.png)
Focusing on Success: Crafting Your Vision
- Julia Keider
- Jan 7
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 6
In the ever-evolving leadership landscape, one fundamental element remains crucial—vision. Just as our eyes serve as the primary gateway to perceiving the world around us, a clear vision guides us in navigating our personal and professional journeys. Our ability to see and interpret our environment shapes our decisions and actions.
Our eyes are more than the squishy matter in our heads that allows us to see and interpret the world around us; they are the all-important symbol of how we explore cultivating a strong vision and how it can illuminate our path to success. Without a clear vision, we might stumble with a lack of clarity, details, depth, and growing uncertainty of how to respond; similarly, a well-defined vision provides direction and purpose, helping us align our goals with our values.
The Lens of Possibility: Keeping Your Vision Alive
A couple of months ago, I finally got my eyes checked, after twenty-five years. I never thought much about my sight, but I quickly became aware of just how important sight is, for daily life, and in making predictions (about my health) in the future. The eyes’ optic nerves are essential for our perception of the world and serve as a vehicle for creating a vision for success. Just as optic nerves transmit visual information from the eyes to the brain, our vision channels our ambitions and goals into actionable steps.
On a recent trip to Texas caves, I learned that being stuck in dark solitude for long periods can result in hallucinations, blindness, and eventually death. The health of our optic nerves impacts overall well-being, as vision problems can cause frustration and confusion, and can be clues to our lives being cut short by disease and cellular dysfunction. Likewise, lacking a clear vision of your goals can make us feel lost. Cultivating an inspiring vision builds resilience and confidence, helping you navigate challenges and seize opportunities positively.
As a child, I remember the first time I looked up close to a television screen, just for fun. The pixels in front of my eyes were tiny and fuzzy, yet visible, capturing red, green, and blue dots that made up a moving picture. My eyes showed me how crucial they are for clarity, allowing me to see details in my environment and the larger picture. Similarly, having a clear vision for the future helps us focus on what matters and identify details that lead to success. Just as healthy optic nerves enhance our sight, a well-defined vision sharpens our focus and prioritizes actions aligned with our goals.
Believe it or not, the beautiful science of our eyes is that we live in a 3D world, but we can only see in two dimensions. This often goes unnoticed. However, the optic nerves allow us to see through depth perception, helping us gauge distances and navigate effectively. A clear vision for success involves understanding the complexities involved, allowing informed decisions, and the identification of hidden opportunities. Just as depth perception prevents misjudging distances, a comprehensive vision helps evaluate and adjust your path forward.
One last point about how our eyes are the keys to envisioning success, and probably one of the most important: the optic nerves connect visual stimuli to the brain, enabling interpretation and response. By nature, our brains alone cannot determine right from wrong, but we can interpret visual stimuli to determine whether what we see aligns with our values based on our consciousness. When we formulate a vision (imagined or real), we align values, aspirations, and available resources. This connection drives motivation and persistence. By understanding how your vision aligns with your core beliefs and utilizing your network's support, you build a strong foundation to achieve your goals.
Additional Articles from Keider Consulting Group
Crafting a Vision Board
A 2024 study by researchers at the Journal of Research in Personality found that visions can inspire positive emotions, making you believe your dreams are achievable. Displaying your goals on a vision board, a form of visualization technique, helps you focus on what matters. Vision boards solidify images in your mind, increasing motivation to create your ideal life. They remind you of your goals daily and encourage intentional actions toward greater purposes.
By reflecting on what you truly desire, a vision board helps you align your values with your vision for a fulfilling life. Creating one can be a fun activity to share with friends, strengthening your relationships as you discover each other’s goals. I’m including my sample vision board for this year. Let me explain:
I’ve been learning more about cellular metabolism over the last year, so I created a vision element of foods and words to remind me that my physical, emotional, and mental wellness are centered on how I feed my brain, gut, and body.
Adult friendships are hard, but I’ve realized that my vision for relationships should be rooted in time spent with people I enjoy, can learn from, and can contribute to their wellbeing. This includes coaching and friendship with my spouse. I have a vision for those relationships that I want to build on, rather than focus on problems, or complexities.
I love Texas's natural elements, which I recently visited for my 50th birthday. My vision is to go back and explore the Texas Hill Country counties on retreat with the intent of quality time with friends and family, and to stay inspired by new cultures.
Finally, because I am focusing on my cellular health, I have taken more interest in how mindfulness practices help me do that, including meditation with energies that focus on my physical and spiritual presence. I want to continue manifesting this type of mindfulness as I grow professionally and personally, with the vision of being the person I was intended to be.
Ideas for Vision Boards
We should not neglect what we see and what we imagine for ourselves, in both our personal and professional lives.
A Vision for Coaching: Cultivating a strong coaching culture requires a clear and compelling vision. If you’re familiar with the Everything DiSC Work of Leaders, you know that Crafting a Vision is one of the most important steps to effective, and well-aligned practices. When thinking about your vision for coaching, think about some of the following questions:
How are my coaching values aligned with the organizational values?
How do I articulate my coaching vision to others effectively?
What commitments do want to make about expectations for coaching as a leader?
What vocabulary do I want and need to communicate consistently to demonstrate my commitments?
For new leaders and coaches, I highly recommend this practice. Questions such as these can be transformed into a vision board with visuals, text, and resources to help you stay focused.
Thematic Vision Boards: Creating a vision board with a bunch of pictures and categories can be overwhelming to keep track of. Instead, create a separate vision board for areas in your life you need help tending to, or categorize them, like the image below:
Health | Rest | Career | Finances | Family | Travel | Mindfulness | Hobbies | Habits | Relationships | Friends | Social Contributions | Learning | Love |
Prayer | Reading | Leadership
A Professional Vision Board: Taking the two or three biggest and most important future-state priorities to focus on, determine what you would like the results to look like rather than just focusing on the tasks you need to accomplish. Write keywords and images connected to your vision (big and small). A Mindmap might help to visualize these priorities. While visuals are great, sometimes words can be at the center of the vision board, with smaller reminders of how to stay focused.
To wrap things up, a well-crafted vision empowers us to navigate our personal and professional paths, enhancing our capacity to not only succeed but to thrive in different aspects of our lives. Taking time to reflect on those images and personify them helps us envision a future that is promising and purposeful, meaningful and fulfilling.
Opmerkingen