No Vision? You Will Perish Soon!
What can you see? You probably may think that I am asking you about what you can see around you. This is not about what your physical eyes can see. This is about what your third eyes, your mental eyes can see.
What we turn out in life is a result of what we can see about our lives beyond our physical eyes. How far our mind or mental eyes can see determines how far we will go in life.
Most persons are the physical eyes people. It is what their physical senses can sense that matters to them. They want to feed their physical eyes, so that if they do not see it, they don’t harp on it.
But life goes beyond our physical allures. While it’s great that we see things we can see, it is important that we fixate our eyes on the things that we may not see but which we can expect to have subsequently.
Life is full with possibilities. But these possibilities may not arrive immediately to us if we don’t have an eye of expectation. This is what is known as vision eye.
The size of what we get from life is dependent on how we can see far ahead into the future to work towards that future that we see. It’s a faith walk. We believe in a certain picture, and we give ourselves deadlines to achieve the picture and then we begin working towards the picture.
This means that we have to have a picture which we are looking at that others may not see. This picture is your vision.
Before you turn forty, you should have a picture of what your vision looks like and you should be pursuing that picture. You should have had a definite direction you are headed for through life. Even if you don’t achieve the picture before forty, you should be en-route to a life of fulfillment pursuing something worthwhile.
One of the reasons some person do not get to achieve anything much in their lives is because they have no template that they are trying to build on. They wait on chance. True, time and chance happens to everyone but when your chance arrives and you can’t seize it, that’s no wisdom.
Time and chance happens to you to help you figure out a direction to channel the opportunities that happens via the time and chance.
The question you should answer is “what are you seeing?” Where do you see yourself a few years from now? How do you see yourself a few years down the line? What do you hope to achieve as your life time achievement? Answering these questions will give you a picture of what your vision should be for life. The picture you see about yourself defines the kind of life you will be living subsequently in your latter years.
You need a vision chart. You need a corner on the wall of your apartment where you are scribbling your thoughts about your future picture. You have to write down the things you envisage, you have to sketch out the picture you imagine.
In your twenties or thirties, those fresh thoughts cry out looking for space to rush out! You may not have the financial resource to birth them early in your life but at least you have a pen and a paper to keep them safe till you are able to gather resources for them.
If at forty, you do not have even a paper to define or describe your desirable achievement level through life, even if you succeed, it will probably be on chance. One bad quality of chance is that it expires. You want to be intentional with your life. This intentionality means you know what you want and you know what to do to get what you want.
A vision chart is a trigger. For you to target a goal, you need to be looking at something that helps you focus on that goal. For example, I have a vision chart I look at, not necessarily everyday but as often as I can. It reminds me that I have a purpose for living and something worth pursuing.
It also reminds me that I have a goal and I am running late. It steers me back on track to see the picture happen.
Your vision must be workable. What this means is that you should be able to put your hand to it somewhere and you know you are doing something worthwhile. It shouldn’t be a grandiose image. It’s an image you want to see achieved by achievable steps you are willing to take, going to take or that you are taking already.
When you get past forty, you want to be able to leverage and expand on the vision. But you can’t leverage on or expand what you never started or envisioned at all.
Your vision chart not only paints a picture of what you should be doing, but it helps you paint a picture of what you are building, so that you don’t miss the design. You don’t want to be dead when you are still alive. Those who have no reason to keep punching through life, or who don’t have anything worth pushing in life are dead already. You’ve heard this verse from the Bible “my people die for lack of knowledge”.
Vision is powerful. The capacity to see what others cannot see and believe it is a quality that drives. It is not a special gift, it is something you develop.
We have to individually trigger it if we must get the best out of our lives.
It’s not an interesting life living without any deliberate focal point we are aiming towards. Life gives us everything; the good, bad, ugly and beautiful. But it’s up to us to look into that bouquet to pick the one that we think should look good on us. If we refuse to make a choice and devote ourselves to pursuing the good course, we may end up with whatever life offers and that whatever may just be bad on us.
Your vision isn’t about your present realities. You may presently be handicapped, you may not have a job, and you may lack the connections. It’s so easy to think that there won’t be better beyond now. But vision is a picture you see of yourself five years, ten years, twenty years or forty years from today, which despite your present realities, you are pursuing.
When you have the eye to see beyond what you can see today, you get the extra edge to enter into their possibilities.
Achieving a vision does not arrive in a day’s work. It’s over time. It’s a building and you are slowly building from the foundation. Depending on the size of the vision, it will require more work, more resources and more drive to achieve.
You should be able to maximize your potentials through life. The size of your potential will arguably be defined by the size of your vision. You know the possibilities you carry with you because you can mentally feel the vibes of its reach. What you cannot see, you cannot get. A height you cannot see, you cannot attain.
It’s hard managing what you never expected. Imagine you were hit with one million dollars. You’d be confused how to use it, because you never envisaged or planned towards such an opportunity. This is why gamblers keep returning to the gambling shop after they have won jackpots.
A man who has a picture waiting for his opportunity will make adequate use of his opportunity when it arrives. All the opportunities you need through life will not arrive now. You will grow through opportunities. Bigger opportunities will arrive as you grow. You will have bigger opportunities in the future than what you’ve already had, but you have to be able to seize the opportunities that will arrive to bring your vision to reality.
A story is told of an eighteen year old young lady who won millions of dollars’ worth of US lottery. She had no plan, no vision, and no goal. Just one year after, she reported broke.
There are numerous sports men and women, musicians who became broke after enjoying a great career with so much money in their twenties and thirties. You may recall former Ivory Coast defender Eboue who reportedly made millions of dollars yearly in a blistering fifteen year career. How about Mike Tyson who was the beloved of boxing in his time? He applied for government support after he turned out broke. Remember R .Kelly? He was reportedly broke before he got into prison. Their problem was the same, they didn’t see beyond their present opportunity.
A vision gives you a picture that is bigger than your opportunities. Your opportunity could be your job, a grant, a support or whatever financial source you enjoy today. Someday what you get as salary or income source may be no more, if you have a vision, you will be able to go farther.
You should never go down through life. Your vision gives you that opportunity to take that upward trajectory towards the best you should be for life.
Those who trust in their jobs come down when they lose their jobs. Those who have an eye towards vision stay up when everyone is down. They stay in charge.
Vision can outlast you! You want to leave footprints in the sands of time. These footprints will be because you made deliberate effort to oil your vision when you could.
Now that you are still young, is the right time to oil the parts of your vision to ensure it works for you. Your vision is your vision. Any other person will only play a role for you and that is if they choose to.
What are you doing with your life? What do you hope to achieve through life? It begins from her. Get your vision plan set. It will matter before you turn forty.