You are missing out on your potential if you don't have a vision.

Vision is one of my favorite words. I am sure you have heard it a lot too. But have you sat down to figure out a clear vision for your life and business/career?

For many years I was not sure what it means to have my vision. You can read the story here. It took time for me to realize why having a vision is so crucial.

Now I am confident that it is a key that determines success or failure in your life. You can never get where you want unless you first have a clear vision of where you want to be, who you need to become, and what actions you need to take to get there.

Here are 3 reasons why we need to have a vision.

#1 — Sense of Direction

You need to know what you want and where you are going to get there.

It is improbable that successful people end up achieving a lot of success, whether in business, professional, personal life, in sports, or finances, or anything else, just by accident.

For example, Henry Ford did not discover the V-8 motor just by accident. He was working on this for more than a year, and people who worked for him often told him it is not possible to build such a motor. However, he always persisted through all the No’s and “It is not possible.”

He asked his engineers to try one more time and one more time, and one more time. He said, “I want it! I’ll have it!” And finally, they found how to build such a motor. He saw a clear picture of what he wants and had a strong desire to make it a reality.

Also, US swimmer Michael Phelps did not win 8 gold medals in the 2008 Olympics by accident. He was preparing all year.

363 out of 365 days of the year, he spent in the swimming pool. He was practicing; he was studying techniques. He was looking for how he could be better than his competitors, even for a millisecond.

He had a clear vision of where he wanted to be.

On the other hand, if your vision is blurry, or you don’t even have one, most likely, you will end up following other people’s vision. Sometimes you need to do that for a while as well, to learn some things. But if you do that for too long, you will end up in a place you don’t want with time wasted.

#2 — Energy, Excitement, Motivation

Vision gives you focus, clarity, and, therefore, energy, excitement, and motivation to move towards the direction you want.

When you don’t have vision and purpose, you are kind of flowing through life. An excellent opportunity shines somewhere, you get excited. You do it for a while, and then you don’t see your investment return, and you leave it. Only to jump again in something else.

Or, even worse, maybe you are living your days hoping and wishing that one day something significant will change in your life.

One of the greatest tragedies of human life is a life wasted because it is lived without a purpose.

You have more energy: When you have a vision, you have energy, and you can feel it, even if you feel physically tired.

You don’t wish for the time to go faster because you are waiting for something. Instead, you want for the time to stop, so you can enjoy the moment and get done more.

And you wouldn’t even be sad about missing out on a party, you otherwise would be thinking about it all the time, because not going to it gives you more time to work on your goal.

Also, you know how to set your priorities in the right order because you fear spending time on non-essential activities and losing the valuable time when you can work on your vision.

You are more focused and motivated: The world today is full of things that scream for our attention. When you have a vision, you can filter through the different clusters to see what you need to do.

Instead of wasting time on non-essential activities, like watching TV or scrolling through FB, you choose to work on making your dream a reality. Step by step.

You have more excitement: When you have a vision, even if you are in a darker position in life, it is easy for you to find joy and excitement. You get inspired when you think about your vision. The common everyday problems lose their seriousness from the perspective of having an inspiring future.

#3 — Ability To Overcome Obstacles

Vision will help you not to give up and will push you through the challenges.

If you ever have thought that your road to your dream life will be easy and without roadblocks, setbacks, and obstacles, then you have been very wrong. Unless your dream is a 9–5 job with average income, and you don’t have a burning desire of “I want something more out of life.”

But if you have, then having a strong and clear vision (with commitment) will often be the main thing that pushes you through obstacles and difficulties.

There will be moments when you think it is not possible. And moments when others around will say: it is not going to work, who does that?

There will be moments when your plans will fail, and you will feel like you have made the wrong decision.

Having a strong and clear vision and commitment for it will often be the main thing that pushes you through obstacles and difficulties.

You know the best way to check whether your vision is vital to you and if that really is your vision is?

You can check it by whether or not it becomes real. When you go through difficulties and don’t achieve success right away — what do you do?

Maybe even for a longer time, you don’t see any results. Whether you give up or you continue pushing towards it and sticking to it will show you if that is really your authentic vision.

If you lose your focus on the way there, then, hey, it might not have been really your thing.

And that is totally ok. Maybe it is just not the right timing to really understand what you truly want in life. The time will come.

But be ready that the road to fulfilling your exciting and mind-blowing vision will not be a straight path without any winds and storms. It will be quite a winding road, but the ability to see the destination will get you through it. And you will even enjoy it!

You will need to have patience and persistence to carry out your vision.

Let’s take Sara Blakely as an example. She worked on her original Spanx hosiery product for 2 years while working and selling fax machines door-to-door. Then when her idea was ready, she went to manufacturers.

However, she was turned down by every one of them. These companies wanted to deal only with already established companies, but Sarah was a one-person-business. And they also did not believe in her idea.

She didn’t give up. Some months later, her product was advertised by Oprah Winfrey. Spanx now is a world-known brand, and Sarah has been listed by Forbes as the 93rd most powerful woman in the world.

How To Set A Good Vision?

Be very specific about it. Understand what you are good at. What do you like to do? What are you passionate about?

Sometimes we don’t even notice ourselves so well what we are good at. Think a little bit as well what others have often told you — what are you good at? And what makes you passionate so that you really feel like you could do this every day?

If you are afraid, because it’s hard for you to see how to do profitable business out of that, don’t be.

This age of opportunities to reach the whole world with your idea, message, the product is like never before. People these days can succeed with anything and everything. If they have a purpose, meaning, and why behind it.

Write down your 1-year, 5-year, 10-year goals, and visualize how you would like things to be then.

Write down the Be-Do-Have exercise: write down 10 characteristics you would like to have, 10 things you would like to do, and 10 things you would like to have (in a year or longer time). This exercise works great!

Make a vision board. Review your vision regularly. Spend time thinking about it, visualizing yourself being, doing, having, and trying to feel the emotions as lively as possible.

Take time to figure out your vision. Don't waste time like I did.

In Conclusion

To sum it all up, you can’t go where you don’t see. If you are in a position where you have dreams and desires of who you would like to be one day and what you would like to do, but they are merely wishes, then take time to really specify all that.

If you are in a position you don’t really know what you want and are bothered by that, then take time to observe yourself and try out new things.

Observe what you really like and what you are good at. Be honest with yourself. And try new things. Maybe you get passionate about something you have never really tried or thought even about.

Originally published at https://www.lainekaleja.com.

To get more ideas, insights, hacks, how-to's and updates, follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my newsletter.

If you feel like you are not fulfilling your full potential and negative, limiting beliefs are holding you back, and you’d love to have a roadmap to get you from where you are stuck to your vision,

or

you haven’t found yet what you love, but you know you are made for something more than what you do right now, then book a free 30-min consultation call with me! I’d love to help you!

Remember,

You are the creator of your own life, so be a conscious creator!

With love, ♡

Laine