An author always starts with the end in mind while writing and crafting a book. Throughout the writing of my book, Become an Award Winning Company, I kept this in mind. Every chapter and part was purposefully organized, and I used cautious word choice throughout. I didn’t just start writing and call it a book after I was done. It could have been a book, I suppose, but who would want to read that?

When you go out into the world, being clearly defined and knowing what you stand for is crucial. Once you know this, it becomes imperative that you craft a vision for your life. You can not take something as powerful as your personal declaration statement and what you stand for and not do anything with it. Entrepreneurs must have a vision. Your business must have a vision. Your family must have a vision, and your life must have a vision.

Your vision is a depiction of how life will appear, behave, and feel in 2, 3, 5, or 10 years. The mental realm is where vision has its power. What you concentrate on will manifest in your mind. Your mind must direct its energy toward achieving this if your vision is well-defined and you use the present-tense pronoun “I am” to refer to yourself while referencing the future. Life will lead you wherever it wants if you lack vision. You will be blown around like a leaf in a strong wind by anything you let to enter your mind at the time, and you won’t know where you’ll end up. Athletes visualize their race, game, or competition coming to a finish. High-performing salespeople imagine leaving after a deal is concluded. The dream of Martin Luther King Jr. was his outlook on the future. What vision do you have? Have you got one? Why not, if not? Here are some pointers for developing a life vision.

• Get away from the noise and change scenery. Go to the mountains, the beach, or a quite and peaceful place.
• Turn off the phone, computer, social media and all distractions.
• Dream on paper, don’t worry about how things will happen, just put down what you are being blessed with.
• Do not worry about form, grammar or style, just brain dump.
• Ask yourself these questions: What am I enjoying in life? Whose company am I enjoying the presence of? What is the general feel of my life? What is not in my life? What am I doing in my spare time? What is happening in my business, my life, my family, my social life, financially, spiritually? What am I learning?
• Write everything in the present tense using the words “I am” and the tense of “ing”: i.e. doing, making, living, enjoying, practicing, vacationing, etc.
• No failure with honor words. Eliminate words like try, be able to, have to, need to, want to, will, these allow you to fail and be okay with it. Use strong and empowering language.
• Once you create the vision, edit it, and then write it out with correct grammar.
• Use pictures to associate with some of your aspirations and make a vision board. Post this vision board somewhere you can see it often.

These are just a few tips on how to create and craft a vision. Remember, without a vision, you will never be able to declare and decide the life you want to live. If you do not have a vision for yourself, chances are you will be helping someone else attain theirs.