Life's vision is a term that we encounter more and more often nowadays. But do we really know what it is?

Stress and routine drive people into comfort zones of boredom, repetition, stagnation and mediocrity, preventing them from seeing the sea of possibilities which can turn their lives into a mixer of vivid colors, adventure and fulfillment.

Vision is the driver of our actions. It is the fuel that moves our ambitions' vehicle through time.
It motivates us, gives a meaning to our monotonous lives and inspires us to exploit opportunities, which either appear or are created by our actions during our journey.

Having a vision means defining who we want to be, what we want to have and what we want to do with our lives. It is the opportunity given to us to draw the architectural plans of our own destiny.

How to find your vision?

Can we all find our vision? Is the vision something we all have inside us waiting to be discovered or is it something that we can give birth to?

Like almost everything in life, finding or creating your vision requires effort.
The word "creating" is used to indicate that even if you don't have a vision you can create one.
It is often the case that you already have a vision for your life but it does not manifest itself.

It all starts with you dedicating a couple of hours preferably somewhere that you will not be distracted. All you need is a pencil and a piece of paper.

I will show you how you can discover or create your vision in three simple steps.

Step one

Identity all domains of life that matter to you. Some examples of domains are Nutrition, Exercise, Health , Family, Personal Development, Skills, Public Relations, Finance, Dreams, Career, School, Leisure, Commercial Products, Travel, Religion etc...

The list is indicative so you might end up having your own domains. Go ahead and write down as many of those domains -that matter to you- as you can think of.

Step two

For each one of the domains, identify what you really want and why you want it.

At this moment let yourself dream. Allow yourself to think big. Do not allow the fear of failure to restrict your imagination.

Dream like children do, allowing you imagination to reach the far ends of your desires. Ask yourself, what you want to have, be or do. Certain people at this point dream of obtaining their own plane or even buying their own private island. This is what I mean by dreaming.

Some examples are to run a marathon (domain sports), to be of a certain weight (nutrition), to learn a new language (personal development), to make great presentations (career), to pay of certain debt (finance) etc..

One method really useful to help you come up with dreams and ideas is called Mind-Mapping.
With Mind-Mapping you start by writing down a circle with the basic domain in the middle of your paper and then starting creating more circles for each idea/term that comes in your mind.

Each new circle that you create will be connected with a line to the first circle. Then you repeat for each new circle by creating more ideas/terms around it and then connecting those ideas to that circle.

At the end of the process you will have a lot of ideas that will start creating a big picture in your mind about how you dream your life on that particular domain.

Step three

At the end of step two you will now have an overview of the main thoughts and ideas for each domain of your life. In the third step you create a summary of those thoughts and ideas. This summary is your vision statement. It can be one or more paragraphs that describe how you see yourself in the future.

That will be your reminder of what the ideal life is and will motivate you to do everything that is required to get there.

You might now feel a bit confused what to do next after putting on paper your dreams and desires. Believe me when I say that it will become clearer in the following article as I will explain the transformation of that statement into real goals and real actions. For the time being let's go back to the vision statement.

Here is a sample vision statement as is written on my own blog, which focuses on my domain of "Personal Development" where I have identified that my driver is my desire to help other people get better and improve their lives..

Another way to write your vision is to use "I" and to describe everything you want to achieve, feel and experience as if it is happening now. Here is an example:

Your vision statement should be accessible at any given time. You can print it and hung it on the wall behind your desk at work, your bed or the sofa in the living room.

Using an electronic board -like Trello for instance- will allow you to carry your vision always with you, since with a couple of taps you can open your mobile app and see your vision in no time in front of your eyes.

It is important in moments of inspiration, to be able to have a look at your vision statement and remind yourself where you want to go.

Vision Board

There are different ways to create emotions. Some people are emotionally moved by listening to music, some others by watching the sunset and some others by smelling the scent of a flower.

Reviewing our vision statement and trying to imagine our ideal life is yet another way to create a strong emotion. This emotional experience can be enhanced by combining this review with watching pictures relative to the vision statement.

Thinking about being healthy while looking at pictures relative to health, creates a more intense experience. A vision board could help towards that direction and I propose Pinterest as the means of achieving that.

Depending on your vision statement you can choose 5-10 pictures or quotes. Reviewing and repeating your vision statement while looking at those pictures can create a vivid atmosphere, vivid enough to stimulate your motivation mechanism to act towards that vision.

A background music of your preference can reach that experience to a climax if practiced over time.

Tools

Technology has skyrocketed nowadays offering a vast variety of tools that can help you -online or offline- create and review your vision. Tools for vision boards, goal setting , listening to music etc. is so easy to be found and used since we are literally living in the era of abundance.

I can summarize here a couple of tools which could be used in order to make your "vision" experience as strong as possible.

• "Trello" is the tool to create your vision statement and as we will see in the coming posts, it is also the tool to create your goals that will allow you to live your vision.

• "Pinterest" can be your vision board allowing you to see in front of your eyes what if looks like to be living your vision. A combination of pictures and inspiring quotes is recommended for maximum experience.

• "Calm", "Insight Timer" or "Headspace" are a few of the dozens of mobile applications out there, which can enhance your vision experience through guided meditation or comforting and relaxing sounds of music and nature.

• "Youtube" is the mother of all resources and you can find millions of videos to your personal taste that can be combined with your own personal vision.

 

Next Steps

At this point, you should now be able to define your own vision. The next step is to find a way to start living it. This might sound difficult if not impossible, but it is actually easy.

All it takes is a plan, a method and very small and simple daily tasks that will slowly become habits.

It is in the next step, where you will define your goals. Your long and short term goals, which are actually your intermediate parking spots of your journey. The spots that give you a chance to enjoy a glass of cold water, a refreshing ice-cream or a delicious meal. It is that metaphor that denotes the importance of living and enjoying the journey and not focusing only on the destination.

In the next article we will see what goals are, how to discover and prioritize them and how to transform them into real actions on our daily agendas. In other word we will be talking about "Goal Setting".

But before you proceed with the goal setting, make sure that you have your personal statement ready by following the three steps analyzed here.

It's just starting and it will become more and more exciting, so stay tuned...

Georgios Grigorakis