing with you deeply. If for any reason it is not doing so, you may need to edit, update or change, or perhaps dig a little deeper into what life really needs to be like to feel like an amazing vision.
At this stage, focus upon the outcome, the future memory, the big vision. The details and the steps forward come next.
2. Create Clear Goal Milestones to Reach:
This is just as important as step one. Think of it like your planning to build a bridge from one side of a valley to another. WIth a bridge, you may know there are pillars to support, an archway to suspend the road, and the roadway with barriers. This could translate into the pillars being the essential outcomes you want to reach; the suspension arches the resources you need; the roadway being the key actions you need to undertake.
Having milestones along the way shows you that you are making progress and you can celebrate your life as you make that progress, it’ll inspire and spur you on. Have a number of short-term milestones along the way towards reaching any semblance of your vision. Now you have a general plan, you’re ready for the final step.
3. Determine the Activities Weekly for Each Milestone
Having a plan with a vision is a good start. And that’s all it will remain unless you commit to daily activity. Remember, in order for the vision to become a daily reality, it must first become a series of daily activities leading you toward your vision. The power to realise a vision is in the consistency of application of activities. And there’s no better way than to visit and do these activities daily.
You may have your own way, secret, formula, method, approach, or strategy to achieve your vision and to make it clear. Failing and succeeding go hand and hand. Nothing works perfectly in life, what matters most is that you try and keep on trying until you achieve your goals. You will walk, fall, and get up to walk again. You will keep moving forward and you’ll learn and grow from what works and doesn’t work. As you work through both of the above steps (2 and 3) ask yourself about choices you would have to make, what you need to learn in order to make this happen, what beliefs might need to be updated, what behaviours will be important to make this happen, the kind of support you’ll need and explore your vision action steps. Importantly, create a plan of action, a set of distinct practical steps that will move you forward towards your vision for how you wish your life to be.
Some good related useful articles to help you with this are as follows:
a) 7 Ways To Be More Self-Disciplined. https://www.adam-eason.com/7-ways-to-be-more-self-disciplined/
b) Why You Need Routine In Your Life.
c) How To Be Incredibly Productive: 10 Keys to Productivity.
d) Ways to Master the Art of Grit and Perseverance.
e) Apply Problem Solving To Yourself and Solve Your Own Problems.
f) 9 Ways To Make The Most Of Your Time.
Anyone can benefit from having a vision, no matter how small, no matter how big. What’s required is simply the skill to articulate it, the forethought to plan it, and the willingness and passion to pursue it through engaging daily activities. You may revisit it, update it regularly, but having it there in your mind and in your environment is going to underpin so much for the new year ahead. Start your vision today.
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If you’d like to learn more or if this has resonated with you in some way, then visit these pages:
1. Has poor focus held you back and is it still doing so now? Do you need to learn how to be more focused?
Coaching with Adam Eason Or Hypnotherapy with Adam Eason
2. Would you like a satisfying and meaningful career as a hypnotherapist helping others become more focused?
Adam Eason’s Anglo European training college.
3. Are you a hypnotherapist for whom poor focus is negatively effecting the success of your business? Do you need to be more focused to fulfil your career ambitions?
Hypnotherapist Mentoring with Adam Eason.
Likewise, if you’d like to learn more about self-hypnosis, understand the evidence based principles of it from a scientific perspective and learn how to apply it to many areas of your life while having fun and in a safe environment and have the opportunity to test everything you learn, then come and join me for my one day seminar which does all that and more, have a read here: The Science of Self-Hypnosis Seminar.
