Have you tried envisioning your business?
As a business owner it's easy to get caught in the day to day running of business operations. As time goes on, if you are successful, you find that taking the time to envision what's next for your business becomes low priority. If you are not successful, you begin to grasp at day to day tactics, hoping to bolster your sales. More speaking, or better social media posting tools, or creating more video. This takes a good deal of time, so it's almost impossible to stop long enough to envision what you want for your business.
Let's stop some of this madness of doing things when you aren't even sure they will take you where you want to go. Click To Tweet Instead, let's focus right now on envisioning your business, and how taking the time to do that in a structured way helps you create results.
One former leader in organizational development, Ron Lippitt, discovered that when one focuses on the end result rather than the endless logistics of getting there, one's energy goes up (this is also true for teams, so take note of that). Lippitt said that by getting business owners to think about what success would look like and feel like their creative ideas began to flow. He called this “preferred futuring” and believed that this type of envisioning allows one to move toward the future of one's choosing, rather than getting stuck on logistic roadblocks.
Using a vision board to support your business
There are many reasons that creating a vision board helps you to envision and support your business. Here are 5 of them.
- Vision boards and the envisioning you do to create a vision board help you to stay focused on your business. When you keep sight (literally) of your goals you increase your changes of achieving them. Envisioning your future business, customers, and sales helps you keep your energy aligned with the end result rather than getting pulled down or blocked by the inevitable roadblocks that happen along the way.
- Vision boards help keep you motivated to create what you envision. If you take the step of sharing your vision with those around you, it will help align team members toward the vision you hold for your business, as well. Envisioning supports you and is inspiring to those you lead as the CEO of your business.
- Vision boards help you engage your own emotions and energies toward what you want for your business. When we are engaged at an emotional level we are far more likely to be successful. This is why so many people talk about “sharing your story” in business. Those stories help engage others, as well, who can support you. You'll be far more apt to think that what you are envisioning for business is achievable.
- Vision boards help you monitor progress. I've had the experience many times of talking with a consulting client and hearing from her, “I can't believe it! Almost everything I have on my vision board has come to pass!” The visual reference to what we envision helps us document what we have accomplished, and that spurs us to continue with new measures of success.
- Vision boards help you to maintain an “above the fray” higher perspective. You'll begin to see how to truly use team members to support you, rather than you supporting them. You'll keep your eye on the larger goal, and begin to refuse getting caught in the small things for days and days. You'll decide things faster, based on whether that thing supports your vision or not. Vision boards help you keep a CEO mindset. Click To Tweet
Related article: Can Vision Boards Help You Succeed in Business?
What happens after you create a vision board?
Your vision board becomes the basis for your planning and communicating within your business. It inspires you and others. It helps you make strategically sound decisions. It documents your vision, and it gives you an easy and effective way to share your vision for your business with others. It helps hold team members accountable for supporting you in ways that make a difference.
Your vision board can be a day-to-day reference for you, a North Star for your business. The mental pictures that you create from your vision board help you to see a clearer path forward, and to identify opportunities that you might otherwise not see.
Intrigued about how envisioning your business can help you build a strong path to success?
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