Every January starts a new year and with a new year comes new goals, resolutions, hopes and dreams. Setting goals is something we all tend to do this time of year. Especially in business. We assess the past year, our successes, our misses, so we can identify areas of improvement.
The problem with goals is that we say what we “want.” We create a well thought out list of the things we want to accomplish, the sales numbers, the number of clients, the books we want to read and so on and so on. The biggest reason we fail to reach the goals is we spend little to no time getting clarifying our vision and then creating clarity of vision.
These two phrases are very closely spelled and interpreted. Let’s take a closer look at the differences and the steps that follow.
Clarify Vision
To clarify is to make understandable, free of confusion. Visioning often involves long term goals and desires but the long term can be hard to clarify. Because things happen over time that can change our desires and even place physical obstacles in the way that completely detour our path. At the beginning of the year, vision only the next 12 months. Then break those into quarters and focus on only 3 months at a time. This way your vision is understandable and free of confusion. The more your desire and attempt to achieve in a small time frame, the more difficult you make the success of your efforts. The more confused you can become and the more likely you will feel defeated.
To set yourself up for 2020 success, make your vision, goals, expectations for the year clear, free of confusion and easily understood.
Clarity of Vision
While the dictionary defines clarity closely to word clarify, clarity of vision as a phrase changes the context of the word. Clarity is to quality of state of being clear. To have clarity of a vision means to have clearly identified the actions or steps to take to make the vision happen. If you are a leader in any capacity clarity of vision is having a clearly communicated vision from top downwards. It requires interpreting vision to actions so that you and your staff know what the expectations are to fulfill the vision.
Having clarity of vision for yourself requires doing the work, taking the time to create the action plan, the actual things that need to be done, to calendar time to do them or delegate to the appropriate person.
Intention and Focus
You’ve created the vision and you’ve developed the actionable items to achieve the vision. Now you need to live and work with intention and focus. Wayne Dyer says, “Our intention creates our reality.”
By that he means that when we live with intention, knowing what to focus on each day with the vision in mind, the actionable steps, then we will achieve that vision. Intentional action on a daily basis is hard. We allow many unnecessary distractions derail us from intentional activity. Discipline yourself to focus on the actionable steps that move you towards your goal, to complete the vision. Do this weekly. Work in small increments so you can experience small wins, achievements and feel as though you are making a difference. Allow yourself to celebrate when you finish something.
Don’t forget to stop to assess where you are, to ensure you are still aligned with your vision. You may have to adapt quarterly, revisit clarifying your vision and establishing clarity of vision again.
May 2020 be filled with a clear and actionable vision.
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