Creating Change: Step 5A – Give Your Vision a Form

In order to create positive change in your life, you must first identify your vision. Make sure it is something that excites and inspires you, that really lights you up. It should be something you can get behind 100% because only then will it be sufficiently motivating to sustain you as you stretch beyond your comfort zone – and that will be required. Unless it meets these criteria, it will be too easy for you to give up at the first moments of discouragement. And I can assure you, such moments will come. Once you have identified a compelling and inspiring vision, then you have another significant challenge: you must remove the barriers to achieving it. The main barriers that we all have to realizing our visions are within our own minds, in the form of long-held fears, limiting beliefs, and negative self-images. Most of us fear being judged and rejected, and believe that we’re “not good enough” in one form or another. To move forward effectively, you must transform your limiting beliefs – and this is possible to do. (See my earlier articles in this series for tips on how.) When you have done this, it will then be time to find the specific forms that will express and embody your vision in your life and in the world. How will you make your vision concrete? How will you turn it from a beautiful vision in the sky to a reality located on earth, with a specific “name and address?” Without a name and address, it will be hard to know what direction to head in, or even how to recognize it when you arrive. In other words, how will you turn your vision into a goal? Some goals may be self-evident from the beginning, but others will need to be spelled out with much greater specificity. And there are ways of getting that clarity that I will be addressing later. This is a very important step because you are about to make a commitment to something new that you want very much. We know that you cannot commit to a vague desire. You must give it a location – a name and an address – to navigate by. At the same time, be prepared for it to evolve and transform. Sometimes all we need to know is what direction to start moving in, and en route our inner or outer radar will correct our course. It is easier to change direction when in motion than from a standstill. So create a goal that is specific enough to recognize when you see it, and inspiring enough to call you out of your comfort zone. But don’t get hung up looking for perfection. When we commit to action, it is amazing how the universe meets us more than half way, bringing us possibilities often way better than those we had originally imagined.