Define Your Vision of Success
This article begins a new journey for you the reader and for us as well. Through this series of editorials we are going to try to help you create a path that will enable you to “live your vision.” What exactly does that mean? In our terms, living your vision is creating a path through life that enables you to live your best life. A key step in achieving this is planning for a secure and comfortable future where you can be financially sound without having to work until the day you leave this Earth. The following quote from James Allen one of the fathers of the self-help movement, provides a perfect summarization to take to heart. “The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart – this you will build your life by, and this you will become.”
How do you define your journey in this life and your vision of success?
People search for ways to tap into the magic “it” that will allow them to have the kind of life they are most comfortable living. You hear a lot of advice about the “power being within you and you just have to harness it” in order to achieve this kind of existence. You can mediate, read books, listen to self-help programs, create dream and goal boards, and do daily affirmations and still never really figure out those key first steps that actually allow you to define your vision for your journey through this life.
Start defining your vision as soon as you can
It’s never too late to start with a vision plan. A lot of people try to figure it out in their twenties if they are really getting a solid grip on the future and what it may bring. However, no matter your age, getting a start is better than never starting at all! As C.S. Lewis said, “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
Take a moment to figure out what you want out of your life and where you want it to go ideally, not just in a financial sense but in a whole life approach. There are some things to check in with yourself to see if you are doing. Decide which elements you need to put together and define what type of vision you want to build.
Never be afraid of things that seem impossible. Always take risks.
There should never be a point in your life where you stop daring to take chances. Nothing should look impossible and you should keep pushing forward to make things happen in your professional and personal life. You are your first and best advocate. If you aren’t pushing yourself to achieve tasks that might seem insurmountable; no one else will.
Failure is a partner to success. Failure builds experience and leads to success.
Thomas J. Watson, the man who created the IBM corporate structure encouraged people to not only keep pushing to do impossible things, but also to fail, and not to just fail, but to look at failure as a partner of succeeding. It is something you can grow and learn from and will help clarify the path that you want to take. “Would you like me to give you a formula for success? “asks Watson. “It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success.”
Find the passion and desire to define your vision as your own.
Find the desire that fuels your vision of a present and future that you want to achieve. What’s the point of moving forward with a plan and a vision if it doesn’t actually spark desire for success within you? It’s one of the fundamental building blocks that allows you to set the cornerstone for your future journey in life and financially. If you aren’t passionate about one path and you don’t have a driving desire to fulfill that journey and continue on that path; maybe there is a need to examine how you came to be on this path in the first place. Did someone else pass their own dreams and desires onto you until you embraced their journey as your own? Find your true passion, funnel that into your vision, and you will have the drive and determination to build your current vision and future visions.
Work hard, strive for excellence in your journey, and find success.
The final starting point when defining your vision is to strive for excellence in your journey, and work diligently to get to success. Success is not something that sits at the end of your vision journey and just waits patiently for people to come to it. Hard work, a good work ethic, and being excellent to yourself and your path of a vision for the present and future are the only ways that you will achieve this success. Success does not come to the lazy and to those who sit waiting for opportunity to knock at the door.