Everyone has a long term vision. They envision what their life looks like, feels like, and embodies at some point in the future. For most people, this is nothing but a pipe dream loaded with the phrase “maybe someday”. However, as an entrepreneur with a team of people around you, my job, and yours if you’re in a similar position, is to help those around you reach that long term vision. Leading them in this way creates a successful culture in your business that transcends your wildest visions of success. The biggest reason why people’s visions seem like a pipe dream is because they never put any action to it in the short term. Your role as a leader is to add action to their dreams and align them with the vision of the company as a means to get to their end goal. This gradual build up leads to life changing progress and lasting relationships, but it all starts in the short term.
The issue with a long term vision
While a long term vision gives us something to shoot for overall and motivates us to think big, it doesn’t give us tangible and actionable steps to achieve this vision. As a leader of your team, your job is to make your people’s visions accessible to them by breaking them down into shorter term goals so they can meaningfully track progress and take action towards achievement. Recently, my partners and I have introduced The 12 Week Year Achieve Program into our team to accomplish just that. By breaking down years into 12 weeks, we innately value our time more and are more keen to use it wisely to achieve our goals. This program also helps us determine the one or few things we need to be doing consistently to reach these goals and tracks our commitment to doing these steps. There is no hiding from your results when you hold yourself accountable! As leaders, we need to look for ways to continue to help people hold themselves accountable. Using resources like The 12 Week Year helps you do just that. Action in the short term cumulatively leads to your long term vision being achieved.
Your only limit is your thinking
The only thing holding you and your team back is your thinking. What we think affects our actions and our actions directly correlate to our results. Of course, we cannot control outside circumstances, however, we can control our actions. Ultimately, our actions have the greatest impact on our results above everything else. This means the right thoughts and the right actions will eventually lead us exactly to where we want to go regardless of the hurdles and obstacles we face along the way. Adversity is just a part of the process and it is to be expected and accounted for. We handle adversity by sticking through with our commitments, both to ourselves and others, and consistently taking the actions necessary to achieve our goals. All of this starts with our thoughts. Control your thoughts and use them to advance your vision rather than allowing your thoughts to control you with negativity.
Reinforcing progress
It is difficult to remain consistent, committed, and accountable. Doing so for a prolonged period of time is no easy feat and should be celebrated. Helping others as well as yourself do this is really an achievement. Recognizing this achievement is an extremely rewarding part of the process. Positive reinforcement for being consistent is the results that appear from all the hard work. Your achievements are a result of your entire process which started from simply thinking differently. Recognizing and appreciating this progression along the way is motivating and helps you remain accountable. Small wins help you track progress towards bigger goals. When you stack small wins, you can see that your plan for your vision is working and it reinforces what you’re doing. If you aren’t stacking small wins even though you’re sticking to your plan, there might be some need to pivot and adjust. Being a leader starts with setting your team up for long and short term success. Your thinking is the only thing holding back your vision from becoming a reality. Your thinking affects your actions and your actions affect your outcomes. Think wisely!