A vision is just a nice idea if you don't act on it.
Many women showed up to my vision workshops - thank you! - and, together, we went through a beautiful journey of visualizing a version of yourself and your life unleashing potential. Although it wasn’t easy, the results were extraordinary and I'm so thankful for and proud of everyone who took part in the beautiful experience. I'm going to fine-tune it and hold the workshop again at the end of this year.
Sign up for the Vision 2025 circles: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Via253gqBR-jBrR2wlJmWiQLI9uSpBRyR2zTogzkWf4/edit
WHAT NOW?
However, some of you may feel like the vision was a nice exercise to express wishful thinking, a dream for a distant future. Some of you, perhaps, might have even forgotten about the vision you’ve created once you get back to the trenches of life. But, the sad truth is that a vision is nothing but a nice idea if you don’t attempt to live it immediately. A vision is meant to serve you as a guide for your day-to-day life so that you can start living the full version of yourself now. So today, I thought I’d share ways to make your vision come to reality.
1. Believe that it is what you want
You had great fun going wild with your imagination to create your vision, which is the best and the most uninterrupted version of yourself this year, right? Then, once you finish it, it dawns on you that the vision is too ambitious. It even feels like it is a thing of a far, far away, distant future. You may think, 'Is this too fluffy?' 'Is this possible?' 'Do I have what it takes?' The critics in your head can get very chatty if you let them.
However, such concerns are not relevant at this point. Although it may be hard to believe, the vision came out of you. You’re the one who created it. It is undeniably yours. Therefore, the fundamental first step in turning your vision into reality is to believe in it.
At this point, you don’t even have to believe you will make 100% of the vision happen. You just have to believe that it’s yours and that it is what you want. You gotta want something badly to get it and you simply can’t be passionate about something you don’t believe in. So if you have any doubts, ask yourself right now if you don’t believe that this is what you want or that you will make it happen. Because these are two different matters.
Although you’ve visualized your vision, you may still be prone to look at your life that’s only right in front of you. It’s because most of us are conditioned away from thinking and operating from a big-picture perspective. The fast-paced social-media-driven society we live in rewards instant gratification and short attention spans, and therefore, our brains find it easier to focus on all things immediate.
Therefore, it is super important to train and remind ourselves - our brains, to be exact - of the vision. How? We keep the vision close to ourselves at all times.
Print it out and post it in front of your workspace where it meets your eyes automatically every day so that you know which tasks to prioritize.
Make a big poster of it, frame it and put it up in your living room above your TV so that you’re not wasting your time away Netflixing.
Make a shrine out of it and have a daily ritual to pray about it if praying is your thing.
Post it on your fridge to remind yourself of the balance you wish to create in life.
Post it on the mirror in your bathroom and look at it while you’re popping your zits.
Set it as your iPad background.
Do whatever it takes to ingrain it in your mind.
Don't shy away from it. Be fervent.
When you do this, focus on brainstorming. Don't judge if the idea is good, effective or realistic. Never mind if you have enough money, time, or the right skills for it. Just write down all the ideas that can help you turn the vision into reality.
For example, for me, one of the values I wish to honor in my vision this year is to expand & share creatively. Whatever the hell that meant, I had no idea when I put it in the vision. I just knew I wanted that. Then, I sat down to have a think and came up with the following ideas.
Things I can do to live the vision of expanding & sharing creatively
Visit art museums
Travel with other hoomans
Chat with creative people
Read about creative people
Write about what being creative means
Learn how to paint/draw
Cook more
Do something spontaneous
Be flexible with schedule
Talk to more interesting hoomans
Talk to strangers more often
Be friendly with strangers
Do artsy stuff
Do nothing
Space out
Journal dreams
Listen to more music - enough with the 90s k-pop hits
Calligraphy
Insert a photo or picture in my blog posts
Post blogs more often
Read any books regardless of genres
Read illustrated books
Send random hello messages on LinkedIn to authors of the books I read
Take pictures of participants when I host stuff online
Write
Take a dance class
Ideas are endless, many of them inexpensive & easy to execute. Am I gonna do all of those? Heck no. But now that I brainstormed a ton of ideas, now
A. I know there are many ways to go about expanding & sharing via creativity
B. I realize I'm already doing some of them, hence, I'm already living my vision in some way. (yay!)
C. I feel more excited and confident about living the vision and
D. It’s no longer a matter of what to do, but a matter of which one, when, and how.
This makes the vision a lot more real, concrete & actionable.
4. Pick one item & turn it SMART
Don’t try to carry out all the ideas all at the same time. That will drive you crazy and you will immediately feel overwhelmed. Instead, pick one item from the list and make it your goal. one of the beautiful techniques of Redesigning Productivity is to simplify by focusing on one thing at a time. One question you could ask yourself is, "Which item will create the biggest impact in my life in the next 1-2 weeks?"
When I say the biggest impact, it doesn’t have to be the most grandiose or transformative. The most impactful things are usually the easiest ones to start or the most fun things to do. The most impactful sometimes just simply means the impact you can feel most immediately. So, I suggest you start with the things that interest you the most. The last thing you need is to do things because you feel you should. Choose whatever item that you feel like doing. The key is to do it as soon as possible, so make it easy and fun.
The art of making it immediately executable here is to turn that item into bitable, actionable chunks. the SMART goal setting technique comes in super handy here. Some of you may already be familiar with it. I will write about it in more detail in the next blog.
5. Start taking action Today
At this stage, there's not an elaborate scheme about it. You just gotta go and do it. One thing and one day at a time. Trust the process. Believe in marginal gain. Try not to achieve. Just focus on doing that one action as you designed it.
Your wish won't come true if you don't act on it.
These five steps will turn your vision into small incremental actions, and before long, before you know, you will find yourself already living your vision.
Wanna chat about turning your vision into reality?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joonyoung Kim is a Productivity and Leadership Coach based in Korea. Through her private coaching program for women leaders Redesign Productivity, she shares her deep passion for helping women leaders rethink what being productive means so that they can spend their time and energy meaningfully to drive fulfillment and abundance in life and at work
She is one of the first Korean-English bilingual coaches in Korea to be certified by Leadership Circle Profile™, the most innovative 360° leadership assessment tool in the market.
In addition to developing women leaders, she also partners with EZRA Coaching, Leadership Circle, and Coachdot as an executive coach and develops corporate leaders from diverse industries across APAC. She's certified by the International Coaching Federation, Co-Active Training Institute & Leadership Circle, and she coaches & trains in English or Korean on Zoom across time zones.
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