What is “vision” and why is it important to have personal vision?
Vision, mission, objectives — these are standard words you hear in corporate-speak. When I Googled “what is vision” I get a bunch of links about how to create a vision statement and why its important, but nothing really explaining to people what it is, why its important and how you know whether you have it or not — and how to develop it if you don’t.
In particular, I didn’t see much about how vision applies to individuals, not just corporations. This blog is all about personal vision — and in particular not about HR mumbo-jumbo career driven personal vision nonsense but about life in general kind of personal vision.
What is “vision”?
To me, vision is utterly simple:
Vision is the ability to close your eyes and imagine a future that not yet exist. It is the ability to see beyond the mess that may be in front of you, to abstract away from it, to clean it up and see a (hopefully better) future that does not yet exist.
Vision and hallucination are not that apart as far as I’m concerned! According to Google, hallucination is “an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.”
The big difference of course is that people are supposed to realize vision is something to aspire to, not believe as current and present. Those who hallucinate have really good vision, but just can’t tell the difference between that and reality.
“Vision, mission, objectives” corporate speak!
Vision, mission and objectives are standard corporate speak. All companies are supposed to have a vision statement that lays out what the organization wants to be and becomes a guiding light for employees. Blah blah.
I’m really lucky that the people who angel funded WSO2, nor invested in it later on, ever asked me to write down a vision statement!!!! We did have a mission though — take over the world (of middleware). I still stand by that mission (? vision?).
Frankly I don’t understand what mission and objectives are — to me if you have a vision then what your mission is to achieve that vision. End of story. Mission and objectives seem like ways for consultants to make more money by using 3 words instead of 1. I don’t have an MBA (and never will); so I’m sure I’m wrong and there’s a whole boatload of theory behind why its cool and stuff. Great; just not for me.
Vision is for all of us, not just corporations.
I think everyone should have a vision for themselves. Can you close your eyes and see a different future? Do you see it in technicolor? Personally, I’m colorblind so my color palette is pretty narrow (no its not just B&W!). Can you see different visions at different timeframes?
You should have a vision for yourself. You should have a vision for your family or whoever else you care about. If you work in a company (whether you started it or not) you should have a vision for where your role gets to and for the company. If you care about your country you should have a vision for it. Everyone should have a vision for the world and soon other planets and the universe in all. In other words, you should be able to close your eyes and see things for different frames of reference in different times.
Why?
Because without a vision, you have no idea what you are doing or what you should be doing. You’re just bumbling along if you have no vision for yourself, whatever aspect of you that you may be paying attention to.
How do I create a personal vision?
Stop being lazy, take a break, close your eyes and imagine.
Yeah really its that simple. Vision is about imagining things that don’t yet exist; so do just that — close your eyes and imagine. When imagining, don’t worry whether what you’re seeing is achievable or not. Just let it go free and see where your mind takes you; its easier to come back later and narrow down rather than to open up.
Also, its not just one vision. You can have a vision for yourself, one for your family, one to improve traffic, one to make the world less lonely, one to make fewer people be homeless, one for your country and frankly one for whatever you want.
When you have a vision in your head, re-live it every so often. As time goes along you’ll see that it becomes clearer, especially if you’re working on realizing that vision. You’ll see more details. Or you’ll see that its a flawed vision based on new information and you’ll adjust it. Nothing wrong with learning and iterating.
When should I have a personal vision?
There is no “right” age or stage of life at which you should have a vision. Kids have it — theirs is just to play and not do any “work.” As kids get older they develop other interests and change their vision. Unfortunately, parents often destroy kids’ opportunity to evolve their vision with a constraining environment, but that’s another blog I will write some other time.
If you’re a “professional”, i.e., someone who’s had some amount of education and working at some job, then you should definitely imagine your future and see what you think it should be. Your vision should NOT be about promotions and job titles but rather about what you impact you want to have on the world, what you want to see changed, what you want to have, what you want to know, etc. etc.. Close your eyes, unshackle from your current constraints (crap boss, not enough education, no money, whatever) and imagine a place that doesn’t yet exist. Remember that.
Fundamentally everyone should have a vision for everything they care about.
I can understand that if your current situation is so bad that you’re not even past the first level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs then you can’t close your eyes and imagine a different world. For everyone else, if you don’t have a vision for yourself then you’re just driving blind.
Vision and passion
Another buzzword: passion. But that’s easy to explain and Google’s definition is good enough: “strong and barely controllable emotion”. Passion is what you feel when you feel strongly about something (or someone!) and will do anything and everything to get it (or him/her/*).
If you have a vision for something you care about then achieving that vision is what you should be passionate about! So vision and passion are tied at the hip, at least for me.
Personal vision is .. personal
Your personal vision (or visions) does (do) not need to be made public. My own one is .. nope, that’s for me to know and for you not to :-). But I absolutely have one! (Actually many.) And yes it does evolve based on how my own situation evolves. After all, what you can imagine is a function of your experiences, your knowledge, your capacity and your ability to see past the cruft and see stuff that doesn’t yet exist.
Vision is not a constant
I change my mind a lot. When I believe in something, I can argue passionately and vehemently for it, but then a while later I might change my position. Sometimes people get frustrated saying “but wait you argued differently last month!” Yes, I did, and I always acknowledge that, but I remind everyone that every decision and position should be a function of the information available at the time that decision or position is taken. Thus, when the environment changes, the decisions and positions can change too! And that’s ok.
Being open to change is an important thing in life. But, so is being committed and passionate about things you believe and care about. The balance to hit is to be dispassionately passionate: you’re hard core passionate about something, but given new information, new experiences and new knowledge, its ok to change and go to a new place.
Vision is the same — as your environment changes you will see different things when you close your eyes. So, do it often; not just once. Not too often though; just often enough to not become a stubborn old fart!
Vision and roadmap
Its great to imagine stuff but at some point, you must do something to realize what you see in your head. Otherwise you really are just hallucinating. That’s why you need a roadmap.
In theory, you just draw a line from where you are to where you want to be and just follow it. Easier said than done.
If your target state is not that far away and not that big a change from where you’re at currently, that might even work. However, visions are often more far fetched and more long term. That’s why you need a roadmap.
A roadmap is some markers (milestones) you put along that road so you know you’re heading in the right direction. They’re markers you must hit to get a checkpoint on your progress.
Even with a roadmap, you’ll never go down the ideal and theoretical straight line! Real world is a lot more messy; you will have lots of false / wrong directions and steps. you take. That’s ok! As long as you see the next milestone in your head, then if you’re able to honestly estimate where you’re at, then you can make course corrections.
One thing is for sure though: you’re always going to the right as time will not stop and wait for you. Your job is to navigate the ship towards the desired end state.
Of course as the vision changes (as it should!) so will the roadmap. That’s ok!
If you’re a leader, your personal vision for what/who you’re leading must be articulated
Leaders must have vision. That really should not have to be stated, but sadly there are many leaders (including those that lead countries) who do not have a clear vision for what they claim to lead!
To lead, you have to go beyond having a vision to articulating it clearly to others. That articulation must inspire others to suspend disbelief and come along with you on the journey. In Steve Jobs’ world that was called a Reality Distortion Field. Without some degree of being able to make others suspend disbelief, you cannot ever be a great leader.
So if you’re a leader (or want to be one), then first have a vision. Second articulate it in ways that others want to jump on the bandwagon with you. Then work like hell to make that reality.
To me, vision is an always on thing. It keeps you on your toes all the time as nothing is constant or stable or safe; with environmental changes your views and therefore what you will see when you close your eyes better change! Thus, no vision is a constant!
However, once you look at vision as a personal thing, then having vision for a better future is what helps you get up the next day and have passion to fight the good fight.
So, close your eyes and imagine things that don’t exist; then work hard to make it real!
