The Power of a Compelling Vision

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the differencAs a big Formula 1 fan, I often find myself researching on how racing drivers learn to keep calm and handle a situation where they lose control of their car. Here is an interesting story. The natural reaction in such cases is for them to focus on the wall or the object which they want to avoid. Because their focus is on the wall, that’s also where they end. To avoid that, instead of focusing on the wall, racing drivers since the start of their career learn to focus on where they want to go – usually the track or an open space. This allows them to avoid the wall, stay on course and go where they want to go to avoid a crash.

Basically, what happens is that these drivers learn how to stay focused on their end goal and not get distracted even when under pressure. They lose the car, and they avoid looking at the wall. Instead, they look at the racing line and get the car back on track.

While this is a true story, at the same time that could act as big metaphor for everyone’s life. Written or not, we all have one or more goals on the back of our head. We want to achieve something every day – that is why we wake up in the morning and leave our bed. That’s why we go to work, and that’s why we sometimes leave our families to move to a different country and pursue something different that we want. While working towards our goals, same as the racing drivers we will sometimes lose control of our direction and we will crash. What matters however, is that we learn how to get back on track again. We need to learn how to stay loyal and engaged to our goals. Research shows that having a compelling vision for your life can act as a glue that holds your objectives together and can help you reach the end destination.

Your vision statement is the desired outcome you want for your life. It is the thing that defines your path and all your objectives leading you from where you are today to where you want to be in the future. Often, people state that you need to have a specific vision for each area of your life, be it career, family, social life, etc. They confuse vision with objectives. Having objectives for each area of our life is important, but if you go through life working on these objectives separately without a clear and compelling vision that holds these objectives together, you will find yourself lost. You will end up on the wall (same as the racing driver) and have that feeling that you don’t know what your purpose of life is.

The truth is that we you only need to have one clear vision. And don’t confuse that with your purpose. Your life vision is bigger than your purpose. Actually, your vision is a combination of your purpose for life and the impact that you want to make in your lifetime. Take for example the following: My vision is “to make our world a happier place by helping people find their own purpose”. The first part of this vision statement represents the individual’s purpose, while the second part states the impact that this individual want to have on people’s life. You get the idea.

Why Does Vision Matter?

Having understood what a compelling vision is consisted of, makes it easier to understand how a vision can help you in any aspect of your life:

A vision excites and provides motivation – once upon time, there was a high school student who wanted to become a U.S Navy pilot, but she hated exercising. To prepare for her test flight, she needed to go through hours and hours of training every day. As soon as the training clock was approaching, she wanted to call in sick and skip the session. Regardless, she never skipped a minute of training, and that is because she had envisioned herself wearing that uniform with all the stars/wings on it and flying off fighting aircrafts. That feeling she was getting every time she thought about that vision, made her feel so excited and motivated that she could not let a thing hold her back.

Now, translate that story into your own story and take a moment to think how you feel when you wake up and you have to go to work. If you don’t feel the same excitement that that girl felt, your objectives are not aligned with your vision. That is why you first write your vision statement down and then you start drafting your objectives and the actions to achieve them.

A vision gives us passion and purpose – knowing your end goal, helps you envision the journey, but having defined that end goal based on what motivates you and what matters to you, helps your further connect to these goals emotionally. It gives you drive and energy to do everything it takes to achieve them. If you envision yourself in your forties having a family and actually having your time to spend with your kids at the beach every morning without any distractions, you need to define your mid-term goals through your thirties in such way that they will prepare you for the forties’ lifestyle you imagined. You might need to sacrifice some party time and maybe work some extra hours, but you will do that with passion, because you are doing it for a purpose; You are doing it to make sure you get the chance to live the family life the way you envisioned it. Your vision for that lifestyle helps you work with passions on your objectives and it also helps you feel purposeful every time you accomplish one of them.

How to Craft a Compelling Vision

Knowing that to have a vision statement you only need to come up with your purpose and the impact you want to make, makes it feel as it is an easy process. Well, it is. You only need to spend some time trying to understand yourself better. You can start building your vision, by performing the following short assignments:

1. What matters to you the most? Why?

2. What are your strengths? Are you leveraging them well enough to satisfy the answer to the above questions? If not, what can you do better?

3. I know you want to avoid this but think of your funeral for a moment. What is it that you want people to say there? What would you prefer to be written in your final rock? What is the legacy you want to leave behind?

4. What things/people/activities/ make you feel passionate?

5. Where do you see yourself in 10, 20 or 30 years? What puts a smile on your face?

Once you have written down the first draft of your vision statement, give yourself a break of a few days. Then, get back to it and read it again. Ask yourself “How does it link to your values”? Will it make full use of your strengths? Will it ensure that you are performing daily the things/activities that you are passionate about? Do that again and again over the course of a month, until you have the final statement that will meet all the above-mentioned criteria.

I know I said it is easy – and it really is – but remember that we a re talking for something that will define your life’s purpose; We are talking about something that will serve as a compass for your short, mid, and long-term goals; Something that will provide direction to your daily actions - A compelling vision statement that will allow you to be a successful driver of your life and will hold you within the racing line for your end goal.

Here are some short examples of how some of the most successful people in the world (in their designated areas) used their vision to achieve their goals.

Martin L. King on his famous speech “I Have a Dream” used his dream for a world where “his four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”, to make all people who find themselves in the same position to follow him.

John Kennedy, turned an entire nation to work towards "bringing a man step on Moon and come back on Earth alive" because he presented his vision that such thing was one of the only areas on which the US could be the first and lead the game. It is said that an American father, when asked by his young child what work does he does, he answered that he helps bring men to moon. He was a caretaker, but he was convinced that his work was helping people stay healthy and as such, those people would somehow connect to someone who was part of the space-exploring team.

Barack Obama in his initial election campaign, presented himself as someone who envisions a nation in which every citizen gets to know and is involved on every decision the governmental administration would make. His vision was to re-build a nation where everyone had a voice. Who doesn't want that?

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