You have your BigLife vision. You know it, you love it, you are so excited about what it will create. Everything should fall into place – right? I wish. Sometimes reality, destiny, unseen forces or the universe get in the way of vision. What do you do then?
LIVE your VISION
Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline, has been quoted saying “without reality there is no vision.” Think about this for a moment. Without today, there isn’t a tomorrow. Reality means I’m alive. Reality means I am making choices. Reality means I get to work another day towards my vision. Reality is good, even when it’s bad.
Things happen. We can’t control or influence everything. Some of it really sucks. But what do you want to focus on? Vision or Sucky?
Personal Mastery means keeping BOTH personal vision and reality with you. When you exclusively focus on reality you’ll create emotional tension. But if you can focus on where you are and where you want to go you’ll create creative tension. Creative tension is good. Creative tension is where new thinking, different perspective and life-changing ideas come from.
The nature of tension is to seek resolution. Don’t you want your resolution to focused on vision? Move towards creative tension.
To live a vision-centered life we have to choose to make vision our paradigm. The lens through which we view the world, both consciously and unconsciously. For me that means being aware of and quieting the voice in my head listing everything that is wrong and focusing on what is right. Some days it’s not about what my vision “is” but about what my vision “does” to help me live my BigLIfe.
My BigLifeVision helps me focus on what’s important in my reality.
Acknowledging reality doesn’t mean letting reality win. Life will throw us twists and punches that seem hard to manage, no doubt. But what can you learn from it? How will it shape you? How does it contribute to the tapestry of life?
I love who I am today. Without my past reality I would not be who I am or know what I know. Wherever you want to go on a journey, you have to first be where you are first. Reality is where you start.
I can hear the inner monolog from some of you “but my reality is worse” It probably is, but what happens when you focus on your “terrible reality”. Emotional tension I suspect. Sadness? Depression? Is that where you want to spend your energy? Probably not, or you wouldn’t be reading this.
Think of a rubber band. One end tugging is your vision. The other end tugging is reality. People who practice (note that word practice) Personal Mastery commit themselves to focus on the vision end of the rubber band. A rubber band can’t be pulled forever, which side will you give into? Your vision or your reality?
Personal mastery requires a commitment to changing your life no matter what reality brings. This can and
will require patience with ourselves and the world. It means keeping your head up and focusing on your vision.
The simple truth is the thing you focus on the most will happen. The more you focus, the longer you focus, the more things will move towards your vision.
The question for this week is, where’s your focus?
Yumna that is more than progress, that is the practice personal mastery. Vision isn’t just what you want, it’s who you are. This is a great example of being who you want to be despite reality.
Agree with Pamela – focusing on the vision is hard for me to do consciously on a regular basis & I need to remind myself often to do it.
Recently though, I find myself more often looking at how I am ‘dealing’ with the current reality & overlaying whether that is helping me move forward to where / who I want to be. I have found that I am adjusting behaviors in the current reality, to move myself closer to how I want to be.
Wait! I think that’s…progress?
Yes, that is what I strive for. To stray is inevitable, it’s the catching oneself, the awareness, that is the key.
Now I’ll just ask myself WHYD (What would Yumna do?) 🙂
Loving this “WWYD”
“To live a vision-centered life we have to choose to make vision our paradigm.” Thank you, Kimberly, this is the part I struggle to remember.
I focus (not I will focus) on energizing and actualizing my new phase of life and on being open to all possibility.
Powerful language shift Pamela. I focus on energizing and actualizing my…