By Kate Maria Pennell
A clear understanding of what you want and why you want it will create and sustain your motivation.
Working from my goal, not towards it: When I first heard master coach Rich Litvin talk about this, it spun me on my axis. I could work from a place inside myself that was alive and in Technicolor, as opposed to trying to glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel.
My whole perspective changed for the better.
All too often we can make our plans and our goals, set out our objectives and our task lists, and it can feel as if we’re desperately reaching for something just beyond our fingertips. It can feel like building steps with sand while pitted against the tide. However, there is a better way to create our future.
Living Without 20/20 Vision
When I have clients who want to work on their goals or strategy, I will always ask about their end goal—their vision. It might be our end goal, but it has to be our starting point, too. How can you plan a route if you’re not sure about where you want to go?
Stephen Covey puts it perfectly, “If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”
And who wants that? No one wants a great strategy to accelerate their progress to a place they neither know about or can envision. To think about it another way, we choose our holiday destinations based on the photos we see and what we can find out about the place. If you’re anything like me, I love to do my homework and get excited about what it will be like for me when I get there. I can picture myself there, enjoying my holiday. The same goes for when I want to change where I am going with my life.
We often show some specific symptoms when we don’t have our vision alive and clear:
1. We lack or lose motivation: “I know what I should do but I just don’t seem to be able to do it, certainly not consistently,” was the comment from another client who thought that fixing their strategy would fix their trajectory and up their productivity. Knowing what we don’t want is important but not as vital as getting crystal clear on what we do want. This is our “What.”
The other crucial factor is understanding our “Why.” Our “why” is what makes our goals powerfully magnetic in that it draws us towards them. If we are not clear on why we want something, are not connected to it emotionally and intellectually, all we have a is a pile of should: I should get up early and write/go to the gym/do my digital marketing/fill in your own task here.
Should and its cohorts have-to, ought-to, need-to, and must, are not our friends. They don’t really help us get where we want to go. The language of obligation, guilt and self-recrimination will not fire determination and motivation in our bellies in the way that a desire we see in high definition can. It is also much easier to fall back into the habits and lifestyle that we are trying to leave behind if we don’t live and plan from the place of vision inside ourselves. A clear understanding of what you want and why you want it will create and sustain your motivation.
2. We are driven by negative fears or impulses. It’s no fun running from something. Fears can stalk us, making us feel that they are waiting just around the corner, behind us, in the corner of our eye. We walk forward with one eye on the fears from the past.
When we make our plans from a negative place like this, it can be difficult to create a positive future. Now, our subconscious mind works on what we feed it and creates in our lives what we tell it to focus on. Therefore, which do you think is a more powerful, magnetic goal?
- “I never want to struggle for money like that again, so I’ll have to…”
- “I am creating a secure, comfortable, sustainable future for myself and my family by …”
The language we use when we speak to ourselves shapes our thought patterns, decisions and, ultimately, our actions. Look at the language in the first goal; the speaker is looking back and focusing on a difficult time in the past. I bet they can still feel the tension of living day-to-day when they think of life back then. In the second part of the line, they are looking to the future, yes, but placing themselves under the burden of chore and obligation (I’ll have to…).
In the second example, they’re using the present continuous tense; how we naturally talk about things we’re doing right now and for the near future. They are present in the moment, focusing and acting upon a positive goal. There is a feel of action and doing about it, right now not just change set for sometime in the future.
I know which one would get me up in the morning and fuel my motivation as I go about my day. (Hint: it’s not the first one.)
3. We get lost in the to-do lists
When we think of building a house, naturally we think of building it from the bottom up, bit by bit; a good foundation followed by supporting structure, then walls, roof and installations. It sounds like the perfect model to use when building the life we want—from the bottom up, one brick at a time. However, can you imagine building a house without a clear image of what it will be like?
In the building site of our lives, it can be easy to get lost in the tasks we frantically try and get through in order to build our desires. We have the beautiful opportunity to be both builder and architect for our lives. By picturing our desires in detail we give ourselves a blueprint to build by. We start from the finished product like we are building forwards and backwards in time simultaneously. It sounds a little trippy, and it is, but it’s fun. And it works. However, only after we have got our vision in high definition can be start to build—envisioning as much as we can to then break it down into the tiniest steps.
Keeping The Vision Alive
The ancient proverb states, “Without vision the people perish.” And while that sounds pretty drastic, I know that when the light of my vision grows dim my motivation, and with it my momentum, starts dying off pretty fast.
Here are some practical ways to keep your vision alive and vibrant and central.
- Use a vision board. It will help bring clarity and keep your eyes on what you want. Although originally skeptical, I found this enlightening, fun to do and a powerful way to keep my focus on what I want. Once done, the board can be placed somewhere you see it regularly (daily, if possible) out on display or inside the wardrobe door for your eyes only.
- Start journaling. “Just shoot me now,” used to be my response to journaling, mainly because I was always being told it was something I should (have to, must and ought to) do. It just reeked of failure, mediocrity and dutifully banal scribblings. That was until I learned how to use it to serve me. The practice of regularly envisioning and writing about your end goal is so powerful. Don’t try this at home—unless you want change and progress in you life. Taking time to envision your desire and then commit it to paper keeps it alive and vibrant. We can then sculpt our future one day at a time as we have an active connection to it. You could do this weekly or daily, either as peak-state journaling or a morning pages/flow journal.
- Walk through your vision. Our vision can become a place to enliven and refresh us and where we can refuel for the journey. Scheduling a time to internally walk through your end goal vision creates clarity and energy for you to keep going. The vision board can act as a stimulus for this and your journal is ready for you to begin to pull what you see into the present. Tip: write it down using present tenses—I am, I have, I am doing, I have been, etc. It makes it more tangible and engages your subconscious mind.
- Conduct regular checkups on your growth. I remember when I was pregnant, my hubby and I couldn’t wait to see how much bigger our baby was growing. We’d marvel that they started out the size of a bean and get all excited as my belly was getting rounder. Their growth from how they started out was what was important to us, and still is. We always measure the gain and not the gap from our ideal. Dan Sullivan is the master of this perspective. With regards to our projects and goals, by measuring how far we’ve come we will build our confidence, feel happier and fuel our motivation to continue. And what we review and measure we can improve on.
It all starts with you; only you can create your dream, your end goal, in 3D, HD, Technicolor glory.
What does it look like and feel like?
Who are you?
What do you do in your average day or week?
Taking some time aside to answer these questions will help you to craft a vision that will shape your tomorrows day by day.
Kate Pennell, English and slightly geekish, is a coach and dream catalyst who lives in Spain with three kids, various furry creatures and a patient husband. She loves nature, creativity and seeing people discover what truly makes them come alive. Kate provides the people she works with permission to launch and helps them begin to fly as they were made to. She teaches, encourages and connects with fellow travellers across our global village. Find out more at https://www.permissiontolaunch.website/.