Every business needs a vision, but not every entrepreneur has to be a visionary.
If you close your eyes and imagine where you would like your life to be in, say, 5 years, what might it look like?
Try it. I give you permission to daydream for a while.
Call it a mindful moment or meditation. You can also think of it as manifesting…
Picture a future near enough to be vivid, but far away enough to be achievable.
Where are you?
Who is with you?
What are you doing?
What are you looking at?
What sounds to do hear?
What smells do you smell?
How do you feel?
Sit with it a for while, really focus on it and try to picture it.
Then take a deep breath, open your eyes and quickly write it down/draw it before it fades.
Life in 5 Years
Each time I’ve done exactly that, what I see, where I imagine myself, is not in the front of my computer in my home office!
In those daydreams, I’ve been on the prow of a speedboat, or laying on a bed of fur in a yurt, or cruising along the Amalfi Coast in a vintage convertible, big bug-eyed sunglasses and a flowery scarf billowing behind me, Audrey Hepburn Style.
Where The Future Takes Us
This is where I imagine my future will take me. But these aren’t one-off holidays – a few days hiatus between long spells of air-conditioned offices – No.
The overwhelming feeling I’ve had in all these flights of fancy has been that these are high points of everyday life.
My vision is that the freedom of self-employment has allowed me to live a nomadic lifestyle.
This is the vision for my business. The vision for our life.
What’s stopping this from being my life right now?
Is It Vanity?
This is where I find myself thinking of it as just ‘vanity’.
I can’t only think of myself, I have a husband, a cat, 2 chickens and a mortgage. A husband in a full-time office based job which pays that mortgage!
The thing that stops this being my reality is my responsibility to my life partner, in all things.
The challenge therefore, is to find a way to be true to both.
Especially since he too needs a life change after a recent health scare.
Is it Vision?
Writing about the ‘vision’ for my business is the first step to making these changes.
The first steps towards creating a reality that suits both of us.
A vision for the Morses
Life’s Little Luxuries
We agree that we would like to travel more, but quite how and what form that takes is a work in progress.
However, we also enjoy a little luxury!
I don’t mean traveling 5-star, I mean not living out of a backpack and sleeping in bug infested hovels.
I mean travelling, but maintaining a comfortable life. Earning enough money to enjoy eating and drinking out, Cafe Culture and sleeping in a comfortable – private – bedroom.
Being able to enjoy the trappings of travel, as well as living with the locals. I would hate to travel to a once in a lifetime place and not be able to afford the entrance fee!
Can You Manifest it?
I’m not convinced by the notion of manifesting. The concept of willing your goals into existence seems a bit far fetched to me, but that said, focusing on what you want from life rather than what is wrong with it will shift your mindset. That mindset shift will start you on the path to making positive, proactive and intentional choices instead of firefighting all the time and constantly reacting to the bad stuff.
I wanted to know more about this trendy modern idea of ‘manifesting’ and found this article in The Guardian.
Can you manifest the vision from doing exercises like this or is that simply vanity?
“Positive thinking attracts positive results” (source article)
If you dream something and believe it will come true, frankly, you are deluding yourself. If you want something, you need to work at it.
‘Manifesting’ is not a short cut to success. Relying on manifesting alone is nothing but self absorption, narcissism and entitlement. Whether consciously or not, believing that ‘the universe owes you a favour’.
How Does it Work in Reality?
I think it’s a bit of both faith and dreaming it, then taking intentional action.
For example, I always had a dream that one day I would publish a book. I eventually made that happen in 2013 when I published The Bronze Box.
It didn’t happen by rubbing a magic lamp and wishing it to be so. It happened by thinking about it, researching and working at it a little bit every day for years, then sitting down and actually writing the bloody thing every day for months. Followed by a year of getting help and getting it to the point where it was good enough to publish.
Is that ‘manifesting’?
I wanted something, I made it happen.
When someone asks me, “How do you write a book?” – my answer, without flippancy, is “One word at a time”. Just as getting to where you want to be in life takes one step at a time.
You need the vision and the right mindset in order to set the intention. You need to set the intention in order to plan the steps back from where you want to go. Then you need to take that first baby step and keep on walking, and kept on moving in whatever direction is right in that moment. You can never truly predict the future, but you can step into the future you want – eventually, with help from others and yourself and the confidence and courage to keep on going, even when it gets tough.
“Manifestation is attractive because it feels like something you can do to bring about happiness and success, but it’s when we accept the struggle that things change,” (source article)
And here’s the rub – when you get there, or close to it, you will have changed as a person. You will have gained more experience, more knowledge, more wisdom. You may be in a totally new stage of life or taken opportunities that were not apparent when you took that first step.
That ‘vision’ you had, was not about the thing or the place, but about the ‘why’. It was about the intangible values, beliefs and aspirations you want from your life.
The point it not to make the vision you see on this day in history a reality on this day in 5 years time otherwise you’ve failed, the point it to set an intention, even a small one (it doesn’t have to be a grand vision), then take the first step.
Without wishing to sound like a cliché, the fun part is the journey of discovery and the way it takes you, rather than the destination itself. The destination will always be fluid because your vision will always change.
“Manifesting is merely setting intentions for your life. It’s not about placing value judgments on yourself if you don’t succeed.” (source article)
Perhaps I’ll achieve the vision of location independence – In the end, it doesn’t matter, as long as the journey is enjoyable!