If I asked you to meet me at ‘the end destination’, would you be able to do it? No. Of course you wouldn’t! Because I haven’t specified where that destination is, or what time I want to meet you there. My instructions lack clarity, therefore making it impossible for you to follow them.

Many of us are living our lives with this same lack of clarity – knowing that we want something different, crave more than what we currently have, but are working aimlessly towards an undefined end goal.

Getting crystal clear on my life vision changed the game for me. These are the steps I took:

• Start with a ten year vision – your ideal work situation, how much money you want to have, what your relationships will look like and how you’ll spend your time. Spend as long as you need curating a detailed description, making sure you cover all areas of my life.
• Then, working backwards, consider how life will look in 5 years time, in order to be on track for the ten year vision.
• Do the same for 3 years.
• And 1 year.
  
  

You are bridging the gap between your life as it stands right now and the ultimate vision of your ideal life in 10 years. Many of the things that you want to be, do and have will require multiple steps, several attempts, and lots of learning and development along the way. How can you break those goals down to make them more manageable, and to make sure that they happen in the timeframe that you want them to?

Once you have written your vision of how your life looks in one year from now, you can start to break those 12 month goals down into four quarters.

Use these to inform your monthly aims and weekly to do lists. You are always looking one step ahead, to make sure that your actions today contribute to your achievements in the future.

So, if that dream home, purpose driven business, or trip of a lifetime is really important to you – commit to that goal by writing it down.

A well known Harvard study showed that 83% of people didn’t have clear goals, 14% of people did have goals but didn’t write them down, and the remaining 3% who did write down their goals had measurably more success in achieving them! Once it is clear and committed to paper, take it seriously and reverse engineer the steps you need to take in order to ensure that it happens.

If you haven’t already, take the opportunity to read my Being Yourself blog titled ‘Do You Have A Dream?’ to see why your 90 year old self will be disappointed if you don’t consider your life vision with clarity.

If you want some more guidance and to ponder on the big questions in life, why not check out the Philosopher-in-Residence series. Out every fortnight on a Thursday, and written by our Principal Planner, Anna Pascoe.  You can take a peek at the latest edition here: ON ALBION - Make Me A Plan