We multi-potentialites have scattered minds. We know it and we are used to it. But with all the fragments of different interests, passions and projects, it’s sometimes hard to see the wood for the trees.
Have you ever asked yourself “What’s the bigger picture?” Is there even a bigger picture? What is it that my life is about? What do I want out of my life?
A personal vision statement will give you a clear answer to these questions. It is a paragraph with one or two sentences, not more, stating everything you want to be, want to do and / or want to have in your life. It is a mantra or a quote you want to live by.
Why would you need a vision statement?
There are various reasons why having a personal vision statement can help you.
- It gives you clarity on what your life is about
- It gives you a good view on what you consider to be your ideal self
- It states what is important in your life
- It gives you purpose, direction and focus
- A vision statement is inspiring and motivates you to work on the passions and projects that contribute to it
- It also makes it easy to say ‘NO’ to new projects that are not aligned with your vision
- It gives you a personal scale on which you can measure your success in life
Your personal vision statement is something that you can tattoo somewhere, where you can read it daily so you can return to it when things are not going so well and when life gets tough.
What steps to follow to create your own personal vision statement
Writing down your own personal vision statement is not difficult but it doesn’t come just like that. It takes some reflection.
Here is the process that you can follow to create your personal vision statement and a few questions you can ask yourself to help you with it:
- Zoom out. Look at your life from a bird’s perspective.
- Look at your strengths.What are you good at?
- What do you like to do?
- What are you passionate about?
- What do your friends give you compliments on?
- What do other people ask you to help with?
- Look at your past successes
- What does success and excellence look like for you?
- Look at you as a person
- What would be your ideal self? As an ideal [role] I would [fill out the blank]
- What do you want to stand for?
- How do you want people to describe you?
- Look at the things you find important in your life
- Who or what matters the most to you?
- What makes life worth living for you?
- What are your values, beliefs and guiding principles?
- Look at your future, dream big!
- What do you want out of your life
- What end result do you want to achieve? Multi-potentialites can have a few!
- What do you wish they would put on your tomb? How do you want to be remembered?
- Now, put it all together in as few words as you can. To help you, you can complete the sentences below:
- What matters most in my life is [fill out the blank]. So, I want to spend my life doing [fill out the blank] in order to [fill out the blank]
- The most important things in my life are [fill out the blank]. So, I get up in the morning to do [fill out the blank], so I can [fill out the blank]
- [fill out the blank] is what makes my life worth living. My greatest passions are doing [fill out the blank], allowing me to [fill out the blank]
You can mix up the sentences of point 7 as you want. And you don’t need to limit yourself to only one item in [fill out the blank]. Especially for multi-potentialites, the brackets can hold multiple items.
How to know if your personal vision statement is a good one?
First of all, a good personal vision statement takes some reflection. It is possible that it takes a few iterations and some fine-tuning to get it right.
You might start out with one that you find OK but you feel like the right words are not there yet. And then after a good night of sleep or after a few days, you suddenly get more inspired and you’re able to express your vision more clearly.
You will know when your personal vision statement is a good one when:
- It’s really a big picture that you see, an overarching theme, a statement that is high level enough. Leave out any limiting details.
- It feels right. Your intuition and your gut feeling tell you that it’s right
- It feels like you found you inner compass, your ‘Pole star’.
- You get all stoked, enthused and inspired by it.
- You get motivated to take action and to work on something that can turn your vision into reality
- It makes you proud of it.
- It feels like success in your life (following your vision) is inevitable
You now have all the tools to start creating your personal vision statement. You know the reasons why it can help you, you know the process, step by step and you know when you can be sure when it’s right. So, go ahead… Just remember: Dream big! And get inspired by your own potential!
Your view?
