What’s Your Big Picture?
In the last post I talked about the importance of having a Personal Mission Statement (or even a series of them) that express the goal(s) you would like to achieve in the next year or so, and the values you want to maintain to get there.
Another important exercise is to develop the Big Picture or a Vision Statement that expresses what you want your life to look like over the next 5 – 10 years.
Vision statements are longer and paint a large picture of the life you desire using lots of detail, adjectives and emotion to express your hopes and dreams.
You know how some TV sets have a smaller window where you can actually watch one show on the main screen and keep an eye on another in a smaller screen? (If you live with a sports fan, you know this feature well!) Laurie Beth Jones, author of The Path, uses that as an example of how to look at the picture of WCI (What Currently Is) and at WCB (What Can Be) at the same time.
You can’t change your current life or work overnight but you can begin to focus your attention on a distant picture to help you pick and choose the path to get there.
So what does your vision look like? There’s an article about the five W’s called The Possibilities are Endless on my website where I suggest some of the choices you can consider.
• WHERE would you live?
• WHAT would you be doing?
• WHO would you be doing it with?
• WHEN would you do it?
• WHY do you want to do it?
Write your Vision Statement as if it is already happening. Here’s some of mine:
I live at least part of the year at the beach or near a body of water and travel frequently; I write books and do some public speaking to earn an income, and spend some time each day reading, playing the piano and doing art projects; I have a significant other person in my life and visit with my family often; I only work about 4 hours a day to leave time for volunteering and community involvement. I feel good that I am demonstrating to my children and grandchildren how to live a balanced life.
I’m not there yet, but I know where I’m headed. Just like the Mission Statement, my Big Picture or Vision Statement gives me guideposts to use when making daily choices about how I spend my time, energy and money.
So, what’s your vision? Most of you have at least heard about The Secret or The Law of Attraction. These are the two most recent iterations of an ages old philosophy that says “what you focus on will grow, what you ignore will whither.”
If you focus on a vision of the best life you can imagine you will find opportunities suddenly popping up. The key is paying attention so you don’t miss them.
Sandy on 19 Mar 2009 at 10:36 am #
This is so true.
In November 2007 I asked myself “Imagine that 5 years has passed and that everything has gone ‘right’. What would your life look like?’ and wrote an essay entitled ‘My Ideal Life”.
Just by writing about all the things you talk about here I was able to clarify what was important to me and where I wanted to go.
If I hadn’t taken the time to think about it and write about it I wouldn’t be where I am today, pursuing my dreams of being a writer and working for myself.
Like you I am not there yet, but I am on my way.
Thanks for a great post!! Looking forward to more.