Write Your Vision Statement

You always hear about the vision statement of large corporations. But what about your own personal vision statement. After all, you are the CEO of You!

Inspirational Thoughts
Write Your Vision Statement
By , © 2008

What is your vision of the future?

To have a vision for your life is to see where you could be, not where you are now. Great leaders move people not by what they see today, but by what they see as the future.

Your vision may result in traveling down a different road than your friends.

Many corporations have clearly defined "vision" statements. These statements allow the employees, and shareholders, to see where the company wants to go, and what it wants to achieve.

Do you know what you want, and where you are going? A personal vision statement allows you to look forward to the future with positive expectations for yourself.

Before you write your vision statement, think of it as a high level statement about what you want from life. It is a statement, one to two lines at the most. This vision statement sets a clear indication of where you want to end up many years down the road and not just a few months. This statement tells the world how you want to be known.

From your vision statement you can then set your goals. Many people set goals but forget about the vision statement.Now, when you set your goals, you need to set them one chunk at a time. This means that you write goals to accomplish one major milestone looking out one year. The one-year goal is very specific answering the major question of what needs to be done to get to accomplish the one-year goal. This is the basic difference between a vision statement and a goal statement. The vision statement answers the question of where you want to go, and the goal statement tells you what you need to accomplish in a specific time-line target. The next part you have to write is the ‘how’ part. That is, how are you going to get to where you want to end up. This is called the operational side of the statement.

Each action step you take moves you closer and closer to accomplish your one-year goal and that leads you further towards accomplishing your overall vision statement. Each action step must be stated in complete detail so there is no doubt whatsoever as to what you must do.

What happens to most people who do not accomplish their one-year goal, never mind about the total vision, is that there is no real dedicated true commitment. The level of commitment needed to accomplish a goal is one where any roadblock is seen only as a minor inconvenience, or is seen as a mere stepping stone to walk or jump over. The failure of most people is that any obstacle means that they should quit. The predominant thought here is that there goal was never meant to be, or that they picked the wrong goal, or that they where only meant to be what they are right now without any hope to have what they dream about.

Writing your own vision statement gives you a high level statement and will help keep you focused as you then think about setting your goals.

To use the wisdom of W. Clement Stone who once said, "The world is full of dreamers, there aren't enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision."

You can also think about your vision statement as what you are dreaming or wishing for. Joseph Campbell's quotes summarizes this thought well when he said, "A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. A goal is what specifically you intend to make happen. Dreams and goals should be just out of your present reach but not out of sight. Dreams and goals are coming attractions in your life."

Predict your future? Write your vision statement!


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