The idea of developing a personal vision for ourselves is a relatively recent luxury. Self-help books emerged in the 1950s and have been prolific ever since. Their birth coincided with the arrival of increased leisure time allowing people to ponder their lot – particularly those who experienced the death and deprivation of two world wars. This fashion for ‘vision’ has also been taken up by the corporate world – so if they are spending time and money on this important aspect of development then so should we.
During the 1950s, people began to ask ‘What is it all about?’ and ‘Where am I in all this?’ Then came questions such as ‘What do I want?’ (notice that it was not ‘What do I need?’) and ‘How do I get it?’ The culture of deprivation had changed; gone were the days of Henry Ford’s famous saying ‘You can have any colour you want providing it’s black’, and at the end of the 1950s the question became ‘What colour would you like?’
This was accelerated by the dilution of a class system: now your background was no deterrent to your education or success in a career. Such aspirants naturally began to ask ‘How do I get to the top?’ Having a personal vision is critical to achieve the elixir of success. Not having a vision blinds you to seeing life’s opportunities – except in retrospect.
The simplest definition of a personal vision is a statement of intent for your life. But that belies its power. Having a vision gives meaning to your life. A vision answers the ‘What’s it all about?’ question. It provides a wonderful opportunity to be your true self and know where you want to go. Whatever your circumstances your personal vision will, quite literally, allow you to see your way through life.
Here is one of the most compelling personal vision statements:
Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:
- I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
- I shall fear only God.
- I shall not bear ill-will toward anyone.
- I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
- I shall conquer untruth by truth.
- And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.
Mahatma Gandhi
Creating a personal vision will require you to do some serious thinking about the future: what you want to be and what you want to get out of your brief sojourn on earth. But, without one, it’s easy to drift through life on autopilot.
Even worse, some people choose to wear blinkers and simply not think about where they are going or how to extract themselves from situations they are not happy with. Better the devil you know? Surely not. These people will one day realise that they have become fully paid-up members of the ‘should have’ tribe with far too many regrets in their past.
Any journey made out of ignorance can’t be very helpful. Without the benefit of a vision to guide and validate our lives ‘there’ ends up looking and feeling like the ‘here’ where we began. And flying blind into new situations can lead to wrong turns and missed opportunities. By reading this text you have put yourself on the road to a more purposeful life. And the work you have done up until now will have helped you gain a deeper understanding of who you are, your strengths, your weaknesses, your values, skills and competences because all of these have a direct effect on our vision.
The better we know ourselves and what we want, the more powerful and appropriate our vision will be. Interestingly, because you have done this work on yourself, your vision has probably already begun to emerge and claim you.
The problems of doing
For many people, life is filled with more and more ‘doing’. We work, shop, sleep, cook, eat, clean, travel and entertain ourselves, and so our hours are filled with completing tasks or activities.
One frightening statistic, according to Nielson’s People Meter, is that the majority of us watch 18 hours of television per week, which is 936 hours per year or 39 days of continuous watching each year.
The danger is that if all of this doing is unfocused and not guided by an overriding vision, you will find yourself stuck in the same situation because none of your ‘doing’ has been helping you get going. In other words, if you want to get out of an existence of ‘doing’ then a ‘vision’ or ‘purpose’ is essential.
 | ‘Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.’ Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning’ (written after his survival from Auschwitz)1 |
Health warning
You may find that having a vision and pursuing it will make you significantly different from others – and you may find, like the following people, that you need to break through social norms to realise your vision:
- Jesus broke the rules of Judaism.
- Columbus broke the rules of navigation.
- Nelson broke the rules of naval engagement.
- Darwin broke the rules of creationism.
- Gandhi broke the rules of resistance.
- Ford broke the rules of manufacturing.
- Joyce broke the rules of writing.
- Presley broke the rules of popular music.
- Branson is still breaking the rules of almost everything he touches.
Developing a vision
For each question tick the appropriate box. This isn’t a very complicated activity but your responses will give you all the answers you need about the strength of your vision – if you have one at all – and how powerfully you are using it.
- Do you have a vision in your life?
- Do you make your ‘life decisions’ according to the vision you have?
- Do you monitor on a regular basis how you are working to your vision?
- Do you research options that will assist you to achieve your vision?
- Do you spend regular time reviewing your vision to see if it is still valid for you?
- Do you have your vision written down?
- Do you discuss your vision with your partner?
- Do you actively discard those things that don’t help you achieve your vision?
- Do you have a life that is in balance?
- Do you reward yourself when you achieve things that are in line with your vision?
For self-development, having a vision for yourself is very important. Scoring here is very simple: if you have five or more ‘No’s’ then the advice is to seriously consider developing a vision for yourself.
| ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’ Proverbs 29:18 |
Creating a personal vision
The purpose of having a personal vision is for you to maximise the return on your effort to date and to maximise the yield on the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual outlay you have invested in your life and career to date.
In developing your vision, this is where your work, so far, begins to come together. Having decided to take charge of your life, a vision for yourself becomes paramount. If you don’t have a vision for yourself, your future will just bob around on the sea of life. Not only that, your life will be highly influenced by what other people want of you. The best vision statements are those that describe you as you will be in 5–10 years’ time, possibly even further.
Spend time asking yourself the important question: what is my preferred future?
To do this:
- Review and reflect on your previous achievements, skills and competences, and your beliefs.
- Describe what you want to be in the future:
- be as specific as you can
- be optimistic and inspiring.
Your vision should be exciting and motivating.
Spend extra time reviewing your value system.
- Which values are key for you?
- Which should be reflected in your vision statement?
- How in the future will your key values be obvious to all?
Creating a vision statement
Once you have done this preliminary work you are ready to define your vision statement, which is both a statement of purpose and of function. Your vision statement should:
- reflect all the information that you have discovered about yourself
- reflect yourself in the future as if you have achieved it and you are already there (It’s as if you already exist in the future state.)
- be as exact as possible and not expressed in generalisations
- be realistic
- besides being aspirational and inspirational, your vision must also be measurable
- make you proud and excited
- be as short as possible.
Here I’d like to share my personal vision statement to give you a concrete example of what a vision statement looks like. My statement was written in the mid-1980s when I went through the trauma of being fired and I promised myself never to work within an organisation again:
I am happily married with children who respect and love me, running my own business in an HR related field and leveraging off my psychology knowledge, corporate experience and people skills in a successful consultancy. I am an established international author with several best sellers to my name. I am an Anglican priest who is known for his compassion, meaningful sermons and teaching skills.
Benefits of visioning
Visioning:
- takes you out of your day-to-day thinking and insists that you are future orientated
- helps you make the appropriate significant decisions for yourself
- provides continuity and predictability
- identifies direction and purpose
- tells others where you are going
- promotes laser-like focus
- encourages openness to unique and creative solutions
- builds self-confidence.
Vision assassins
As you engage in the visioning process, be alert to the following vision assassins:
1 Frankl’s book is the most wonderful endorsement for the need for a personal vision. If you ever doubt that life has meaning then read this life-affirming book.
2 All your friends will want you to be successful but not more successful than they are.
3 It was held that:
- the four-minute mile was impossible;
- national interest would prevent the Common Market;
- there would not be a man on the moon during the 20th century; and
- computers could only be afforded by big organisations.