The Marriage of Vision and Success

Right now I’m in California at the International Living’s Live and Invest Overseas conference. Meeting the 250+ people here has reminded me of the relationship of vision to success. The people here fall into three categories:

• Those who dream about living offshore, read about it, but never make a plan.
• Those who are here and have a zillion questions, wanting to make an international move with absolutely no surprises and insure their success ahead of time.
• Those who have, in writing, their criteria for selecting a new country in which to live, have made several trips to check out potential locations, and have created a written budget of what they can afford and how they will live.

As you might imagine, the latter group will be the ones who actually act, who will achieve the goal of trying another country as their home. Why? They have done the work of honing their vision, and that solid vision gives them confidence to act and succeed.

It’s the very same with us as entrepreneurs and business owners. We know what we want to walk away from, but we have not taken on the thoughtful and sometimes tough work of thinking and feeling through to what we want to walk toward.  We dream, and share our dreams with others over coffee, but we do not dig in. The more I work with entrepreneurs and home-based business owners the more I find that the unsuccessful ones are half-in, half-out. They have a vague idea of “something different” but their vision isn’t clear. They  have not dug in and done the work of taking their current discomfort and vague dreams of something difference into a lively vision.  And consequently, they take no actions, or their actions lack focus and energy.

Without taking our dreams into vision we do not bring about success. Working with our dreams and creating a heart-felt, written vision will spin our energy toward action, and action drives success. I sure have seen many examples of this as I meet the conference attendees here. Specific actions work best when married to one’s vision. And vision is more than a vague dream – it is the flesh we put on the bones of a dream.

Here’s to taking dreams into vision, and vision into success!

Sue P.