The first thing to understand is that a "vision" is a
destination in your future. A vision is what you see as your life in the
future. If you haven’t thought about
your life in the future, now is a good time!
In my workshops, I tell people that creating a vision of
your future is like planning a vacation. You must decide where you want to go before you can realistically
think about how you’re going to get there. If you decided that you want to go
on vacation this July, where would you go? Paris, Rome, Beijing, San Francisco?
Before you make any other plans, you must decide where you’re going. Once you decide on the destination, you can
start making plans.
The same is true when you start thinking about your vision
of your future. What is your destination? What do you want your life to be in
10 years? I realize that’s a difficult question because the future is a big
place to try to think about so I suggest that you break it down into six parts.
In Personal Futures Workshops, we look at the six personal domains in your
life: Activities, Finances, Health, Housing, Social, Transportation. Now, ask
yourself, for each personal domain, what should my life be like 10 years from
now?
Start with Activities, all the things you do; school, work, religion, sports,
hobbies — the things you do. What do you want
to be doing in your life 10 years from now? Think about this one carefully
because our activities tend to fill our days, and if we don’t fill our days
with something interesting life may start getting boring. If you are under 60,
you will probably still be working, which will keep you busy. If you expect to retire
within the next 10 years it’s important that you have enough activities in mind
to keep you active most of the time. When I talk to people about their future
in retirement, I often hear, “I want to play golf every day.” Or “I want to go
fishing every day.” Keep in mind that when you retire, you may be retired for
several decades, so you want to plan
a life that has enough activities in it to keep your life interesting.
Next, consider Finances. What do you want your financial
condition to be in 10 years?
Health. What do you want or expect your health to be like in
10 years?
Housing. Where do you want to be living 10 years from now,
and what kind of the home do you expect, a castle or a condominium?
Social. Where will all your family members be living 10
years? Who will be your close friends? Do you see any significant changes in
your social circles over the next 10 years?
Transportation. What will be your transportation
requirements or needs in 10 years? Will you be commuting? Will your transportation
needs change over the next 10 years?
You can probably see that creating a vision of your future
is not terribly complicated, but it will require you to actually think about your future. That is
probably the most important part of futuring — taking the time to think about
what you want your future to be. Once you make the decisions about what you
want your life to be like 10 years from now, you will have a destination in the
future. Then you can start thinking about how you are going to achieve your
vision.
We’ll do that in the next post!
