Base Your Vision on Your Highest Self

Base your vision statement on your highest sense of self, your grandest vision for your life, your most outrageous contribution. In fact, you might want to envision something even better than what you consider to be the best possible outcome. Remember that the purpose of the vision statement is to inspire, energize, motivate, and stimulate your creativity, not to serve as a measuring stick for success; that is the job of your goals and action plans.

I once heard of a training seminar where one of the exercises was to come up with as many ideas as possible for earning ten dollars by the end of the day. This was supposedly an exercise in brainstorming. After a few minutes, the instructor polled the audience for some of their ideas. Some ideas were better than others, but everyone agreed that even the bad ones could have earned someone ten dollars in a day.

The instructor then asked if any of the ideas presented so far could earn someone a million dollars. The consensus was that the vast majority of ideas had absolutely no chance to make anyone a million dollars, and a select few had only a very slim chance. At the end of the exercise, the instructor simply said, “You don’t get million dollar ideas from a ten dollar vision.”

In other words, the quality of your vision determines the creativity, quality and originality of your ideas and solutions. A powerful vision statement should stretch expectations and aspirations helping you jump out of your comfort zone.

Some people question creating a vision that may feel idealistic or unreasonable. It requires a great deal of confidence and faith, to be able to create a vision that you do not see exactly how it will manifest. But it is also something that can make an exciting challenge filled with hope and possibility. It all depends on your relationship to “failure.” Creating a life worth living requires a great deal of failure. Let failures be your stepping stones into an even greater future and you’ll create a “million dollar vision.”

"I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot... and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why... I succeed." ~ Michael Jordan

Remember that the purpose of the vision statement is not to serve as a target that you are going to measure against to determine if you have succeeded or failed. You should use your goals and objectives to do that. Instead, the purpose of the vision statement is to open your eyes to what is possible.
Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more powerful than knowledge.” I believe this is true because while knowledge allows you to see things as they are, imagination allows you to see things as they could be.
When we become aware of what is possible, we begin to realize that dreams can be achieved, and we not only can, but must create the life we envision. In doing so we open up a completely new set of avenues and possibilities, which by itself is a tremendous source of passion and energy.