“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision.” – Ayn Rand
A vision is a clear concept of what you plan to make a reality.
Having a clear and powerful vision is absolutely vital to success, but it’s amazing how many people don’t really have one.
In his book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth, T. Harv Eker says, “The number one reason most people don’t get what they want is that they don’t know what they want.”
Remember the last time you set out on a roadtrip without knowing where you planned to go? How long did it take you to get there? How excited were you at the thought of arriving? How efficiently did you move toward your destination?
Seems silly enough, I know. But now ask yourself this.
Remember the last time you talked to a friend who seemed to have no idea where he or she was headed in life? It was probably pretty recently. How motivated are they on a daily basis?
And be honest with yourself. Do you really know where you want to be in twenty years? How often do you catch yourself aimlessly “getting through” the workday and making it to tomorrow.
For some of my early years, I had some vague dreams, stumbled upon “the answer” several different times, continued assuming I would get somewhere eventually, and lived in mediocrity.
I was like a person who jumps in their car and wanders back and forth around town. And I thought it was progress.
But as Henry David Thoreau said, “It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?”
He understood that progress without a vision is no progress at all. Working towards nothing in particular gets you nothing in particular.
But the sad reality is that most of us wander around for most of our lives with no idea of where we’re going. Then midlife crisis hits and we wonder why in the world we’ve been aimlessly cruising around town and calling it a roadtrip.
The only way to make progress is to first understand what we’re working on. We cannot have no vision and still expect to see opportunities around us, know which way to go at a fork in the road, or make productive decisions. Plus, there’s a lot of world out there ready and eager to help. But if we don’t express our vision, nobody will know what help to give.
So the first step to anything–the absolute priority to any great work or successful life–is having a vision. Great leaders have visions. World-changers have visions. Abraham Lincoln had a vision of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream of an America that respected all people equally. Thomas Edison had a vision of the lightbulb. Without these clear, powerful visions, they would have had no direction.
So what do you want?
“To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.” – Seneca
Do you have a clear vision for your own life?
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