Practical future state visioning

Have you ever found yourself moving through the year, day-by-day, life happening to you. It’s January. Now, it’s October. Where did the year go? We often think of “vision” as something thats only for CEOs.

This past January, I grabbed a pen/paper, and asked myself: What do things look like in 2-3 years if I really got things firing on all cylinders? 3-5 years? What do I need to do in 2012 to move myself closer to this vision? These things included my work at Magenic, but the list had many things that I wanted to do with my family, for my family, and for me.

I reviewed that list throughout 2012 and asked myself: What does ‘doing’ look like for each item? That’s the work that made its way into my daily life, my “to do” list. Just to give you a sense: moving my family to a new home, getting a PMI certification, getting myself baptized, improving my network, improving my physical fitness. These were things on my list. For each, I asked myself: What does ‘doing’ look like? Thats what I needed to get started! In some cases, getting started meant a conversation. In many cases, it meant just getting started.

I’ve learned in 2012 that its a lot easier to go out and do the things that I want, then to carry them around with regrets. Be the CEO of your life.