As the NFL football season fast approaches, we see in the news how each team is planning for a run for the Super Bowl. Even teams that were 3-13 last year are talking the championship talk. How many head coaches would get raises for saying that they are hoping for a .500 season?
Having the vision of winning the championship is what makes a team come together. A coach has to share the vision with enough conviction that the players all buy in to the same vision as if it were their own. This is not as easy as it sounds and it is why many head coaches become motivational speakers after they retire.
The daily details are important, of course, but without that target on the horizon, a team has little chance of capitalizing on the good decisions made during the preparatory stages. When the adversity becomes unmanageable, having that unified front all striving for the same end can mean the difference between a team that gives up and one that pulls through.
Set your goals, but do not forget to create the vision that will make those goals the stepping stones to achieving that vision. Your daily decisions will be much more productive if you have found your vision. Even your dreams will fall into place with your vision once you have internalized it. That is when you seem to become unstoppable!
So if you are finding that your struggles are making it harder than you believed possible to achieve your goals, it may mean you forgot to internalize your vision. While this is something that is unique to each person, and not easy to describe, the process must be gone through in order to create your own success. Take the time to write your ambitions, your dreams, your cravings and then see what ultimately is at the center of all of those things. Our dreams and visions are really already inside us, but until we actually sort them out from the chaos within ourselves, we are not going to get where we think we want to go.
Some great books to help you with this are Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, Napoleon Hill’s Think And Grow Rich and David J. Schwartz’ The Magic of Thinking Big. As a powerful add on, you will also want to use The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Personal Workbook to go along with your reading.
Take your vision development seriously, because it is the one thing that will change your effectiveness and productivity more than all the goal setting alone can do. If you are already working hard and seeing limited results, it may just mean your vision is in need of correction. Schedule some time to hone your vision, and see your productivity soar as your time is spent on activities that take you toward your dreams and vision, instead of on things that hold you back.