Creating the Vision of Your Success

When I was part of a change team for a company that was reinventing its structure to better serve customers, the lead consultant asked the senior executives to write an imaginary Wall Street Journal article about the company’s success – five years from the completion of the change initiative. The exercise focused the team on the positive outcomes they were striving for and challenged them to think about what additional changes would need to happen to get them to realize the successes in their success article. After this exercise they had a clearer vision of the future desired state, which helped to focus their actions and get them to see past the pain of change.

How often do you think about what you want your future to look like? When you have reached a point of complete satisfaction with your business/career, who are your clients? What does your office look like? What are your annual billings? How much time off do you take? Where will you go on vacation? What kind of house are you living in? What kind of car do you drive? What do your relationships look like? Consider creating a visual reminder of your aspirations so you stay fully present on where you are going and the steps it will take you to get there.

The mind is a powerful tool when it comes to achieving success. Envisioning your success may sound a lot like daydreaming, but when we are driving somewhere we have never been, we typically take along a roadmap. (If only the roadmap to our life success were as easy as plugging the destination into googlemaps and clicking go!) Success in business and having a great life takes planning and hard work. The big question is, what do you need to do to get yourself to that future desired state?

Take Action Challenge: Be on the lookout for pictures and words that speak to you about your success and put together a “vision map” that you can place somewhere as a constant reminder of where you want to go. You can create an online version (that you can also save as your computer screensaver) using the Ultimate Vision Board application at facebook.com. Share with the community by using the comment button if you have done a visioning exercise or used a vision board to inspire your success.

© 2008 Jocelyn Canfield, ABC
www.communication-results.com