I’ve said it time and time again that you can never underestimate the power of having a clear concise vision. If we are to be the leader of our own lives, then we must do what every leader does – cast a vision for our future. The vision must paint a clear and concise picture of who we aspire to be and what we aspire to achieve.
Often times when I work with executives and business owners and ask them to tell me about their vision, it is riddled in facts, figures and metrics oriented goals. Painting your personal leadership picture is more art than science. Imagine a clean white canvass and you alone can choose the design, pattern, colors and theme. It is distinctly you and no one as the right to tell you if it’s right or wrong. It is simply the vision that you cast for yourself. Every successful CEO of companies I’ve worked with has cast a vision for their businesses. In fact, it’s their responsibility to image what is possible or to even imagine what’s seemingly impossible.
It takes courage to create a compelling picture that motivates and inspires yourself and others. I think about the audacity of professional league coaches who have the audacity to think they can galvanize a large group of diverse characters like professional athletes, who have various personalities, egos, skill-sets, and motivations and truly believe you can win a national championship. That takes guts! They know exactly what their end game looks like…a national championship. However, just stating your picture is not enough.
Extreme Clarity around your vision is imperative to success. The picture of your vision should be so clear you can taste it, touch it, smell it and believe it. That’s how much detail in the description of your vision is required. If your vision is not so clear that it will elicit some type of an emotion, then you need to go deeper.
Take your time and enjoy the process and engage your imagination by dispelling self-imposed limiting beliefs. Once you have clear and compelling vision that inspires you and others, you can now begin to move boldly in the direction of your vision with many others running alongside you to be a part of something great!