We hope that you have taken the time to articulate your Purpose, create your Vision Statements, and identify the 5 – 7 major Obstacles to living your vision. If not, take a few minutes to read the past 3 posts and just make some notes. Doing this work does not have to be a big, heavy, time-consuming process. It can be a simple process where you just play with the ideas that come to you as you read what we have written.
Once you have made some notes to yourself or if you are up to date with mapping your purpose and vision, we’d like you to start to think about how you would answer this question “What creative and powerful actions can I take to get around the Obstacles to my Vision so that I can live closer to my Vision?”
We aren’t looking for you to solve all of life’s problems here, but rather we want you to identify even minor ways around the things that you have experienced as obstacles to living the life you want to live.
Last week we mentioned the following obstacles that clients have identified over the years that are getting in the way of them living their vision, right now:
- I have two small children to tend to
- We only have one car
- I travel a lot with work
- My money is committed elsewhere
- My marriage is struggling
- My parents are both ill
- I get depressed and then stuck and do nothing
- I don’t have support to help me succeed
- I have ___ disease
Some actions steps that we identified with clients over the years include the following:
- I have two small children to tend to / I will negotiate a sitter 2x week or do a sitting – swap with my dear friend and her kids
- We only have one car / I will get a Smart Car account
- I travel a lot with work / I will only stay at hotels that have an exercise room
- My money is committed elsewhere / I will reduce my spending on non-essential items by 50% and put that in an account just for _____
- My marriage is struggling / I will ask my partner to get into marriage counseling with me
- My parents are both ill / I will let my siblings know I need help supporting our parents
- I get depressed and then stuck and do nothing / I will have breakfast with Marion and generate a to-do list at the beginning of each week so that I can get support in crossing off items and feel successful and I can support her getting her list done
- I don’t have support to help me succeed / I will seek out activities where I can meet like minded people
- I have ___ disease / I will take care of myself and give my illness the attention required to allow me to live the best life I can live
As you can see, once you have identified the obstacles to living your vision right now you have begun to identify what is needed to move forward in your life. Each of these steps was a step around the obstacle and a move toward action on the life of your vision. None of the action steps assure success and sometimes they even surface other obstacles you need to deal with, but they are movement in the right direction and allow for new choices to be made going forward.
Inertia is one of our greatest enemies and too often we cling to our limitations. Change can be a frightening thing, which is why our goal is to help people articulate and take steps toward actions that will shift their relationship to their Vision. It no longer needs to feel like a fantasy but can become a stake in ground guiding how you are going to create your life.