8 Steps to Sure Success: Step One – Vision
December 16, 2014
“The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision!”
– Helen Keller
Our journey to success has commenced! This week, we begin the “8 Steps to Sure Success” with step number one: VISION. Vision is the “core” to success. I know, I know, I’m sure that fact is obvious to many of you perusing this article! It’s akin to me saying something like, “good diet and exercise are important to maintaining a healthy body.” No kidding! However, it’s still wise to remind us all of the importance of having “vision.”
Ask yourself this question, “How clear is my life’s mission to me?”. If you don’t see it, how can you succeed in it? Vision includes seeing it in your mind’s eye, receiving it in your conscious comprehension, believing it to be yours to possess and declaring it to those encompassing you! Do you see yourself succeeding? What is your definition of success? The more detailed, coherent, and thorough your vision and the more mental focus you’ll be able to utilize in order to achieve it.
Take a moment and look around you. Everything you see was first a vision in someone else’s mind. The watch on your wrist, those jeans you’re wearing, the coffee cup in your hand, even the computer screen that you’re looking at right now – everything was first a vision in someone’s mind. They conceived it with such clarity that it was just the matter of transferring that mental image in their mind’s eye to the physical object that you’re looking at now!
As I mentioned above, vision is the core, the foundation, of success. Where there is no vision, there are no plans or goals for the future – just an empty canvas waiting to be painted with the dreams of the visionary! Do you see that beautiful house sitting on that wooded lot? Can you see the Mercedes in the driveway? The smell of the filet mignon on the BBQ? Can you see your children swimming in the custom pool in the beautifully landscaped backyard? Dream in color, in stereo sound and dream with all of your senses heightened! You need to feel it, touch it, taste it, and experience all of it! Put your mind to work, create your vision.
Austin “Jack” DeCoster was 15 years old when his father died suddenly. Upon awakening the next morning, his mother approached him in the kitchen and said, “Son, your father’s 125 chickens still need to be fed and the eggs need to be gathered. They’re your responsibility now.” As a young teenager that had just lost his father, Austin bravely accepted the challenge and became driven with a desire to succeed with his father’s small poultry farm in Turner, Maine. That was over six decades ago. Those 125 chickens evolved into an empire of 22 million chickens that produce over 500 million eggs annually! Austin is the founder of DeCoster Egg Farms/Wright County Eggs and now runs his “empire of eggs” with his sons Peter and Jay.
Take an hour this week and dream….create a vision. Write down your goals for this week, this year, five years from now and 20 years from now. The future is in your hands. If you want it, envision it and “will” it to be. It’s up to you how high you want to fly! Anything is possible but you must first have a vision!
Congratulations! You have just completed step one of the eight steps to sure success. Success is yours because you have dreamed it and can see it – you know it’s yours. It’s similar to a professional athlete who must envision the big game. It’s so real that he feels his muscles twitching as his brain fires off the electrical signals that move his body. That “mental” playing field is no longer imaginary but is profoundly real to him. You should do this every day by making your vision a full length motion picture in high definition with digital surround sound!
CONCEIVE IT, BELIEVE IT, AND THEN YOU’LL ACHIEVE IT!
Stay tuned, next time we’ll discuss Step Two – VIRTUE
