If you don’t know where you’re going, how do you know how to get there?
There is nothing worse than spending time, effort, and energy working towards something, and then getting all the way there and realizing you don’t actually want it. That is why having a clear, aligned vision for what you want as a business owner can be such a time saver.
But how do you create a clear aligned vision?
Don’t worry, that’s exactly what we’re diving into in today’s episode.
Show Links:
Show Takeaways:
- Learn how to cast a vision for your business (and life) and why this is the most important step
- Discover what you need to let go of so that you can fully move forward on your journey
- Understand the action you’ll need to continually take to help you stay focused and aligned
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If you don’t know where you are going, how do you know how to get there? There is nothing worse than spending time, effort, & energy working toward something and then realizing it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. That is why having a clear aligned vision as a business owner and a human being can be such a time saver and it’s exactly what we are diving into in today’s episode.
Knowing what you are working for is imperative. It gives you the direction necessary to steer your efforts & makes it possible to keep going when motivation starts to drop.
And though some things may be the same as someone else’s— 7-figure revenue, vacays to Greece & Bora Bora, and the freedom to spend Spring Break, Summer Break, Fall Break, and any other time they are outta school with your kids— your vision for the future is unique & your own.
The issue that I see is that when I ask entrepreneurs what their big vision for their business or life, they hesitate and then give me pre-packaged answers that they think they should want.
But delving into this vision and aligning it with what is actually true for you can mean the difference between struggling to do the work because its uncomfortable and slaying it because what you desire is so real & clear that that is your only way forward.
When I speak about vision I’m talking about how you imagine your future self and daily life.
Casting Your Vision Is The Most Important Step
By starting with your own vision, you are creating goals that inherently mean something to you.
Rather than trying to fit goals into the context of your future and life, you start with that future life and reverse-engineer goals to get there. (I know, mind-blown, right?!)
And by vision, I don’t mean a just checklist of the cool cars and vacation homes you hope to have, though feel free to put those in, too.
It goes much deeper than that. It’s not just about the things you have because really material things can’t motivate us in the same way as growth, accomplishment, opportunity, and comfort.
While collecting Mercedes & ski lodges in Colorado is awesome and can be a big part of your dream life 10 years from now, seeing the ways in which you are showing up, serving, and standing up for what is important to you just goes a bit deeper when the journey to get there gets a little rocky.
In essence, you need to focus on who you want to be & what you want to do rather than just what you want to have.
Roadblocks & Speed Bumps on Your Journey to the Dream Life
Challenges are a normal part of basically everything. If you aren’t experiencing hard things, you are in denial or dead.
There are going to be things that get in the way of your imagining your vision for your dream life. But if you can recognize them when they show up, you can deal with them head-on.
Others’ expectations. This is by far going to be the thing that slows you down the most. You’ve already experienced this— reaching for something because you are supposed to do it, you are supposed to want it. The reason it slows you down is you can spend years of time and hours & hours of energy & mental bandwidth working towards someone else’s idea of dream life rather than your own.
To simply say, ” let go of others’ expectations for you and go after what you want ” is not be enough though. Societal expectations & others’ definition of success can be so engrained in your way of being that parsing out what is your true desire from what you are supposed to want can be hard, but it isn’t impossible. This is why in my signature program Productive A.F., I take students through a specific meditation to get out of their head and into their heart as we vision-cast— leaving them with what they really want for themselves.
Focusing on what you want to have. I mentioned this above, but it deserves a deeper dive. We know that money can’t buy happiness and we also know that it is hard to be happy & secure when you are worried about making rent. Our feelings of success don’t come from having the latest tech, the biggest mansion, or more acclaim than others. We are most fulfilled and living our dream lives when we feel supported, relevant, and free to chase what we want to chase.
Thinking you have to have your vision perfect or that it won’t change. I know you are afraid that your dream life and your real life will never look exactly the same. And I have some good news: it won’t.
That may seem counterintuitive, but hear me out. You are casting a vision for yourself right now based on the information you have & the experiences you’ve encountered. As you gather new information and experience new things, you are going to edit & alter your idea of your dream life. Possibilities that previously weren’t on your radar can then become your reality.
The fix to this is just get started and continue to check in with your dream life to reimagine as often as necessary.
How to get to know your vision?
Self-knowledge is a priority. Know one knows the real you better than you so it would be reasonable to think that you’d be an expert on you. You know how you learn best (auditory, visual, kinesthetic). You know what your strengths are and what lights you up. You know what inspires you and how to motivate yourself. You know how others view you and how you interact with others. How you make decisions. How you gain perspective on new ideas or concepts. What your fears are. Whose opinions matter to you.
There is never an end to this work and if you are doing this right, you’ll continue to learn new things about yourself & what you want.
Two of the best tools I’ve found in uncovering and documenting your vision (so you can use it later) is meditation & journaling.
Meditation gives you a chance to really ask yourself some key questions and alleviate some of the pressure of “having to find the answer.” It’s just about letting your mind respond to the questions and observe where it goes and then using that as a starting point to begin journaling. BTW if meditation as a concept or a word turns you off, no biggie. You can pray about it, ask the universe for guidance, or simply have a conversation with yourself about it. All of it works.
Now, I use journaling as a way to document but also uncover even deeper thoughts. This isn’t just normal writing, it is judgment free stream of conscious type stuff that allows what needs to come out, come out. The whole point here is to give yourself a safe space to explore and then begin finding threads & patterns. Having a written accord of everything provides a way to visually see what keeps coming up.
This is actually one of the key pieces that I walk my students through in Productive A.F., my signature program to go from hot mess to successful streamline CEO. This is one of the first things we do to align every day tasks & to-dos to the big dreams that will actually bring the fulfillment, financial freedom, & time freedom that you desire. If you’d like to chat a bit more about if this is your right next step, you can book a free clarity call so we determine together what is your best next step.
Action Step:
I always like to end each episode with an action step that you can take right now to help you move forward and begin to implement immediately. Here is your action step for this episode: Start to dive into your vision. Give yourself space & time at least 10 minutes to sit down and ask yourself what you want and why. See what comes up.
