The concept of having vision for the future and working to make that vision a reality is not new to me. This has been an area of independent study for me over the last two or three years. However, I have yet to master the skill of accomplishing my vision and goals on a consistent basis because I am apparently lacking some key elements of the process. In order to realize my full potential, I must master the skills of personal vision, facing reality, and holding tension.
Personal Vision
I find it fairly easy to have personal vision for the future and how I want my life to be. My mind is continually thinking about how things in my life and in the world around me could be better. Most of my life I have struggled with being able to focus on my dreams and ideas long enough to be able to solidify the vision. Over the past few years I have greatly improved my ability to focus and get my thoughts down on paper in the form of goals.
Facing Reality
I have not put a lot of effort into trying to accurately identifying the current realities in my life. I guess have been too focused on the future and, quite frankly, examining my current realities does not seem as interesting as dreaming about the future. I think this might be one of the major limiting factors in trying to achieve my personal vision and goals. I will make it a priority to challenge myself to define the current realities of every area of my life before I try to make a plan to achieve my visions and goals because an effective route must have a defined end as well as a beginning.
Creative Tension
The space between reality and personal vision is where creativity lives. I am a highly creative thinker and I love the challenge of finding new and better ways to do things. In chapter five of our textbook, I gained new perspective on planning and creative thinking. The author described the difference between personal vision and current reality as being in tension with each other. Complacency and lack of focus, discipline, and determination to move toward my goals will relieve some of the tension, but will cause my vision to weaken and move toward settling on my current situation. Making detailed plans to move toward my visions and goals and working every day to do things to move me toward the vision will relieve the tension as well by moving my reality toward my vision. Creative thinking can be used to relieve the tension, but I must be careful to make sure that the tension pulls reality toward my personal vision and not the other way around.
