3 Simple Steps To Create Your Perfect Life Vision For 2017
“The empires of the future are empires of the mind.” — Winston Churchill
(NOTE: Join me Dec 29th for “Vision Day.” It’s a free workshop where I’ll guide you through this process to create your perfect vision for next year. Join here.)
Making 2017 your best year yet starts right now… and it starts by getting clear on what you want.
Every ambitious person knows the power of having a clear vision for their life. But I only know a handful of people who actually carve out time to write their vision down.
Do you have time scheduled to create your vision for 2017 yet? Do you know what you’ll create in 2017? Do you know who you’ll become?
If not, you’re going to love this article…
Here’s why: I‘ve spent six years distilling down a process to ‘complete’ your year and create an inspiring vision of your future in three simple steps.
The is the fastest, most effective way I’ve ever found for creating inspiring visions that guide your life.
When you have this vision for next year, you will have a guidepost for every decision in your life. Having this vision will infuse your life with intentionality and purpose.
If you want to do it on your own, follow this simple three step process:
Step 1. Reflect On Your Highs, Lows and Lessons Learned
“Sometimes, you have to look back in order to understand the things that lie ahead.” ― Yvonne Woon, Dead Beautiful
Five years ago my friend Jenny and I split a hotel room for World Domination Summit. And every night before we went to bed, she would ask me, “What were your highs and lows today?”
I was amazed at how the lessons from the days became deeply ingrained in me with that short reflection.
The same goes for your year.
Taking the time to reflect on your “Highs and Lows” from the year allows you to cement your biggest lessons and take them with you into next year.
The process looks like this:
Open your calendar and journal. Scroll through the past year, month by month. Notice the events that stand out to you. The memories. The experiences.
Then create a list of “Highs” and a list of “Lows” from the year. Write down everything you can remember that stands out.
Once you’ve completed the highs and lows, review them and make a new list titled, “Lessons Learned.” Write down as many lessons as you can.
Lastly, complete these two sentences:
What I’m taking with me into next year is: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
What I’m leaving behind in last year is: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
And boom. That’s it. You’re done.
You have your lessons. And you can let go of all the other baggage.
Your year is officially complete and you can move into next year with ease and confidence, knowing you’ve taken all the most important lessons with you from last year.
Nobody likes to waste time learning the same lesson twice. Reflecting on your year makes sure you integrate the most important lessons moving forward.
Step 2. Take An Inventory Of The Present
“Know Thyself.” — Socrates
In this step, we look at every area of our lives and rate how we’re doing. It gives us a baseline each single year to see where we’re growing and where we’re staying stagnant.
I use these ten areas of life:
Friendships
Family
Finances
Career
Love
Health
Spirituality
Sex
Philanthropy
Overall Alignment / Quality of Life
You can use those or create your own categories. The important part is to rate each area on a scale of 1–10 and then write a paragraph or two about why.
I set a timer for five minutes for each category and I write uninhibited, with no filter. I end up with snapshot of my life, right now in this moment.
This is especially fun to review these over time. I can look back over the past five years and see how my financial life has grown. How my love life has ebbed and flowed. Or how I’ve become more deeply rooted in my own sense of spirituality.
By having a snapshot of what’s alive right now, you’ll have a baseline to compare it to next year.
3. Create A Vision For The Future
“Every battle is won before it’s ever fought.” — Sun Tzu
The last step is to create an inspiring, compelling vision for the next twelve months of your life.
Start by envisioning your life three years out. Envision a life with no constraints. I like to go into a deep meditation, thinking about questions like:
Who do I want to become?
How do I want to spend my time?
What does my financial life look like? Career? Love? Health?
How will I feel?
What will my perfect day look like?
When you feel inspired and connected to a three year vision, zoom out to one year out instead of three. One year from today, think about these questions:
What will I have accomplished?
How will my life be different? How will I be more free?
How will I feel? How will people experience me?
What is the most exciting thing in my life?
After you get some creative ideas flowing, set a timer for 10 minutes and start writing. Don’t worry about perfection. Don’t stop writing. Just get all your ideas out.
Write until the timer ends. (Or until you’re exhausted.) Now you can recap and edit.
Read it a couple times. And then try to distill your whole vision into a one sentence theme. Here are mine from the past five years:
2011 — The Year of Exponential Growth
2012 — The Year of Being a Man Who Fearlessly and Courageously Gives His Gifts To the World
2013 — The Year of Living in My Unique Genius
2014 — The Year of Pleasure, Adventure and Achievement… With Ease
2015 — The Year of Self Love
2016 — The Year of Sex and Money
When you finish your theme, that’s it!
Now you have a vision for the next 12 months. You have a north star to make all of your decisions.
To decide what’s in alignment with your life and what isn’t.
To consciously make decisions that support you in becoming the most powerful, confident, expressed version of yourself.
If you read this and you want someone to walk you through it, step by step, join me on December 29th for a free workshop and I’ll walk you through the whole process with guided meditations and more.
It’ll take about 3 hours together and you’ll walk away with a ‘complete’ 2015 and an inspiring vision for your 2016… all before the holidays get here.
Join me and my friends as we set our visions together on December 29th.
Andy Drish is a serial entrepreneur, writer and dog lover. He writes Illumination, a weekly column about “Uncommon Knowledge” for entrepreneurs.
Andy helps entrepreneurs scale their businesses from six to seven figures fast.
