“Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.” ~Jonathan Swift

I thought I would share my personal vision today for the next twelve months.  Seeing my example, built from my top five goals might be useful.

Here again are my top five goals for the next twelve months:

  1. Health: I will return to my optimal bodyweight before the end of 2009.
  2. Family: My wife and I will  take our family to New York for a great vacation to celebrate my elder daughter’s completion of her graduate program.
  3. Business: I will blog 5 days per week – every week of 2009.
  4. Finances: I will earn more in 2009 than I ever have before – at least 25% more.
  5. Fun: I will run in the USA’s largest cross-country race: The Living History Farms Seven Miler.

Here is the vision that I built from those goals:

It is the morning of December 31st and I have had a marvelous year.  I feel great – proud, excited, grateful and determined to make next year even better – all of these feelings at the same time.  One year ago, I set five critical goals for myself and I have achieved them!  Yes!

I committed to a health goal: to return to my optimal bodyweight of 195 pounds and I made it!  Now, I have my life back!  I have jogging and tennis back!  My family and friends are proud of me! I am proud of myself and I recognize myself in the mirror again! Most importantly, I now have the energy and vitality to really live my life.

I committed to a family goal: to take my entire family to New York for a great vacation to celebrate the graduation of my daughter Erika from graduate school and I made it!  My entire family felt nurtured and supported by this adventure and I love that we were able to do this together.  This is just the beginning of our family travel adventures and I am so happy and grateful that we were able to do this one.

I committed to a business goal: to blog 5 days per week – every week of 2009 and I made it!  My blog is very highly rated now and I have many dedicated subscribers.  Blogging is now the driving force behind my speaking engagements, my coaching and my online sales.

I committed to a finance goal: to earn at least 25% more in 2009 than I have ever earned before and I made it!  This extra money has allowed me to help my mother, to pay for my daughter’s graduate school, to partially fund my next early retirement, to let my wife and I begin to create our dream home and most importantly, to begin to create true ‘freedom of place” for myself and my family.  Making this goal feels great!

I committed to a fun goal: to run in the USA’s largest cross-country race: The Living History Farms Seven Miler. This was a huge goal for me and it feels marvelous to have achieved it!  I am an athlete again!  I look and feel 20 years younger and I loved playing and running with this huge crowd!  This race is just the beginning!

Wow!  What a year!  Looking back, I had to grow as a person to achieve these goals and that feels great too!  I became more much focused.  I became much better at self-discipline.  I became more effective at self-promotion and I learned to get past the things that I was afraid of – to act with courage.  Being courageous allowed me to take tremendous amounts of action and that ultimately made all the difference.

It feels wonderful to have made these dreams real in my life.  I am grateful for all of the help that I have received, delighted, proud and committed to doing what it takes to make the next year of my life even better – for myself, for my family and friends, and for the world.

Next time, I will talk about the structure of this vision – it incorporates a number of useful features that you might want to adopt in your own vision.  For now, reread your vision for the coming year. If it doesn’t excite you, make you feel totally committed to achieving it, then rewrite it until it does!

Bye for now…Jack

“Where there is no vision the people perish.” ~Proverbs 29:18