Vision For Success In Life

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achievement, goal setting, people development, plan of action, purpose, success, vision

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.

~Futurist, Author, Lecturer and Film Maker, Joel Barker

We should aspire to be dreamers in life. Having the ability to dream, both big and small, is a critical component to sparking any meaningful action in life. But way too often we are dreamers without focus. For our dreams to have focus and start changing the world, or at least the world around us, we need to learn to give those dreams purpose through vision.

Learning to Link Your Goals and Dreams to Vision
How many times in your life have you set goals (everyone does around this time of year, right?) only to find that your goals sit idle because you have no idea how to proceed once the goal is set? Well, we are going to make this year different.

Setting a goal is an important first step, but unless your goals have vision and purpose and you know how to break your goals down into incremental action, you will eventually give up dreaming and setting goals altogether.

We may not consciously realize it, but without vision, we become like a rudderless ship. We flounder through life instead of flourishing. That being said, the very first step to take when setting new goals is to find a quiet time and place with no distractions where you can sit down with pen/pencil and pad and determine whats truly important and meaningful to us. From that list should spring vision for life. Making sure that it’s connected to those things that are meaningful to you is important and should not be underestimated. It’s an important first step, but it’s only that….a first step.

With this list, you will begin to think about “Desired State”. In order to do this, you have to be honest about the current state which, in some cases, can be painful and uncomfortable. After that work is done, Dream Big!! Your desired state should evoke emotion and should be beyond what you currently think is achievable. Not only is this important but it’s down right critical. Don’t doubt or second guess yourself. Just write it.

Your Vision Is Your Anchor for Achievement

You Can’t Get There From Here.

~Todd Strasser

As a much younger man, I climbed the Middle Teton mountain. What a huge pain that was! Every hour or so the guide would encourage us to stop to take a look back, out and down. At each stop, I saw a much different view from the last. Not only did this inspire us to keep moving forward but it was also a time to stop for a moment, celebrate and admire views we were not in a place to see before.
Once you have your list, it will be time to start breaking that list down to manageable bite size pieces that will be attainable.

Your next steps of action will be to:
1. Determine what you will need to do in order to make your vision a reality.
2. List what projects you will need to do in line with fulfilling your vision.
3. Set up what daily tasks you will need to do to complete those projects.
4. And list out the changes in behavior you will have to endure.

By now you are probably starting to realize that this is a different way of goal setting than you have been used to. It is actually backward from the way most people set goals. I must add a word of caution here. Most experts in goal setting will tell you that you should always set a timeframe to your goals. For some people, myself included, that doesn’t work as well as firmly knowing your purpose and vision for where you see your future heading. Remember, vision is the key here.

Keep Your Focus Steady on Your Vision
As you begin to follow the above laid out plan there will be times when keeping your focus will become difficult. If you have ever dieted or trained for a marathon you know what I mean. There are times when you reach a plateau. It will seem that you aren’t making the progress that you want for what you want to achieve. That is the time when you need to reevaluate and if needed, readjust some of your tasks and action steps. Just be sure you don’t lose your focus and most of all, don’t let go of your vision.

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

~Thomas Edison

So don’t give up….don’t ever give up! Progress is being made.

 

Written by Orlando Gafford for Gafford Consulting

A Resolute Resolution

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Gafford PDC, goal setting, orlando gafford

Resolve to be more resilient!

As the new year approaches each year, many of us start thinking of resolutions. It can actually feel uplifting to begin a new plan such as joining a gym to get fit, writing one page a day for the next Great American novel, or more prosaically, keeping up with your inbox).

But, as most of us know, the novelty wears off as we get bored and discouraged. We’re suddenly confronted with the day to day challenge of sustaining our goals. Unexpected events throw us off course. We need to stay late at work, we can’t leave our smart phone or a relative gets sick. Disappointingly, one day of missing the goal then leads to missing the next and next day, until we feel defeated and our goal is abandoned.

In this article, I’m going to start at the phase where resolutions begin to unravel. Most articles about New Year’s resolutions talk about setting practical goals and getting started, I’m going to jump ahead and anticipate your first failure. Just as important as setting realistic and important goals is having a plan for how to keep going despite the inevitable setbacks you will encounter.

Disillusionment Stage
Helen has been very excited about her New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, be kinder to her husband, and implement a reward chart for with her 5 year old son. She’s discovering the dance class at the gym is lots of fun and she has even lost a few pounds. Her son loves the stickers he gets for keeping his room tidy. She’s also been enjoying her alone time with her husband more since she’s made an effort to be less critical and more supportive.

Then, in mid-January there’s ice on the windshield and she has to shovel out her driveway. She cannot find the stickers and leaves home without following through on the program she planned with her son. Helen arrives late for the gym to find the parking lot is full. After circuling for fifteen minutes, she leaves feeling very annoyed. She gets to work and feels awkward that she still has her gym clothes on and she has to explain the situation.

Starving and frustrated, Helen furtively grabs a chocolate-covered donut from the break room. Helen’s husband calls during work to say hi and she snaps at him for something random, as he’s meanwhile harboring resentment that he didn’t help clear the car of ice.

We all have such days. No one succeeds in accomplishing his or her goals without facing some unexpected setbacks. What, then, differentiates those who can pick themselves up and keep going from those who become just give up?

What Went Wrong?
As human beings, we constantly strive to understand our circumstances and, our purpose. When something unpleasant happens to us, we often demand to know why. This explanation stage is crucial to understanding how we respond to setbacks. Most of us look for a way to make sense of setbacks. We look to blame someone (oneself, a partner, the situation) and start feeling hopeless. If we believe the setback is something beyond our control, then we’ll feel helpless, frustrated and discouraged.

Those who are resilient persevere in face of adversity. In fact, some individuals even use setbacks to become even more determined to accomplish their goals. The large body of research on resilience demonstrates that those who can get back on track quickly after setbacks enjoy better moods which leads to more productivity, and overall better health.

How can we use this information to help us overcome those rough days and stick to our New Year’s Resolutions?

In the mental health field, its known that some individuals are born with more resilient temperaments, even as infants, showing the capacity to soothe themselves quickly. Even if you weren’t born as one of these fortunate individuals, know that it’s not too late for you to develop your own resiliency capabilities. Here is a mindset to help you become more resilient.

Develop realistic expectations.

Recognize that the unexpected (e.g., a sick child, power outage, miscommunication) is a part of life. Also, acknowledge that making changes takes time and that there is a steep learning curve at the beginning. At times, it will take longer to accomplish our goals than we had originally anticipated. However, this time doesn’t need to be a “waste of time.” Instead of saying “this shouldn’t happen,” or “I should already know how to do this,” recognize that setbacks are part of life that lead to progress.

Appreciate that setbacks may even bring unexpected surprises.

 Helen might decide to talk to her husband about chores and discover he welcomes a heart-to heart with her; he’s been frustrated with her silent treatments and is relieved to know what’s bothering her. Or maybe Helen will talk to her HR department at work about having healthier options in the break room.

Perhaps she’ll realize that she just had a slip with her son and his reward stickers and can talk to him tomorrow to explain the plan and get back on track. There are lots of options. The beauty is that each day offers new opportunities to approach things just a bit differently, adding a process for efficiency, cultivating kindness and patience, or just having “one of those days.”

In fact, you might even consider making your New Year’s “Resolution” to become more resilient, to better able to find solutions and maintain your overall determination in all that you do. Resolve not to let small setbacks – or even large ones – throw you off your game. Once you resolve to find a healthy determination and mindset to tackle problems one by one, you’ll be mentally and spiritually re-charged. Go ahead, set realistic goals, but also set one extra one – the goal of sticking with your plan when the going gets tough.

Orlando Gafford

Educations Death Valley

In the TED Talks video; How to Escape Education’s Death Valley by Sir Ken Robinson, there was a lot of information that we found useful. Sir Ken Robinson started his video by saying that the No Child Left Behind is an irony, because approximately 60 percent of kids drop out of high school, and in the native community about 80 percent of the kids drop out. We were unaware that when a student drops out of school, it cost an enormous amount to clean up the damage. With this dropout crisis, it does not factor in the students that are disengaged, that don’t enjoy school, and the students who do not benefit from school. Sir Ken Robinson stated “that this is the reason our education is going in the wrong direction.”

Sir Ken Robinson explained that there “were three principles on which human life flourishes, and work hand in hand by culture of education under most teachers have labor and most students to endure.” The first of the three principles that Sir Robinson explained that we learned was that all humans are different and diverse. Sir Robinson made a great analogy, he asked the audience members if they had kids, grandkids, or have seen kids. He then goes on to ask the parents of two or more children and makes a bet with the audience members that the children are different from each other. There is no way of confusing them with each other. “Education under the No Child Left Behind is based on not diversity but conformity.” One of the effects of the No Child Left Behind has been to narrow the focus on the STEM disciplines. Sir Ken Robinson said that the STEM discipline was very important; however, a real education has to give equal weight to the arts, humanities, physical education, and to the kids.

The second of the three principles was curiosity. Sir Ken Robinson explained that if you light the spark of a child’s curiosity, they will learn without any further assistance, very often. He continued by saying children are natural learners, and curiosity is the engine of achievement.
Lastly, we learned that teachers are the lifeblood of schools, but teaching is a creative profession. Sir Robinson stated that “to teach properly; it is not the delivery system that you just pass on received information. However, great teachers do pass on received information, but they are mentors who stimulate, provoke, and engage. We have also learned from Sir Ken Robinson that the role of a teacher is to facilitate learning, and that is it.

“How Schools Kill Creativity”

In the TED talks video How Schools Kill Creativity by Sir Ken Robinson, we learned a lot about creativity. Sir Ken Robinson began by saying, “creativity now is actually just as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.” He explains that as kids we are more creative because we are not scared to be wrong. As we grow up we are more likely to be less creative because we are frightened of being wrong. Sir Ken Robinson also said, “we are now running national education systems where mistakes are the worse thing you can make.” This results in educating people out of their creative capacities. One specific thing we really liked in this video was when Sir Ken Robinson quoted Pablo Picasso saying, “All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.” Creativity is a good thing because it separates us from the rest of the people in our classes, making us unique. Sir Ken Robinson concluded his speech in this video by saying, “We need to see our creative capacities for the richness they are, and see our children for the hope that they are.” Our task as teachers should be to educate their whole being so they can face the future, and to help them make something of it.