You may think you know what you want to achieve in life, but have you thought about it in detail? Have you written it down? Do you remind yourself of it regularly. Have you visualised exactly how you will get to that vision?
Creating your Success Vision is more than goal setting, it’s deciding what you ideally want your whole life to look like, how you’ll feel when you achieve it and what it will take to get there.
If you want to make a change in your career, like transitioning to something new, going freelance or starting a business (on the side or full time), or some other transformation, then this episode is for you!
We will cover:
- What a Success Vision is
- Why it’s essential for your career and life change journey
- 6 Tips on how you can make sure you create a STELLAR Success Vision
So tap on play, pop in your ear phones and start visualising your success!
Episode Links:
If you want more guidance and exercises to help you work through the elements, then download my free guide,which I have created just for you,called ‘How to find your Burning Passion (and re-ignite your career and life)
John Graham, Adventurer, speaker, author of ‘On the Edge’
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Can’t listen right now? Here are the highlights…
The final piece in the Burning Passion model is something that pulls all the other elements together...your Success Vision.
Your Success Vision is a mental picture of the future, based on your hopes and desires. It’s more than your goals or plans, it’s the full technicolour view of what every aspect of your life would be like, what you want to achieve, should everything go to plan.
Your success vision is personal to you, as only YOU can set your vision for the future.
We all have our own needs, our own measures of what constitutes success for ourselves or others. What success looks like to one person could be TOTALLY different from another.
Your success vision is not about what you should want to achieve, or what you think is possible right now, it’s actually about what you want to achieve, what you desire most, putting all barriers aside…. Sometimes you have not ever admitted it to yourself because you have been on one path for so long you have forgotten what you actually want.
That’s why it’s so important to understand your own vision of success, so you can make sure what you are doing everyday is going in the direction of what you actually want.
6 tips to create a stellar Success Vision
OK, go find some time when you can concentrate. Go for a walk if that inspires your mind, grab a coffee and find a quiet corner, or if you manage to get a seat on the train on your commute, put your earphones in and concentrate, or get up early in the morning before your family wakes. You do need some time to focus for this as it’s a deep exercise, but you just have to do it once and the benefits are worth it.
- My first tip is to choose a time when you are in a positive mood
Find a time when you are feeling relatively positive and optimistic. It does not need to be when you are on a high, just some time that you are even tempered and calm.
Also, try to be awake and alert and not too tired. If you are a morning person then do it then, or an evening person then leave until later in the day. You get what I’m saying, whenever your attention span is high!
- Be honest with yourself and throw out the rule book
Remember this is your personal success vision, so don’t lie to yourself. If you have desires and dreams that you have not admitted to yourself, then include them. So if you want to have that houseboat and spend your days travelling the canals of Europe, then put it down.
Or if you really want to get a job that is not in your current path, but you can't see a way you could get there right now, put it down.
Forget whatever you think are the rules i.e. what everyone else does. You can be different!
- Be really specific making it detailed as possible -
Break down every aspect of your life; things like career / job, family, finances, social, health etc and what you want to achieve for each. Be as clear as you can.
So, if you are looking at the finances side of your vision, be exact in what you want to earn, what you want to have saved,. What assets you have (so things like property, car, gadgets) and how you will use your income. If you really don’t want to have any assets, and prefer to have disposable income to spend on hobbies, social life or holidays, say that. Also, say how much you will give to charity if that is something you want to do. The more specific you are, the more powerful the vision.
- Don’t be held back by limiting beliefs
This is not the time to hold back. If you base your vision on what you think is possible, or based on your current circumstances you are limiting your brain. You are setting yourself up to achieve something limited. Even if you think that currently there is no way you can achieve part or all of that vision, maybe because of money or circumstances, if it is truly what you want then put it down. Be ambitious in your visioning. You will be breaking it down into manageable goals, so it will become more achievable as time progresses.
- Write your success vision down or create a vision board
Just having your vision in your head is not enough. You have to bring it into form, to make it real by committing it to paper, maybe in a journal, or on a page that you can keep somewhere prominent. This is not something that you write once and never look at again. You are writing it down to be able to see it everyday. Only then does your vision stop being a dream and start being reality.
If you are more visual you could also create a vision board. The images prime your brain to recognize opportunity when it comes along, which you may otherwise miss. Your brain can only focus on so many things at a time, so you need to train it to look out for those things that you want.
You can create physical vision boards with drawings, or cut out images from magazines, or if you are not creatively inclined or prefer digital tools, there are phone apps like iWish for iphones or Visuapp or free online design tools like Canva, that can hold the images and vision notes for you.
- Visualise yourself doing the work
Having a success vision is crucial, as you know what you are aiming for but it has shown to be more effective if you also visualise yourself doing the work to get there.
That’s why you may have heard of athletes visualising the whole race from start to finish. They are not only thinking about crossing the line or standing on the podium, they are visualising what it will take to get there. They will run the mind movie of their race over and over showing every technique they will use to cross that line first.
A word of caution….
This does not mean that you build your success vision, create goals and then visualise how you will achieve them everyday and then sit back and do nothing. These tools can be very powerful but only if you use them as a trigger for action. You can’t just sit back and wait for the job offer to come in, or for the car you want to appear from nowhere, or to suddenly have all the time in the world to spend with your family,
You have to do all the work, but by having a clear success vision in mind that you continually return to; building the associated goals, strategy and plans on how you will get there, are all the easier.
So take the time now and find YOUR Success Vision!
Defining your Burning Passion
When you have your success vision clear and have documented it either in writing or on a vision board, you are ready to decide on what your Burning Passion is pulling together all the elements we have been talking about over the Burning Passion Series.
First, you need to review each of the passions that Light you up.
For each one see if you have the talents and skills that would allow you to have a career or business aligned with that passion.
If yes, then check if there is no conflict with your core values.
If there is no conflict, then see if you use that passion in your career, you have the potential to reach your vision of success.
For example, if the passion that lights you up is gardening, you have tested that you have the talent and skills for it and your core values are not in conflict, then there should not be any barrier to your success (in theory). But it depends what success means to you. If success for you does not involve you having a physical job long term, then it may not be the right path, or you may need to adjust the plan to go into garden design where you will not need to be so hands on.
By identifying your Burning Passion, you are already giving yourself a serious head start in whatever direction you decide to take in your career or business and life
So, over to you! Go and find YOUR Burning Passion!
