How To Find Your Vision

We are going to deep dive into the most popular question I receive as a mentor and coach, and that is, "How do I know what my vision actually is?".

It is completely normal to ask this question. Sometimes we are just existing. We have no direction, no compass, no goal. We usually know that we don’t want to be poor or uncomfortable, but beyond that, your vision for life is pretty cloudy. There is so much information bouncing around about finding your passion, operating in your calling, and fulfilling your purpose. What if you don’t even know what that is? How do you figure it out?

Here’s the answer. You will never know. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but it’s the truth. A calling, a passion, a purpose, are all educated guesses. Even if God appeared in a cloud and said, “Jason this is your calling” *God voice*. Your belief is still based in faith that there truly is a God.

Calling, purpose, passion, are all words that are temporary and completely subject to things outside of your control. You weren’t born to be anything. You were born to live, and whatever falls into that finite period of time is directed by circumstances. Whether those circumstances are divinely planned or not, they are still circumstances and you choose how you react to them. The great thing is you already got an A+ on the first step of knowing your vision because you are already living. 

The feeling of purpose, calling, or passion, are all tied to one emotion that we call satisfaction. When you are operating in your purpose, calling, or passion, you are satisfied. So really, purpose and calling are words based on deductive reasoning. If I am feeling immense satisfaction every time I do this thing, it may be my purpose, this could be my calling, it must be my passion.

I say all of this to make it clear that your vision isn’t written in stone. Your vision is malleable and subject to change. So don’t think that you have to figure out your ultimate destiny. A vision is way simpler than that. Your vision is simply where you want to be. 

Whether you have realized it or not, at some point in your life you have thought about where you want to be. Even if the place you want to be is anywhere but where you are now. That’s your vision, and I guarantee you your vision a year from now is going to be a little different. That’s the way it’s supposed to be! We were designed by God to evolve, grow, and expand. 

So, when I say the phrase at the end of every podcast episode, “keep building your vision everyday”, what I am really saying is, "every day do something that gets you closer to where you want to be."

How do you know where you want to be? The answer to that lies in your values. What you value determines every decision you make in your lifetime. Every single one, no matter your circumstance. 

I want you to think about what you value most in your life. Is it being creative? Financial freedom? Free time? Family? Relationships? Personal growth? Structure? Security? What do you value? I have a free pdf with more examples of what your values can be. Look at it and choose your top 10 values in your life. 

These values shape how you maneuver through your life everyday. Think about what you do most when you have no other obligations or responsibilities. I guarantee you it correlates to your value system. I love to watch educational YouTube videos in my free time. That is because one of my leading values is growth. 

You may love to get on FaceTime with your friends because one of your leading values is communication. Or, you may wonder why a certain person tries so hard to fit in. It’s because their leading value is acceptance and approval. You may ask yourself why your parent works so hard when they don’t have to, but it’s because their leading value is security. 

Being aware and truthful about your value system is the second step to knowing your vision. 

Based on your value system, I want you to do this exercise. I want you to write down the life you would love to live. One that supplements your value system. 

Answer in extreme detail and ask questions like: Where do you live? How much money do you make? Are you married? How many kids do you have? How are you making a living? Who are your friends? What state are you in mentally? Write it out like an author of the best fiction book known to mankind so that you can almost experience the feeling of what you are writing. If you don’t like to write, record your dream in your voice memos. I always prefer writing because it gives me more time to reflect and craft this special place. 

Once you have done this, you have found your vision. I don’t know if you realize it, but you just said what your vision is. You had it inside of you all along, you just needed a little introspection to bring it out. 

Your vision is your dream, not your career. Never try to fit your vision inside of a box. For visionaries, boxes don’t exist. Like I said in the beginning, the vision that you have is subject to change and that is okay. Visions, passions, and callings are not the 10 commandments, they are not written in stone, they are likely to change because we change as human beings. 

So, now we are at the step that I talk about all the time, and that is "building your vision everyday". How do I get to where I want to be? How do I get to that place that I just wrote down? This is where the real work begins and truly it never ends. But the pursuit of a vision is what makes life worth living. 

The surface answer to building your vision is, always say to yourself, “What do I NEED in order to get what’s NEXT”. Don’t try to build everything you wrote down right now. You have to break it up into a system. 

This system, I will break down in an article next Friday.