Your Personal Vision Statement: Why You Need 1 & How to Create It
Our personal vision statement is really how we commit to living our lives. It’s our life’s roadmap, and if we don’t have a roadmap then we’re just going through the motions everyday, day after day, month after month, year after year.
It’s like being on autopilot.
Your personal vision statement provides the direction necessary to chart the course of your days and the choices you make about your career, life, and family. It’s like your GPS as you go through life.
Writing a vision statement is the first step in focusing on your life. It can help put things into perspective—your joy, your accomplishments, your family life, and your contributions.
5 specific benefits to having a personal vision statement:
It becomes easier to make decisions
When you're faced with important and complex choices in your personal or professional life, your vision statement can serve as a compass, guiding you towards the best course of action. With a clear vision statement, you can make decisions that align with your values and goals, and avoid getting sidetracked by distractions or other people's expectations. Essentially, it becomes much easier to know what to say “Yes” to and what to say “No” to when you’re clear on your vision.
It provides motivation during tough times
When life gets hard (and unfortunately that’s inevitable for all of us at some point), your vision statement is a wonderful reminder of your “Why” in life; your bigger purpose and goals.
It helps you determine your goals
Your personal vision statement can assist you in defining both your short-term and long-term goals. Your statement provides a sense of direction that can be broken down into these two categories. Once you've created your vision statement, you will have a clear understanding of your long-term objective, which can then inform the setting of short-term goals and the actionable steps required to achieve them. While your long-term goal will typically remain consistent over time, your short-term goals will evolve as circumstances change.
It enables personal growth and development
A personal vision statement can inspire you to pursue new skills, experiences, and challenges that align with your goals and values, leading to personal growth and development.
It helps you live a balanced life
A well-written statement contains different aspects of your life both personal and professional, spiritual and day-by-day oriented. Reminding yourself of your statement will help you live a more balanced life.
So now that we know why we need a personal vision statement…let’s talk about some tips for creating your personal vision statement:
Questions to ask yourself to go deeper and gain clarity:
What are 5 things that you most enjoy doing? These are the 5 things without which your weeks, months, and years would feel incomplete. There’s nothing silly or selfish here-allow yourself to really dream and imagine without worrying HOW this will all come to fruition.
What 3 things must you do every single day to feel fulfilled or experience joy in your day?
What are your 3-5 most important values?
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Write 1 important goal for each of the following facets of your life: physical, spiritual, work or career, family, social relationships, financial security, mental improvement and attention, and fun.
If you never had to work another day in your life and you could truly spend your time as YOU wanted, how would you spend your time instead of working?
When your life is ending, what will you regret not doing, seeing, experiencing, or achieving?
Once you have an idea of what’s included in your personal vision statement, you can decide how you want to actually create it. You may decide to use visuals, like a vision board. Or perhaps you want to journal or type it out.
The key is to post your personal vision statement wherever you will see it daily so you can use it to guide your decisions, actions, and focus.
I’d love to hear from you! What’s in your personal vision statement? Hit reply in the comments below or tag me over on Instagram!
