Harness the Power of Envisioning to Shape your Future

Envisioning helps you to imagine and articulate your desired future. You create mental images about things, events, or future possibilities. It's about painting a vivid picture in your mind of what you desire or anticipate you want to have happen. Unlike daydreaming, envisioning is an intentional act of seeing a future you intend to work toward.

Benefits of Envisioning

Envisioning helps you to:

• Clarify dreams: Envisioning allows you to articulate your desires and hopes for the future.
• Motivate action: A clear vision can act as a powerful motivator, driving you towards your goals.
• Guide decision-making: When you have a clear vision, it becomes easier to make decisions aligned with your desired future.

Envisioning vs. Goal Setting

Goal setting involves defining specific, measurable, and time-bound objectives. It's more concrete and focused on tangible outcomes. You create goals as a result of your envisioning exercise.

Envisioning is more about creating a picture of your future self – it's about the bigger picture. It's about nurturing a holistic image of your desired future without detailed specifics.

But envisioning isn’t just daydreaming; you create a vivid picture that you can take concrete steps towards achieving. Visualizing your future helps you create the practical steps you can take to evolve into that envisioned person.

Performing an Envisioning Exercise

1. Find a quiet space: Ensure you won't be disturbed for 2-3 hours.
2. Relax: Use relaxation strategies such as deep breathing to clear your mind and prepare it for envisioning.
3. Imagine your future: Picture yourself three to five years from now. What does your life look like? Who is around you? What are you doing? Think about the biggest version of yourself.
4. Feel the emotions: Engage all your senses. Feel the joy, the excitement, the satisfaction.
5. Write it down: Capture your vision in words or images (vision board). Be very intentional in your words. Be as concrete as you can without getting into specific goals. Think of it like creating a blueprint or guidebook for yourself.
6. Reflect: Think about your vision and what it means for your current situation and decisions.

If you get stuck, pretend you’re talking to your future self. Ask yourself questions. Give yourself as specific answers as possible. Do that for 5-10 minutes. Do it as fast as possible. The answers will be your instinctive responses that are likely to be your real desires. Don’t overthink it.

While you can envision how much money you are making or the kind of house you’ll have, digging deeper helps you get answers on what success feels like or what you have accomplished. Are you fulfilled? What do you love about what you’re doing? What excites you? How did you get there?

Turning Your Vision into Goals

Once you've completed an envisioning exercise, the next step is to convert your vision into actionable steps. This is where goal setting comes into play.

Break down your vision into smaller, achievable objectives. Set timelines, identify resources required, and plan out the steps needed to reach these goals. Remember, a goal without a plan is just a wish. Refer to SMART Goals for more information.

How Often Should You Do Envisioning?

The frequency of envisioning exercises varies according to your personal preferences. Some people find it useful to revisit their visions every few months, while others opt for an annual reassessment. The goal is to keep your vision up-to-date, reflective of your evolving desires, and responsive to changing circumstances.

Regularly review your vision to ensure your actions are in harmony with it, making adjustments when necessary.

You won’t accomplish everything and that’s OK; it’s key to keep your vision always in mind.

Don’t leave it for longer than a year. Too much can happen in a year and you can get ‘lost’ on your way to your vision and make little progress.

Envisioning is a powerful tool that can help shape your future. It's not about predicting what will happen but about creating a compelling picture of what could happen.

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