What's Your Vision?

To live a purposeful and successful life it is important that we have a clear understanding of whom we are, where we envision ourselves one year, five years, ten years or more from today. Do we have a crystal ball? Most likely not. However, to arrive at any destination requires a road map. We need to enable our personal GPS to move from point A to B. It also requires a plan to get us there.

Regardless of your current station in life, you can arrive at your intended destination sooner than later. Yes, that’s absolutely correct. With a viable plan of action anything is possible. Let’s take a step back for a moment, you can be an employee, a small business owner, a CEO of a large company, a homemaker, a student, a manager, or retiree and still feel unsatisfied and unhappy. It’s not about the stuff you accumulate but the quality of life which is defined by you. That said, we do want to live a life of abundance and a life well-lived. The endgame is you can do something about it. Meaning, your fulfillment and happiness.

How?

Discovering a clear vision, is your catalyst for achieving your goals and exceeding your wildest expectations. Your heart’s desire may be what is missing from even realizing extraordinary success in your current field. Without clarity of direction, we may flounder traveling paths unintended wasting precious time. Going down the wrong path is a penalty of an unfocused vision. This is not just about vocation and working the right job or career. This is about destiny and where your mind, body and spirit scream out for you to do and to be.

In reflecting, my belief is that many off us lose focus somewhere in childhood, perhaps on the precipice of high school, let’s say at the ripe old age of 14 years. There’s no science in this arbitrary number. We all have our own year in which confusion and lack of confidence kicks in for us. Your number could very-well be 12 or 13 or 17 or later in life. In many of my workshops and motivational speeches I have shared that when we were little kids, we did not hesitate what our vocation or dream would be.

Our picture was very clear on what we’re planning to do with our professional lives. On the personal front we did not waiver there either. We were comfortable in our shoes so to speak. As we were asked the following question growing up the images or thoughts sprang immediately to our vocal cords, “Johnny what do you want to be when you grow up?” A policeman. This turned into a fireman, astronaut or teacher depending what day you asked the question. The point is we had a strong conviction with a line drawn in the sand and nothing could change our decision. That is until we changed our minds or worse allowing others in our minds watching our dreams blow up or disintegrate.

If part of us could never grow up most of us would be better off. It something about becoming an adult. We seem to lose sight of what makes us happy and content. As mentioned, we allow others to get in our head and start altering those things most important to us. This is not saying imparting wisdom into someone is a bad thing. It is vital that we coach, mentor our children and youth, preferably before they lose hope or allow fear to overwhelm them.

However, it is another thing exerting your superior will on an impressionable upcoming adult leading him or her down a path that is forced or pushed.

Back to my thoughts about not growing up. When we grow up, we tend to lose that spark that is birthed in our inner self, i.e., the spirit. In our childhood, we have a magic that propels us to greater thoughts about the possibilities that are open to us, free to believe the unbelievable. To quote the immortal Peter Pan, “I’ll never grow up”. Peter Pan was written by Sir James Matthew Barrie, aka, J.M. Barrie. The successful nineteenth century Scottish novelist and playwright who was inspired by the Llewelyn Davies boys in London, England. Peter was magical and ageless, who simply did not want to grow up and miss out on life.

He even knew it was something lacking, something wonderful that escaped adults that originated in their childhood that they had somehow lost growing up. Peter was determined that it would not happen to him as he sought a life of adventure.

No, I’m not saying to quit your job and live out the fantasy long forgotten. I’m not saying you should stay or tolerate your existence either. You should be mindful not to abandon your commitments and priorities. My goal is to stir up that inner child in you to regain that spark so you may live in a joyous and happy state. You need to decide what that means to you. I would be remiss in not mentioning my older brother Maurice S. Kane Jr. Case in point, from a young age he just knew he wanted to be an attorney. He was a rare breed that narrowed in on his future vocation sooner than later.

My brother was determined and passionate steadfastly pursing his dream, making sure each step he took moved him closer to his goal or dream. Not only did my brother identify the exact vocation he was to pursue, but he also selected the vehicles to take him there, the University of Southern California (USC) and Harvard Law School.

I am not name-dropping or getting paid to mention these top educational institutions, I am pointing out that my brother had a plan of action and that he made our family divinely proud. Most of us wished we were that clear with our vision for our lives and the path to travel in order to realize it.

Now take me, as a child I knew I wanted to be manager or leader over something. The problem was I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to manage nor how I was going to get there. I made sure my grades were good enough to maintain some good choices, but I did not do my best all the time, like a roller coaster of commitment up and down toward the pursuit of my objective.

When I graduated high school, I had A’s, B’s and those occasional C’s, not bad but just not my best because my vision was still formulating, and indecisiveness had overwhelmed by cerebral cortex. Needless to say, doubt and low self-esteem were my pain points. I agonized over what to do with my life. In the interim, I had good jobs and challenging ones along the way. Notice I never said all were well paying but good. Good to me was meaningful, rewarding and felt like I mattered. Regardless of good or bad I learned and grew from the experiences. Nevertheless, I was blessed every step of my journey.

It is natural to vacillate while we are finalizing our vision, while we are considering all our options. Seeing clearly takes time and patience. But equally important it takes consistent action. Like Peter Pan, you need to tap into your heart and spirit, not just your mind. Logic is good and may take you far, but insufficient regarding matters of the heart and purpose.

Once you identify your gifts, talents and interests then marry them with your cause then you are able to embark on your vision journey. A cause is what stirs you up inside. That thing that makes you get up early and go to sleep late in the night.

It’s the “it” that drives your ambition and that burns the fires of desire. This vision journey is akin to Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion on their sojourn to the Land of OZ to meet the great Wizard. You see these four fictional characters risked life and limb hoping and wishing the Wizard will grant them their heart desires, i.e., their goals and dreams.

There were obstacles for sure between the start of their journey to the end of it. The Wicked Witch of the West had other plans for them. Naturally, wicked plans that meant utter doom for the quartet. Cursed Poppy fields, flying scary monkeys and terrifying soldiers and much more were tools to stop them from realizing their destiny.

You will face the bad and ugly on your road as you implement your vision. Like our Wizard of OZ heroes, you must face your fears, hostile combatants, and life challenges. Much can be learned from these characters. There will always be dark forces in the world wanting, wishing, and facilitating your failures. By forces I mean people and situations and things totally out of your control.

Despite the next obstacle in their path, Dorothy and crew continued regardless of their negative feelings or events at the time. They took the left foot and then the right foot and kept going until they reached their destination. The same is true for you. You must not give in to lack of courage but press through until the courage replaces the fear.

Were Dorothy and crew scared? Absolutely. Were people or creatures trying to hurt them and stop them? Absolutely. Did they have doubts and fears? Absolutely. Did isolation in an unknown world block and detour them from their road? Absolutely. Did they experience failure? Absolutely.

I believe the greater your vision, the greater the enemy will be to attempt to stop you. In reference to stories in books, TV, or film, is the antagonists stronger or weaker than the protagonists? Typically, the bad guy is bigger, smarter, and more intimidating than the good guy. At least initially, then as the story unfolds and runs its course, the roles reverse, and the hero whips the villain and the goons in the end. You see the hero fails and fails and is discouraged and, in some cases, nearly destroyed on his/her journey.

There is no road free from pitfalls and challenges. Many roads are designed to prevent you from reaching your destiny or purpose. What happens to the hero? The hero grows from the inside and out. The hero develops character and inner strength as the fiery darts zoom at her doing their best to take her down.

In many of non-fictional and fictional stories, the hero does get taken down. But as the sun arises so does the hero in continuing or even struggling to finish the vision journey. The hero may get bruised, beat up and broken and experiences out right failure, regardless the hero finds inner strength to persevere.

Like our fictional hero, we all have already experienced some type of loss, some pain and suffering in the real world. What do we do? We process the loss, grieve, cope as best we can and somehow, we deal with it. At some point the good days outnumber the bad days. Setbacks in life will happen due to no fault of our own. In many instances or points in time as we walk through life, situations will happen that are totally out of our control. Yes, we will beat ourselves up, losing sleep and cursing our own existence. No matter how much we take responsibility the fact is we could not change the course of whatever negative that happened.

I am sure you have watched movies or television shows where a character travels back in time to prevent a catastrophe from happening. Each time they go back they alter history but something bad still occurs, perhaps even worse than the original circumstance.

Now let’s look at the flipside. On the other hand, some opportunities slip through our grasps because we made the wrong decision although the voice of wisdom was yelling, screaming, and kicking us to alter course.

I know some people will take these comments to the extreme and never accept responsibility. These people always blame others for their own shortcomings. I know from experience as I lived many years with that heavy anchor.

Failure is part of life and so is making poor decisions. If you act as if you don’t participate in unwise decisions or experience problems because of your own actions, then you are the mirror of perfection and you must have disciples. Arrogance can come back to haunt you.

For instance, have you ever been in a disastrous relationship? To be honest, your vision instincts kicked in at some point or deep reflection on something that occurred, and you experienced an omen to alter course on this relationship, perhaps to abandon it altogether. You continued the relationship. Then another forewarning came your way and you made additional excuses and you dismissed the clarity that you possessed and continued going down the wrong path. You continued the relationship despite a meteor of evidence slamming into your life, dragging you down. Other in your face moments could be a bad business deal that was wrong from the start and your intuition warned you. Or losing most of your money to a money losing scheme that never had a chance to get off the ground because it was transparently foolish. I can go on and on you get the idea.

Most of us have been down the bad roads mentioned above. To err is human; to forgive is divine. In these cases, you must forgive yourself and stop blaming yourself forging a perpetual unforgiving hell. Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances you can still pursue your vision journey.

It’s never over until you say it is over. The point is live your vision and move forward. The only place you can really start is from where you stand today. Today, not yesterday and certainly not tomorrow. Yesterday is in the history books and tomorrow should be worried about tomorrow, although planning for the future in an optimistic way can be a good thing.

The key to working your vision journey is to start making good decisions. At least make more good ones than bad decisions, a net plus versus minus. Don’t cheat yourself from a rewarding future by being short sided.

You should be you and not an imitation of someone else. Be true to thyself. It’s okay to mimic or borrow good and prudent behaviors from someone you admire and that has achieved a degree of success.

There is commonality of successful people.” The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, a phenomenal book by Stephen R. Covey. He identified similar habits of successful people. The book pointed you in the direction of adopting these same habits and you to will be successful at least goes the premise. There is a high degree of truth in implementing behaviors and actions of others that stand where we want to stand. As long as you are being you in the process.

Remember that timeless song by Johnny Nash, “I can See Clearly Now?”. This song should be our anthem as to where we are headed. “I can see clearly now the rain is gone. I can see all the obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark days that had me blind. It’s going to be a bright sun- shiny day.”

The above are the lyrics of optimism, clarity and purpose. For you to move toward your vision you must work on slaying your dragons and conquer your giants. I encourage you to crawl or run to your promised land.

You must take action as doing nothing is not a goal or achievement. Making changes in your life is not easy. Even those that you know will benefit you.

As the popular Nike commercial said, “just do it”. Yes, easier said than done. The point is to start your vision journey. If you wait until you are totally confident it may be too late.

Opportunities will pass you so fast you may not even recognize them. You are not powerless subject to where the wind blows. Taking that first step in the right direction is the catalyst to stoke the fire that burns for success inside of you. Time goes fast.

One day turns into one month that turns into one year that turns into decades. Create or adopt a sense of urgency and not drag things out. Do not allow negative things like failures in your past or megalomaniacs or devils dictate your future. It’s time to step on the accelerator and go for it. However, do your research and your homework and soul-search what you want to accomplish. Recruiting a mentor, coach and cheerleader will move things that much faster. The negative chatter will come and attack your mind and get in your face tempting you with fear, doubt and pulling down your spirit.

Don’t give in to that chatter. Supplant it with encouraging thoughts, words and take action sooner versus later. I recommend reciting positive affirmations on a daily or regular basis. On your mark, get set now go!