One of the key things we speak about when we discuss Vision is that Vision gives us context. If we allow it to, Vision can inform everything from the biggest life decisions...like whether or not to marry Ted or move to Paris or study literature or engineering...to the smallest life decisions...like what to eat for breakfast on any given Tuesday. If we engage Vision as a context provider or filter, we can be relatively certain that we're always heading in the direction of what we have named and claimed for ourselves. It's kind of like how GPS works - you plug an address into your phone, and no matter which way you turn, GPS will constantly recalibrate to send you in the direction of your destination.
But let’s start at the start. What exactly is Vision? I’ve noticed when people begin to engage our work here at IMS, it’s easy for there to be confusion around Vision and meeting certain goals, or benchmarks. Let’s say you’re ready to get the body back to fighting weight and you’ve got it in your mind to run a marathon. Awesome! You start your training, you develop a strict diet regimen, all of your energy is directed toward crossing that finish line. And you make it! Hooray! Lots of hugs and high fives and Gatorade dumped on your head. But then, as the weeks go by, the diet starts to drop off, the exercise routine fades away. Within a few months you’re back to where you were. But how can that be? You ran a friggin marathon for crying out loud!
The answer is in that confusion I was talking about. Running a marathon is a great thing to be up to, but it doesn’t constitute Vision. Overall health and vitality, not just today, or next week, but always, is Vision. Feeling energetic and inspired, not just today, but always, is Vision. Running a marathon is a benchmark, one of many, that are in service of creating Vision. It breaks down like this:
Action Plan: x macros/day, run x miles/day, stamina training x minutes/day, etc. →
Benchmark: Complete Marathon →
Vision: Health and Vitality
And the same formula applies to any aspect of life. You’ve always imagined yourself with a big family, living in an old ranch style house on a big piece of land, some chickens, an organic garden, maybe a goat or two. Hey, whatever gets you going, right? Okay, that’s Vision. Now, what are the components necessary to get you there? Those are your benchmarks. Or maybe you style yourself an entrepreneur, going to own your own business and never spend a day of your life ‘working for the man’. Cool, that’s a Vision. Now you can lay out the benchmarks you’ll need to hit to get there.
So, back to the GPS analogy. Your Vision (Health & Vitality, Family Farm, Own My Own Business, maybe all 3!) is your destination. The benchmarks are the roads you take to get there. But as we know, the journey from point A to point B is not always smooth sailing. Maybe you come across a section of road in front of you that’s been washed away in a flood. Okay, what are you going to do? You could get out of the car and scream and yell and stomp your feet at the edge of the giant hole in the ground. You could curl up in a ball on the passenger seat and feel sorry for yourself. You could blame it on your mother. But are any of those things going to get you to your destination? Of course not. Instead, just sit tight, take a breath. Your destination (Vision) has been programmed into the GPS (your nervous system). Give it a sec, and the GPS will find a new route.
But that takes work. It takes training. Your nervous system is a remarkable work of nature, capable of astonishing things, which makes it a bit more complicated than Google Maps. We can’t just say, Alexa, take me to fulfillment. Take me to inspiration and joy and meaningful relationships and financial security and health and vitality. But with time, intention, focus, and consistency, you can train the nervous system to operate inside those spaces. When you come across that washed out section of road, or a twenty car pile up on the Interstate, or just an unexpected Road Closed sign, you’ll be able to acknowledge, evaluate, and realign the nervous system to get back on course.
Emil has a vision. He wants to live a life of inspiration and creativity. He wants to be financially self-sufficient. A big piece of that Vision is publishing coffee table books that highlight each of the 50 state capital buildings. Specific, yes, but you know what they say, you gotta find a niche. The problem is, Emil can’t just go gallivanting across the country photographing old buildings and researching their histories. He has a day job, a family, responsibilities. So he gets to work on an action plan. What’s it going to take, one day, one week, one month to the next to keep this project moving forward?
He maps out weekends, holidays, vacation days, any time he can hop in the car or get on an airplane and spend a day or two in Denver, or Albany, or Honolulu. He communicates with his family, friends, and coworkers what he plans to do, and with their support, Emil sets out to create his coffee table book. Does everything go as planned? Of course not. Do half the dates he hopes to travel get preempted by work obligations, family commitments, bad weather, a crippling bout of food poisoning the morning he was supposed to get on a plane for Sacramento? You bet they did. Did he almost get arrested outside the capital building in Salt Lake City because— Maybe we shouldn’t go into that.
Point is, when obstacles presented themselves, Emil didn’t let them slow him down. He didn’t get mad at his boss for scheduling a team building retreat the same weekend he planned to be in Baton Rouge. He didn’t decide his wife was trying to sabotage his dream when she booked a weekend in Palm Beach for their anniversary (although he quietly wondered if might be able to sneak off to Tallahassee while they were there. [He didn’t]) And when flights were canceled, or capital buildings were closed for maintenance, or he couldn’t get the proper clearances, or whatever number of road blocks presented themselves, Emil didn’t blame the universe for conspiring against him. Instead, he kept himself aligned with the greater Vision. Not the completion of the coffee table book; the Vision: inspiration, creativity, financial self-sufficiency. It’s the Vision that carried him around, over, and through those obstacles.
Vision gives us context. It gives us direction. It gives us the environment in which we create the lives we want. Vision isn’t choosing broccoli over cheese fries. But when we’re aligned with a Vision of health and vitality, we happily choose the broccoli because we know the cheese fries are a road filled with potholes. Vision isn’t finding the perfect mate. But when we’re aligned with a Vision of fulfilling, loving, invigorating relationships, we clear the road ahead to find that person we’re looking for. And finally, Vision isn’t making a coffee table book. But when we’re aligned with a Vision of creativity, inspiration, and financial self-sufficiency, we find a way to make the trips, to take the photos, to gather the research, even when a certain security guard in Salt Lake City is having a bad day.
Whatever you want to create in your life, it all starts with Vision. When you train the nervous system to align with your Vision, well…the possibilities are endless. Join us for a Power Series Weekend Intensive and learn to name a Vision for yourself. From there, we’ll provide the tools, techniques and strategies for training the nervous system to align with your Vision and serve as your GPS. Click HERE to learn more about the Power Series and sign up today!