Vision Plan

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible."
  --- T.E. Lawrence

John Maxwell, the speaker, writer and expert on leadership, when addressing leaders, states that leaders need to understand the fundamental principle of leadership: what must precede how. Leaders have to define where they're going before they begin to move.

Seeing the vision clearly requires your effort. Clear visions only come into focus through sustained effort and include asking questions to yourself such as, what are my deeply felt concerns? What are my values? What strengths do I have? How have my experiences shaped me? These questions uncover how we are wired and what we hold dear in life.

Once the vision starts to come together in your mind, share it with the key people in your life. These relationships will refine your vision. As the vision crystallizes, surround yourself with inspirational resources (books, movies, paintings). In the early stages visions must be stoked, and resources stir up the passion behind them.

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."
  --- Henry Ford

Seeing the vision clearly specifies your direction. Maxwell says that a leader's vision acts like a transmitted satellite image; the signal strength of the vision diminishes the further away it gets from the source. As your vision spreads throughout the organization, it will fade. Thus, the more people you rely on to support your vision, the clearer it must be. A powerful vision must have sharp enough resolution that even when weakened it remains easily identifiable.

"Keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world."
  --- George Bernard Shaw

Seeing the vision clearly determines your priorities. Every leader has limitations: limited time, limited resources, and limited energy. As such, nobody can have it all in life. In light of our limitations, we each have to make sacrifices and scale back the scope of our ambitions. Seeing the vision clearly helps us to prioritize which opportunities to bypass and which activities deserve our dedication.

The choices we make either draw us closer to our vision or push us farther away from it. If we're unsure of the vision, then we won't know how to make decisions that carry us in the right direction. Clear vision illuminates the path in front of us as we select which roads to travel down in life.

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend."
  --- Henri Bergson

Begin today developing your vision skills. Clean the lenses and the windows in your life and start to see the clearer, larger picture. With a clear vision, others will trust and follow the course that you lay out for your business.

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