A biblical saying goes, “Where this is no vision, the people perish.” Sounds dramatic, but it points to an important success principle — the clearer your idea of your future, the more likely you are to achieve it. Vision relates to our purpose and meaning in our life. Medical science has shown that those are key to health and well being. So in a sense, this ancient saying is right. Vision is important. It keeps us from getting off track. It reminds us of what is important in life. And that keeps us healthy, inspired and motivated.

We’ve mentioned before the late, great Yogi Berra who once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you will end up someplace else.” He had a profound way of expressing wisdom in what seemed like irrational speech. Too often we are living a reactive life, one where we spend our days just trying to cope. When we do that, we never end up where we want to be in life. Vision is our anchor. It keeps us grounded. It keeps us from ending up “someplace else.”

One of the biggest mistakes people make in creating a vision is to think about how it can come to be. The road to fulfilling a vision is most often crooked with what appears to be a lot of backtracking. We need to be willing to embrace a vision without knowing every single detail of how we will get there. The vision gives us the fuel for the journey. High octane fuel doesn’t come with driving instructions. Vision is like that. It can inspire us even if we don’t have all the details yet. With that inspiration we just take a step towards it. Then, like driving up a mountain, we find shorter paths as we get higher and can see more clearly. Create a great vision and use it to inspire that next step today.

Too often we think of motivation as trying to get the energy to do something we don’t want to do. This can be the case when we are living a reactive life. We just try to find some energy to do the next thing on our task list. It was Steve Jobs who said, “If you are working on something truly exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” This is the importance of having a vision and focusing on it daily. It inspires you. It motivates you. It pulls you. You don’t have to force yourself to do anything. You just let yourself be pulled by the vision.

“A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more.”
— Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor, Harvard Business School

This is why vision can inspire us so much. It is feedback from our better self that exciting growth and fulfillment are coming. We may have to learn new skills. We may have to get more education. We may have to shift our attitude. But when we are guided by vision, we are inspired, excited and motivated. And we become our better self as we take the journey to our destiny.

In creating a vision, we are pulled and excited to be creating the life of our future. The vision for our life compels us into action. Just as life is composed of many facets, we can have more than one vision. We can have a vision for each important area: finances, relationships, career, health and fitness, and so forth. It is best to focus on your main vision first, as it reflects your main purpose in life. But then feel free to create as many as you want.

Helen Keller had an illness at the age of two that left her deaf, dumb and blind. At that point in history, life looked pretty bleak for a person in her condition. Highly intelligent and determined, and with the help of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, Helen went on to become the first blind and deaf person in history to graduate college. She became highly regarded as a writer and social activist. She was a visionary who said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” She understood the importance of vision. It is primary to our life’s purpose. At EnVision, we understand this and support you in developing your vision, representing it visually and connecting with it daily.

Visualization is a multifaceted tool. We can use it to enhance athletic performance. We can use it to create a calm, relaxed state. And we can use it to visualize the vision of our future life. Of the many ways we can utilize this tool, vision visualization is the most powerful and impactful. It creates motivation, drive, passion and inspiration. It creates focus and gives us the energy we need to take the next step forward on our path. Vision visualization is the leader of the pack of visualization types and it can make you the leader of the pack in your own life.

Too often we think that a visualization practice is just sitting with our eyes closed creating images in our minds. A real visualization practice connects visualization to our vision for our life. It connects our practice to action as well. It is the wise way of visualizing. If we combine the wisdom of an ancient Japanese proverb with author Joel A. Barker’s take on vision, we realize this: Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision is a nightmare. Vision with action can change the world.

Our future life is created today. What we do this day creates the momentum and direction that moves our life forward and creates our future life. We can accelerate the speed of that future life arriving by the actions we take today. And one of the best accelerators is the habit of connecting with our vision, visualizing to change state and then engaging in dynamic action from that state. When we make this our daily habit, we accelerate our progress toward our vision and we see the results.

Picking a big vision isn’t just about “thinking big.” Vision isn’t blue sky dreaming. It isn’t just a fantasy. Vision is about what it invokes in us. It is about passion and purpose. It creates the drive and inspiration that makes us plow through obstacles, take on big challenges and succeed more than we might have imagined. In picking a big vision, don’t pick something so outlandish that it doesn’t excite you. Pick the biggest excitement, the vision that evokes the greatest passion and let that passion pull you forward to your future.

Our vision is not a fixed thing. Our capacity for success, leadership and creativity is not fixed either. Vision creates the passion that compels our action forward. It also creates the drive to grow to meet whatever challenge comes along our path. With that growth, our potential grows even more. And with that greater potential our vision can grow and change. It all depends on us having a vision, visualizing it and creating inspiration and passion to take that next step — to take dynamic action toward our future. That is what EnVision is all about.

Very rarely does it happen that we climb a mountain in a perfectly straight line. The path winds and weaves and at times can feel as if we are going backwards. The same is true with moving toward our vision. We may have to backtrack, learn new skills, get further education, test ideas and fail — all before we realize our vision. We don’t get to our vision in a straight line. But the more focused and passionate we are, the clearer the path becomes and there are less detours. By a daily practice of visualization we make the road straighter and more direct. We inspire ourselves and get more done. We stay more focused and wander less. We make the long and winding road not so long and winding. That is the power of visualization.

Vision is key as it directs us and inspires us. But how do you get there from here? The short answer is that we don’t. Our vision changes “here” so that getting “there” becomes easy. Vision calls forth our potential. It inspires our growth. It changes us, as we take steps each day to move in its direction. It forces us to learn and adapt and transform. That is why it is so powerful. And that is what makes a daily visualization practice powerful, where we connect with our vision and visualize a future that compels us to learn and grow. It compels us to transform “here” and get “there” even faster.

Visualizing our vision is more than thinking about reaching a mountain top. For visualization to be effective, it needs to inspire us to take action. It needs to compel us forward in our life and connect us with our purpose. Another way of saying it is that visualizing our vision connects us to what is meaningful in our lives. The point of doing this is to inspire our drive and motivation so that we can take action. Like the mountaineer, we see the mountain top and no matter how tired we are, we take the next step. Why? Because seeing the mountain top moves something within us. It connects us to our purpose and it gives us the energy to move forward. So visualize your vision, see the mountain top and take the next step.

Creating a positive mindset is an important element in creating success. But it is not the only element. Being able to connect your vision with that inspired, motivated, positive mindset is important. With EnVision we show you how to do that. But it is also important to connect that state with powerful intentions and to set up your day to take key actions. EnVision does all that too. We take your vision and connect it to visualizing and creating a positive state. We align that state with action through intention. And we connect your vision to goals and key actions. We help you get connected for success.

“You can’t get there from here,” is a famous saying in the state of Maine. The same is true if we don’t have clear goals to support our vision. Of course, having a vision to start with is important. That is greatly aided by the process of visualization and its ancillary tools like vision boards. In the process of adding detail to our vision and breaking it down into goals, we get clarity on the steps to move forward. And that is priceless. Visualization sets us up for “getting there from here.” It is something that can help anyone.