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Begin by Leading Yourself – Cast a Vision for Your Life

Girl with "Future Leader" on her shirt.

After I published last week’s article, I received some inquiries from a few people who are not in official leadership positions in their work, but still recognize the need to be theleader in their own lives. I was excited to hear from them, because this is truly where leadership begins. If you can’t effectively lead yourself, how could you possibly lead anyone else? 

Foundational Leadership Characteristics

Again, as I’ve shared in other articles on leadership, the building blocks are basic, fundamental, and necessary for any leadership position, whether it’s leading oneself, leading volunteers, leading a team, or leading an entire organization.

Those foundational building blocks are: Self-Awareness,Other-Awareness, Clear Vision, and Living & Leading with Intention. You can refresh your memory on those ideas by reviewing the last article here. Today, I’m going to focus on the Vision portion, as the exercise I take individual coaching clients through is a bit different than what I would use with a leader responsible for a team or an organization.

Designing Your Life

In my work with individual clients, we typically begin our work on a specific challenge or goal the client is focused on, but along the way, our work often shifts to a more holistic approach in which the client decides he or she wants to look at the bigger picture of his or her whole life, not just one piece. 

Why think small? After all, if you can design a piece of your life and craft a strategic plan to achieve it, why wouldn’t the same process work for all areas of your life? 

First, you’ll need to give yourself permission to imagine, dream, and explore. In fact, I encourage you to speak that permission out loud in a confident tone. While we are all born with insatiable curiosity, vivid imagination, and unbounded creativity, it is often beaten out of us as we grow up and make our way through traditional education systems. This may not happen intentionally – meaning the people around us who do this aren’t likely thinking of what they are doing as intentionally shutting down that side of us – but it happens, nonetheless. 

Repeat after me: “I give myself permission to imagine, dream, and explore…to be curious and allow ideas about how I want to live my life to bubble out of me freely and unabridged.”

Reserve the Time

The exercise I’m going to share with you will take some time – 7-14 hours, more or less, depending on how much thought you’ve already given to your vision and how much free reign you allow your imagination. I encourage you to get your calendar out right now and block out the time… and treat these appointments with the same level of importance and commitment you would afford someone you were paying money to see. This is that important! 

You’ll want at least an hour for each session, for 7-14 sessions. The difference will depend on if you want to give yourself time to imagine every dayor every other day. The rule of thumb for the exercise is to work through it with at least 24 hours in betweensessions but notmore than 48 hours in between. 

The idea here to is to engage your curiosity, imagination, and creativity. It’s not a race or a competition. I actually had one client who was so focused on completing the exercise, she only heard me say how many times she should do the exercise and missed the time interval direction entirely. She very nearly sat down and wrote out her vision 14 times in as short a time span as she could manage, because she was so driven to complete it! Do that and you will miss the point and the magic of this simple exercise altogether!

Choose a time of day when you know you’ll be able to relax and flow through it unhurried. Also, if you’re aware enough of your personal creative rhythms, intentionally choose a time of day when you are more creative. Find a place where you can be comfortable and do the exercise, uninterrupted. Inside, outside, on a bus or a train, in a coffee shop or in your office… There is no one perfect location for every person, but I trust you’ll know yours. 

Finally – and this is possibly the only rigid direction I’m going to give you, and it will make the most difference in your experience and outcome: Do NOT do this on any kind of electronic device. Select a nice journal, pick up a blank notebook, use a legal pad… the kind of paper doesn’t actually matter, but it needs to be pen or pencil on paper, written longhand. 

Your brain engages and works differently when you put pen to paper, and this will unlock your creativity at higher levels than any keyboard will ever allow. 

The Exercise

Take a new journal, notebook, or pad of paper and write out your vision for your life — work, home, family, relationships, free time, exercise, travel, learning, everything— in as much detail as you can. 

Write in the present tense, as if it is already your reality… Like this: “I am living in my dream house. It’s a one-level craftsman bungalow with four bedrooms…”

Don’t edit or filter along the way or worry about how someone else might think of it; you don’t have to share it with anyone (and in its early stages, I encourage you not to share it!). Think about the colors, the textures, the sounds, the smells, who is with you…include all of this. 

Just write until it’s all out of you. Set it aside for 24 but not more than 48 hours.

Do the exercise, again, but don’t read what you wrote the previous time. Start on a new page. No filtering, no editing…just write it all out. 

Do the exercise, again…keep at this process for at least 14 days, or longer if you’re moved to do so. 

Don’t worry if what you come up with each time is different than the last time. Just keep writing it out. As you go thru this process, over time, you’ll get more in touch with what you truly long for and will see it more clearly. 

Once you know what you desire to create, it’s easier to start taking steps toward it. Know that it’s an iterative process — do this a couple of times a year, or at least once a year, because your needs and desires will change over time. And as you achieve different goals, have experiences, and acquire things along the way, your needs, wants, and desires will change. 

Clarity Creates the Filter

This is the “leading with intention” part of leading yourself. Once you’ve articulated what you want to create in your life – at least for this next season – you can move forward with more confidence you’ll actually get to experience it. 

“Without vision, the people perish…” This verse from the bible can be interpreted in many ways. For the sake of today’s thoughts, the idea is that with no clear vision for what you want your life to be like, any life will do. No vision allows you to just get up each day and do whatever, repeating those actions and behaviors day after day after day, marking time but not really living. Essentially, you are the walking dead, simply passing the time until you die, and it’s official!

Once you’ve crafted your life vision, you can set about the work of crafting a strategy and action steps to bring it into reality. It’s helpful and powerful to remind yourself of it every day. You may choose to create a vision board with images that spark your thinking, passion, enthusiasm, and energy. Or maybe the words on paper are powerful enough for you. 

To really reinforce it and keep your engine stoked, say it out loud every day. Read the words or tell the story from your selected images and allow yourself to be fully in the moment and emotion of how it will feel when you truly are living your dream life and doing your best work. 

And remember: Any strategic plan you develop, any decision you make, any crossroads you reach, and any opportunity that presents itself should all be measured against your vision. If whatever comes up will support you in achieving your vision, the answer is “Yes!” If it doesn’t, no matter how cool, interesting, or compelling it might be, the answer is “No!”

Leading Yourself – The Cliff Notes

Regardless of your position, title, responsibility, or authority, at the very foundation of your life is the right and the need to lead yourself. How you do that is entirely up to you. And while others will have the opportunity to influence what happens to you – if you allow them that influence – the choices are really yours to make. 

You can’t live the life of your dreams, have the ‘dream job,’ or fully live into any other area of your life if you can’t articulate what those dreams are. This is why having a vision for your life is so important. 

I heard someone once say that if you don’t have a vision for your life, other people will plug you into the gaps in their dream wherever they can make you fit… and you’ll spend your life building someone else’s dream. It’s true. Far too many people – and many of them are well-meaning and may even be your loved ones – have ideas about who you should be and what you should be doing with your life. 

If you’re not careful and don’t chooseto step up and lead yourself, they’ll have their way. Likely, at some point, you’ll come to some new level of awareness where you snap out of it and think, “This isn’t what I wanted for my life. How did I get here?”You get to that dissatisfied place by going through your life on auto-pilot. 

I’m on a mission to awaken you so that’s not your experience. 

Wake Up! 

Do the Vision Exercise… and do it again, and again, and again! 

Then come back and tell me what you’ve discovered.

_________________

Copyright 2019 Laura Prisc, Conscious Leadership Partners  www.consciousleadershippartners.com

Laura Prisc is The Most Trusted Authority on Conscious Leadership; she is a certified Gallup Strengths Coach, certified People Acuity Coach, Gallup-Trained Builder Profile Coach, and a member of the John Maxwell Team. 

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How long?

How long will it take?

That’s the point in the conversation when it becomes painfully obvious, to me, at least, that the person in front of me truly isn’t ready to initiate change in her/his life. That’s the point when I realize the person in front of me is looking for the quick fix, the easy out — you know, the path that won’t take him/her out of her comfort zone. Because while this person recognizes something isn’t working in his/her life, and is aware of the lack of congruence — even if he/she cannot articulate it as such — she/he is not uncomfortable enough, yet, to make a change.

One of my mentors shared a story with me a few years ago, when we were talking about pursuing dreams. He said he often stops by the Rosetta Stone kiosk in an airport he frequently flies thru, and considers purchasing a module. But, then he finds himself tempted to ask the salesperson how long it will take to learn the language, and mid-way through that thought, he knows he’s not passionate enough about it to give it what it would require to succeed. He thinks of it as negotiating terms and pursuing dreams doesn’t work that way.

It’s a similar principle with prospective clients who understand something isn’t working in their life, their organization, within their team, and they know they need to do something different. If I believe I have value to add and a potential solution, I offer it, and then we have what I think of as the (no disrespect intended in any way, shape, or form) “come to Jesus” moment: What are you willing to do differently to initiate and see this change through?

What are you willing to do differently to initiate and see this change through?

And when the person asks, “How long will it take?” I know the conversation is done and all that’s left is the pleasantries (well, to be fair, I’m typically direct about what will happen if they don’t take action)  as I prepare to leave the meeting.

Here’s the deal: Whatever shape your life, team, organization is in, you didn’t just arrive there this morning; you developed the habits and behaviors and embedded the thinking that have all conspired to get you to where you are today over the course of many (MANY!) years. Unlearning those habits, challenging those beliefs, and changing one’s thinking will not happen overnight (even if I do have my magic wand with me!). It takes time; sometimes more and sometimes less, depending on the level of discomfort, desire to change, willingness to challenge thinking and beliefs, willingness to rock the boat, even.

Whether I say it will take six months, twelve months, or longer, consider this: That time will pass either way, whether you do the work or not; it’s inevitable. The choice is yours: Will you step out of your comfort zone, take the action, and work through the process? Or will you simply be another six months or a year older, and still living in the same proverbial place?

What will you decide?

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Nearly in tears because my hair stylist called in sick!

Yes, this was me, some months ago. My stylist actually called in sick twice in one week…the first time, the salon called to let me know, and rescheduled me for a couple of days later. I showed up early and waited nearly 30 minutes (there was no receptionist on duty — just stylists all with clients) before someone decided to tell me he’d called in sick, again.

I was so frustrated and upset, I was nearly in tears, but it’s not what you think. And, it’s not uncommon. I’ve heard similar stories from many of the women in my inner circle — and extended network — on numerous occasions.

It wasn’t actually about the haircut. The root of the issue (no pun intended) is this: As usual, I had a lot going on in my life, and had waited until my hair was truly out of shape, out of style, and just downright unruly before I’d called to make an appointment, which meant about another 10 days before I could actually get into the salon. It’s not as if I wasn’t aware that within a certain number of weeks of my last cut, that my hair would have grown and would need some professional attention. The issue was I had chosen to put my needs last, after my family, my business, my personal growth, etc…Commendable, maybe, but not conducive to peace or good mental health over time.

I was so looking forward to an hour of true down time, when someone else would be fully focused on me and my only responsibility was to sit upright in the chair; at that point, I needed that. So, when I finally took the time for myself and the stylist didn’t show up, I was at the end of my emotional reserves!

Ladies, tell me you haven’t been there…whether it was your hair stylist, nail technician, massage therapist, or a girlfriend you were planning to have coffee or lunch with…The stars were no longer in alignment and that respite you so desperately needed evaporated nearly in an instant, leaving you frustrated, emotional…whatever the reaction, it was likely out of proportion to the actual event.

This is one of the reasons I’m collaborating with Tracy Worley and Maureen Craig McIntosh to bring you Gracebreak Retreat. We are taking an intentional time out to reconnect with ourselves and other strong, talented, courageous women. We will discover our natural talents (potential) and strengths (performance), define or refine our core values, dig into the choices we make and the behaviors we demonstrate that either serve us or don’t! And we’ll connect with other women who share similar challenges in their lives, broadening and strengthening our inner circles and support network. And we’re doing this just outside of beautiful Bozeman, Montana.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Do I routinely commit to things I really don’t have time for, or do not have deep meaning for me?
  • Do I routinely put everyone else’s needs before mine?
  • When I do take time out for myself, is it usually accidental (unplanned), late at night after everyone else is asleep, or simply because I’m desperate (and then I feel guilty for taking it)?
  • When was the last time I truly took significant time out to reconnect with and nurture my own needs?

If you answered yes to any (or all) of the first three, and you need to look at a calendar or have someone give you the answer to the last one, you need to be there with us. We’ve designed this retreat specifically for you. The truth is, you cannot give what you do not have and when your reserves run dry, you are of no service to anyone, especially you!

We can’t wait to see, and serve, you there! Register today!

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