Rick Torsen explains the difference between a life vision (your legacy and purpose) and NOW visions (shorter-term goals). A real vision is a compelling picture, not a checklist. He walks through diagnostic questions to test if your vision is clear, measurable, and aligned with what matters.
Welcome back to timeout for leadership. This week we will continue our discussion on building your roadmap to significance as we explore the difference between a life vision and a now vision. You may remember me telling you in the last video that you can have a successful life without having significance. But when you choose significance, you will always be successful. Remember, a significant life is not about your stuff or accomplishments. It's a life that continues to have an impact, a ripple on the lives of the people in the world around you long after you're gone. A significant life, it requires a choice and intentionality in the present. And you can't live a significant life without having a clear vision. So most times when you hear the word vision, what do you think about? A lot of times we go straight to goals or activities and our actions with which we must engage in order to reach our destination or accomplish that specific vision. You know, we often minimize vision to a checklist of things we want to do or we want to achieve. I want to suggest to you that vision is less about what we're going to do and more about where we're headed and what we desire to accomplish. So here's the thing. Having a right vision is critical to moving from success to significance. Your vision is the starting place in building this roadmap to significance. So let's build a shared definition as we get started. Vision is about a future state that includes the now, but is more about the not yet. See, your vision compels you forward and demands intentionality and a strategy. There are two types of visions or destinations that we need to understand. It's your life vision and your now vision. Now your life vision. I really believe this is the most important. We all need one and some may call it your purpose or your why. It's the most important, yet most overlooked. Your life vision is all about significance. It's about the legacy you desire to leave and the impact you want to have long after you're gone. It's not about stuff, it's about your story. We reach our life vision by living out and through our core values. See, our core values are deep seated, pervasive beliefs. They're guiding principles that define our behavior and that impact every area of our lives. These core values are non negotiable and they act as the filters that determine what what we say yes to and help us to easily identify what we need to say no to. Without clear core values, it's virtually impossible to reach your life vision. And we'll look at how to identify and create your core values in a future video. The second type of vision it's more immediate. It's your NOW vision or your NOW destination. Your NOW vision can be personal or it can be corporate. Your NOW vision is one that you're currently pursuing. It may be an immediate objective or a short term destination. You could have several NOW visions that you are working toward at the same time you see NOW visions, they have a clear end. You either reach it or you don't. The roadmap you build will determine your success in reaching that vision. See, as I stated earlier, principles of the Roadmap to Significance. They can be applied to any and every vision, objective or goal, no matter how immediate or long term it is. The principles you will learn in these videos on the Roadmap to Significance are tested and will work for you whether you're working on your life vision or a NOW vision. So here's the question. What's your vision you're working toward? Do you have one? Can you identify it quickly? Are you working on your life vision or simply a NOW vision or objective that you need to accomplish quickly? Is it something personal that you have been putting off for years or is it professional and requires immediate attention and direction? Regardless of the type of vision you're working toward, the Roadmap to Significance provides you the template to bring a clear definition to your destination along with a strategy to get there. What vision do you want to work on? First, take some time and answer these questions I'm going to ask you before you get started. The first question to ask yourself is do you have a clear picture of where you're going? Would you know it when you arrived? The second question that you need to ask yourself do you have the traction, the right resources and relationships necessary to move you forward and keep you headed in the right direction? The third question if you were asked to write your vision in one sentence right now, would you be able to do it? The fourth question do you have an intentional strategy with dates and next steps? And is it measurable currently in place to reach your vision? And the last one if I asked the people closest to you what your life vision was, could they tell me? So here's the deal. If you answered no to two or more of those questions, I would suggest you begin with clarifying your life vision. You can't build a roadmap if you're not sure where you're headed. You know, Yogi Berra said this if you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up somewhere else. There are many reasons we end up where we don't want to be. But the number one reason we find ourselves lost is that we don't have a clear vision of where we want to go and we don't know our starting point, which speaks to an honest assessment of our current reality. So as we continue the journey, I want to encourage you to begin to dream and journal. Take some time, write down what you would like the impact and influence of your life to be. In other words, what's the difference that you hope your life makes in the lives of the people and the world around you? Another way to think about this is to imagine how you would want your children or those closest to you to describe you to a complete stranger. What do you hope they would say about who you were and how you lived your life? I know these are challenging questions, but these questions are the foundation that you need to answer to build your life vision upon. It won't be easy, but it's worth it. We're going to continue to dig into the principles of building a strategic roadmap to your significance in the coming videos. As always, I'm Rick Torsen and I'm believing your best is yet to come. How will you know you've arrived if you can't describe where you're going? Join me next week as we look at the critical components of building a successful roadmap.
