4 Reasons Why You Need A Personal Vision Statement

Can you describe what the best version of yourself looks like? What are you doing? Who are you with? If you do not have clarity on questions such as these, you might find yourself conflicted at times on the direction which you life is leading you. The reality is that most people can spend more time planning a one-week vacation than identifying what outcomes they want to see in the major areas of their lives. And this is for good reason, sometimes the enormity of your vision discourages you from writing it down and taking action. This is due to many reason but the main one is fear of failure.

"If man knows not to which port he sails, no winds is favorable." - Seneca

A personal vision statement is your compass that guides you to the best version of yourself by providing a description of who you are and what health promoting, life giving behavior's you want to do consistently in the future. Now that we have an idea of WHAT a vision statement is, here are four reasons WHY we need one.

1. Clarity

Without a clear understanding of how you want to show up in the world, it becomes very challenging to stay focused. Everyday we are bombarded with hundreds of articles, posts, and blog describing ways of how we can improve ourselves. Most of them hold great value but the problem lies that we cannot engage in all of them all at once. We must have clarity on what are the most important things and hyper-focus on that road map to see real results. For example if the best version of ourselves wants to be there for all of our children's major life achievements and not miss one birthday, there will be a confliction down the road if we also take on a job offer which requires constant travel across the globe. Clarity on your vision lessens the internal conflict when obstacles or distractions come our way. By having the ability to say NO to anything that does not serve our vision, we gain mental clarity and are at peace with the important decisions which we have to make.

2. Strategy

Once we have clarity on our vision, we can now start strategizing our plan of action. Strategy becomes easier to define when we have a clear line of sight on where we are going. For example if your vision statement has you shedding some unwanted weight, you would want to strategize how you would tackle this challenge. Would it be focused on nutrition or physical activity? Would you take on this challenge by yourself or hire a personal trainer or nutritionist? Having a strategy sets you up for success as it chunks down the challenge into smaller pieces by focusing on small actionable items.

3. Discipline

One of the main reasons people do not follow through on their goals is procrastination. When a task becomes overwhelming, our brains are wired to avoid that discomfort by distracting us. Social media and emails are the common easy distractions which sooths our brains when we try to do hard things. Good news is that discipline is the number one way of fighting procrastination. Discipline will enable you to focus on your goals and avoid distractions by setting boundaries. When you are committed to the strategy, you also sign a contract with yourself (discipline) to show up for yourself everyday. The discipline comes in just that part, showing up. For example if you wanted to go to the gym, the discipline would be to get up every morning between 530 and 630. You would not care if you had an amazing workout or went through a simple routine, the discipline would be in showing up at that set time everyday. Discipline sets you free from negotiating with yourself out of doing the work and hence helps you focus on the process rather than the goal.

4. Action plan

Action is what makes the hypothetical become reality. Daily action items incrementally moves us closer to our goal and provides us with momentum to follow through. It's estimated that the average adult makes about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions each day. You can imagine that takes a lot of mental power. By having a pre-determined action plan, we make sure that the most decisions and action items in our lives get addressed before the other 35,000. Furthermore, an action plan helps us stay on point during the challenging times as we can constantly refer back to it to see how far we have come or how to get back on track.

Creating a vision statement is one of the things you will experience once you work with a Quantum Wellness coach. It serves as a beacon of light as you go through the ups and downs of the journey towards your best self. If you would like to learn more about vision statements and how they can help you, contact us to set up your FREE consultation session.