Creating Your Vision

When you write down your goals, your primary aim is to create a new vision for what you desire to experience next in life, so that you can begin to make that vision a reality.

So what do you do when you sit down to write a vision for your life, and you’re coming up with a lot of blanks that you just aren’t sure about?

Guess.

It really is that simple. Just take a stab at it. Don’t even worry about making your best guess. Just make any guess that seems remotely reasonable.

Now take that guess and run with it. Write 1-2 paragraphs to describe the vision that pops into your mind when you think about that possible direction.

Make sure your vision is written with positive, present tense statements. Add some emotion to your vision. Include how you expect to feel (“I’m thrilled to be…”, “I’m feeling deeply grateful as I…”).

Don’t worry about whether your guess is right or wrong at this point. Truthfully this isn’t a matter of right or wrong. It’s a matter of suitability for you. You’re free to make whatever choices you desire. You just want to identify choices that make sense for you. You want to make choices where you can expect a very positive outcome.

Now re-read that vision statement once or twice per day. As you read it, imagine it as already real. See yourself there. This should only take a minute or two to do the visualization part for a single goal… maybe 30 seconds once you’re accustomed to it.

As you imagine your vision as real, notice how you feel about it. Do you feel really, really good about it? Does it appeal to you on an emotional level? Or do you feel neutral or negative about it? Do you feel some hesitation or resistance?

Quite often, something will feel a little bit off when you visualize your vision. That’s perfectly fine. If it’s a very vague feeling of unease, just keep renewing this same vision on a daily basis for several more days. Allow your mind to expand and play with the vision a little more each time.

Eventually you’ll get a sense of whether the vision is a keeper or if it needs some tweaking.

Your vision may be just right to begin with. Maybe it feels great every time you imagine it. You know you want it. You’re practically lusting after it. That’s great. You’ve found a keeper. Hold on to that vision, and keep renewing it each day. This will help to imprint the vision onto your subconscious. Usually within a month or less (sometimes much less), you’ll see evidence that this vision is already becoming real for you.

Another possibility is that as you imagine your vision, your mind will begin to tweak it in different ways. It will twist it in a slightly different direction or add more details to improve it. Keep renewing that vision until it becomes a keeper, or it becomes clear that the vision just isn’t working.

And finally, you may encounter a situation where your vision just doesn’t quite come together in a way that feels good to you. Maybe it’s internally incongruent. Maybe it doesn’t mesh well with some other part of your life. In that case, ask yourself, What is it about this vision that fails to delight me?

Take note of the details of the vision that just aren’t working for you. It can be helpful to write them down. This is a time where it’s okay to be negative. Identify the parts of the vision that don’t feel right.

Now ask yourself how you can re-engineer those broken parts of the vision to create something better. Maybe the problems are minor and you can swap in different details to improve the vision. Or maybe the problems are so deep that you feel it’s best to throw out the whole vision and start over from scratch with a totally different direction. Or maybe you’re somewhere in the middle.

However it turns out, that’s perfectly okay. You’re using your imagination to beta-test your vision, running the vision through your feelings as a filter. If it doesn’t feel right to you, you know that something is off and needs tweaking.

If you continue to hold a vision that feels off, your negative feelings will block you from allowing it to become real. So it’s important to get your feelings on board. Holding a vision that doesn’t feel right is a waste of time. Holding a vision that makes you feel nothing special is also a waste of time.

Once you update your vision to correct the problems, repeat the process. Write out your new vision. Then visualize it as real on a daily basis for several more days. Notice how you feel about it. Use your feelings to identify problems. Then revise the vision to take a stab at correcting the problems.

This is an iterative process. You probably won’t get your vision just right on the first attempt. You probably won’t get it right on the second or third attempts either. But with each pass, you’ll get closer to your true desires.

When you eventually have a vision that passes your emotional filters, it tends to manifest very quickly. I’ve seen some amazingly fast transformations occur in my life when I reached that point. Sometimes a new vision shows up the very next day, like it was just waiting for me to become a match for it. Other times I’ll see breadcrumbs leading me right to it.

I review my written visions each morning. I have a few paragraphs of vision statements for each area of my life: career; finances; health; relationships, family, & social life; workflow & order; personal & spiritual; and lifestyle, travel, & adventure. You don’t have to use the same categories. I just find it helpful to make sure I’m creating a vision for each important part of my life.

If you don’t create a vision for each part of your life, someone else will do it for you. The intentions of others will fill in the blanks. You see… you’re always working to fulfill some vision. Either you’re creating and fulfilling your own vision, or you’re working on someone else’s vision for you. There is no neutral. If you aren’t creating your own vision, then you’re obediently fulfilling a blended vision created by others, such as the vision that you should be a good citizen and taxpayer, that you should relate to people a certain way and live a certain kind of lifestyle, and that you should manage your affairs a certain way until you die. If you’re in love with the vision that society is expecting you to live out, then there’s no point in creating your own vision. But if you’d like to hold the reins of your own destiny and direct your life path more consciously, then you must absolutely create a vision for yourself.

By default, you are visualizing the status quo. Without a grander vision to occupy your thoughts, you will naturally succumb to the habit of thinking about what you’re already getting, and you’ll often feel some emotions when you do so. This is exactly how you hold the intention to manifest more of the same. So by default, you are automatically holding intentions to keep getting what you’re getting.

This is why it’s rather silly to complain about your problems. Sometimes people come to our discussion forums and write really long posts to explain what they’re experiencing in life and why they don’t like it. What they don’t realize is that what they’re doing is the exact process necessary to ensure that they’ll experience more of the same. They’re imagining their past and present as they write about it, and they’re feeling strong feelings as they do so. They are using the power of vision to create a future that resembles their past and present.

If you want to create something different than what you’re already getting, do NOT do what I described in the previous paragraph. It’s stupid. This is the exact opposite of an intelligent solution. Only do this if you want to be stupid. And if you catch someone doing this, please refer them to this article, so they can hopefully understand why it cannot possibly work… and so that they’ll get some motivation to start creating a new vision, even if they have to guess at first.

Instead of reviewing and rehashing what you don’t want, create the vision of what you do want. If you feel a need to post something online, post about your dreams and desires. Write a really long, emotional post about what you most want to experience next in life. This way you won’t make the terrible mistake of reinforcing what you’re already getting. I like to do this publicly at least once a year by writing about my primary focus for the upcoming year in advance. What’s really cool about that is that when I share my vision in public, some people will find that my vision appeals to them too, and they offer to help me make it a reality. That help wouldn’t come to me if I didn’t feel so good about what I wanted to create that I was willing to share it publicly. Your willingness to share your desires publicly is a good test of how ready you are to experience them in reality. For more on that idea, see the article Broadcast Your Desires.

If you don’t like what you’re already getting, the best thing you can do is to ignore it. Turn your back on it. Stop dwelling on it. Only pay the minimal amount of attention to it that is truly essential. Turn the bulk of your attention (and emotion) to the new vision you’ve created. Spend more time living in the new reality you’re creating as opposed to the old one you wish to leave behind. This will quickly draw that new reality into your life in physical form. Don’t worry about trying to be perfect at this. Just do the best you can. The more you can turn your attention away from the past and towards your new vision, the better. The more you practice this, the easier it gets.

“Going with the flow” only makes sense if you’re going with the flow of your own vision. If you don’t have a clear vision and try to live in such a way that you go with the flow, all you’re doing is going with the flow of social conditioning. It just means you’re going with the flow of the default social vision for you. There will be a flow that you’ll experience in that case, but it can be chaotic at times, and it’s generally very slow moving. But if you love what you’re experiencing and you love the current pacing of your life, then technically there’s nothing wrong with going with the social flow. It’s an option that’s available to you.

Personally I’m not a big fan of going with the social flow. I find it tediously slow. With my own clear vision, I can create something in less than a month that would otherwise take years to create if I went at the pacing of the social flow. An individual can greatly outpace a pack that moves at the speed of its slowest member.

Keep tweaking your vision as you feel the need to do so. Keep renewing it once or twice per day. Feel the feelings of being there. Eventually you’ll create a vision that feels so good that you’ll find it immensely pleasurable to just sit back and imagine it as real. You may reach the point where you’d rather live in your new imagined reality than in your current physical reality. That’s what creates the shifts that make your vision a reality.

Happy manifesting! 🙂