A bigger vision starts with the end in mind. What does your life look like in a year, 5 years,10 years, 20 years, and beyond? What decisions have you made to get you to this point? What does your business, businesses, investments, or job situation look like at that time. Start with the end in mind and work backwards to fill in the gaps. The bigger and clearer the vision, the better you’ll be able to fill in the gaps between now and then. In the book. The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael Gerber, he talks about a “primary aim”. Essentially, this is what you envision other people saying about you and your life. It is a reflection of the characteristics you want to embody and the accomplishments you wish to achieve. This is first and foremost how to start your outlook on a bigger vision for your life.
A primary aim
As previously mentioned, a primary aim is what you wish to embody and achieve throughout your life. It is a set of values you wish to take with you under all circumstances. Think of your primary aim as what you would want people to say about you at your funeral. Do you want to be remembered as someone who took risks and persevered when the odds were stacked against you? Do you want to be remembered as someone who did what they needed to do to support those you loved? This is completely unique to you and there are no right or wrong answers. Think about this deeply and write out your primary aim somewhere you can keep it safe and reflect back on it from time to time to ensure you’re staying true to it. This will guide you throughout your pursuit of your bigger vision.
Create a Vivid Vision
A Vivid Vision is something we spoke a lot about on this blog in the past. Revisiting it now for this particular topic is very necessary. A Vivid Vision is a step away from the present into the future three years down the road. It can be about a business you have or about yourself personally. For the purpose of this post, we will stick with a personal Vivid Vision. What will your life look like in three years? How much money will you have? What kind of financial position will you be in? What will your relationship with a significant other look like? Where will you live and what will your lifestyle be like on a daily basis? Where will you travel? These are just some of the questions to ask yourself when writing a Vivid Vision. To do this properly, you’ll need to write your Vivid Vision as if you are yourself in three years now by writing in the present tense. Using this reflection-like thinking, you will better be able to buy into the vision and get your brain turning on how you can achieve it and fill the gaps between now and the three years from now version of yourself. Personally, I’ve written multiple Vivid Visions, and not only have they helped me lay out what my future both personally and in different businesses will look like, but it has helped me check off milestones to show I’ve made progress. As things begin to come true in your Vivid Vision, you will feel an energized feeling of accomplishment and motivation to keep pushing even when things get tough. I’ve seen this happen in my own life, and the benefits of this can add an enormous spike to your chances of successfully achieving your vision.
Putting it all together
While the Vivid Vision is the end goal of you three years down the road, your primary aim is what will get you there. With the two of these working in conjunction, you can assure that you have clear and obvious objectives and that you achieve those objectives staying true to your core values as a person. While the Vivid Vision shows the outlooks of what life will look like three years from now, your primary aim will help bridge the gap between the present and the future. In three years’ time when your Vivid Vision is supposed to be a reality, you’ll have time to reflect on those three years to see how far you’ve come. Did your Vivid Vision work out completely as planned? What went wrong and what went right? Did you stay aligned with your primary aim? What could you do to improve your results as you prepare a Vivid Vision for the next three years? Writing a new Vivid Vision every three years allows for enough time to elapse so that you can achieve some big goals, however it is concise enough so that you can aim for even bigger goals that are backed by your primary aim and use the three year intervals to pause and reflect as you plan how you want to move forward. The bigger vision can only be accomplished when you know where you want to go and you have a solid set of values to guide you along the way!