Your Vision will be Challenged

I have seen all too frequently people with vision face serious opposition.  Vision has a way of making controlling people nervous and insecure people angry.  A most recent example of this is 15-year old Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot in the head by the Taliban, for promoting “Western thinking.”  Thankfully she recovered and  has courageously returned to school.  She is not alone. Only a few hundred years before scientists were threatened with retribution, even death, for envisioning “ridiculous” things like the earth being round, and that the sun was at the center of our solar system.  Author Chuck Swindoll asserts, “You haven’t really led until you have become familiar with the stinging barbs of the critic. For the leader, opposition is inevitable.”

What Vision Looks Like

Nolen Rollins, in his popular GPS Life Journey curriculum says, “Your vision is usually a series of descriptive (specific and clear) bullet points or statements, rather than one long narrative.”  Rollins uses the example of someone who felt called to mentor troubled teenage boys, and describes their vision bullet points like this:

• I envision being trained on how to mentor young men.
• I envision building strong, healthy relationships with troubled teenage boys.
• I envision a multiplying effect as many of these boys will mentor others in the future.

How to Practice Vision

When I coach business people and individuals on the importance of vision, I tell them to start their visionary thoughts with the words “I see…”  “I see…” statements are followed by vision thoughts that are:

• Intense – vision invokes strong feelings.
• Personal – vision is unique to the one envisioning.
• Vivid – vision often takes on the properties of a mental picture.
• Passionate – vision is something that we must do. 

Stepping back and contemplating vision has birthed businesses, started great philanthropic works and helped people like you and I understand our own personal life mission. Jonathan Swift wrote “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.”  I have found this process to be nothing short of POWERFUL!