Part 5 – Vision – To be, you have to see

“Give to us a clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for – because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.” – Peter Marshall.

As stated in part 2 of this series, the indispensable first step towards success is to know what you want out of this life.

It is imperative that you must have a vision of your desired future. If you don’t have a clear and explicit vision of the future you desire, you will lack direction and drive and you will forever be caught up in the urgencies of survival, rather than the important elements of creating a purpose driven life. In order to be, you have to see your desired future. How else are you going to plan and achieve your goals? Therefore in order to take that indispensable first step towards success, get out your journal and create a Personal Vision for your life.

This Personal Vision Statement should describe the life you seek to create. It describes your dreams and the hopes you have for your future, articulating your purpose for living in such a way that it ignites your passion.

1. Consider carefully and sincerely what you want to become in this life.
2. Write down this vision you have of your ideal future. This very action of writing down your personal vision forces you to form a mental picture in your mind of that future state.
3. Write down the motivation behind each goal for this will be the driving force that keeps your going in pursuit of your goals.

Now that you have a clear vision of your desired future, how does this vision statement empowers you?

Like children who imitate the roles of adults in a make believe world, so does visualization act as a physical manifestation of the future roles you aspire to fulfil. In their make believe worlds, children have a vision of the person they idolise and they will dress up like a fireman or nurse, impersonating these role models as if it were real. Similarly, we as adults should imagine ourselves impersonating the person we want to be. During powerful visualization, our brains do not always distinguish clearly between imaginary and reality and get conditioned to believe the movie we play out in our heads. When you visualise a future state clearly enough and fill it in with intense emotions, this vision gets impressed onto your brain as if it was already a reality.

Emerson stated that a man is what he thinks about all day long. Your thoughts make up the person you are. Successful people purposefully occupy their thoughts with imaginary movies of themselves achieving their goals. By design, that is what they think about all day long, thus not allowing their minds to be filled with mere idle junk. These movies eventually play out to become the realities they imagined.

Highly successful people in sports, business, science or any vocation, actively use the technique of visualization to greatly improve their success rate.

They actively visualise themselves achieving their goals. They create a detailed, colourful picture in their minds eye of that moment of achievement. They strengthen that image by experiencing the moment emotionally. This creates a lasting impression on the mind, leaving it to be comfortable with that state of achievement, thus making actually achieving their goals more believable. This puts the mind in a position where failure no longer dominates their minds, but rather success becomes the norm. As such, the mind is only concerned about figuring out a way towards achieving success, as the end state has already become part of their reality.

A staggering 95% of the world’s population is disillusioned with life, because they have no vision for their lives. Their lives are dominated by idle thoughts causing emotional mood swings to give direction to their lives, resulting in them drifting along with the ebb and flow of their lives.

Be not such a person, but set out to decide what you want out of life. Then create a detailed and colourful vision of your desired life, rehearse this movie until it become your predominant thought, and eventually your reality.

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.” — Henry David Thoreau

Can you imagine your ideal life? Yes you can. Make visualization a daily habit and you will astonish yourself with what you can achieve.