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Tune Up Your Vision to Ignite Your Business
Claudette Rowley
Copyright 2003
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your
heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
– Carl Jung
Creating a vision is the act of embracing what you deeply and
fundamentally desire in any area of your life – business, career,
relationships, health, spirituality or fun. For those of us who
are entrepreneurs, vision represents one cornerstone of our
business foundation. And many of us are entrepreneurs, in part,
because we have a vision to bring to life.
Even the most well-conceived, authentic visions can veer off
course or get lost on automatic pilot. When this happens, it can
be a signal to tune up your business vision. Just as it behooves
us to utilize our common sense as entrepreneurs, refining and
building our “vision-sense” is an often overlooked tool of
entrepreneurial success.
To tune up your vision, ask yourself these questions: (Hint:
These questions can apply to any area of your life.)
1. Does your vision for your business include the word “should”?
If it does, remove all “shoulds” from your vision. Vision is
born of what you truly desire and what’s authentic for you.
If it’s not authentic for you, it’s not going to be an
effective strategy. For example, you have a public speaking
business, and feel that you “should” want to be an
internationally known public speaker. However, as a result of
other priorities in your life, you only want to put enough
energy into your business to be a regionally or nationally
known speaker. Once you synchronize your vision with what you
want, it’s much easier to make it real.
If your vision includes a “should” that you feel is essential,
delegate it. Shoulds are a huge energy drain. As an
entrepreneur, it’s more effective to focus on what energizes
you. Not only does energy beget energy, it frees up precious
mental space.
2. Have you confused your business vision with your business
goals? This is a common mistake. Vision and goals are NOT
the same. Your vision is the big picture of what you deeply
and fundamentally desire, what charges you up, turns you on
and brings out the best in you. Even in business – especially
small business and entrepreneurship – your vision reflects the
essence of who you are based on your values, creativity,
passion and authenticity. Once you’ve identified your vision,
you then set the concrete goals necessary to achieve it.
Setting goals before identifying your vision is an example of
putting the proverbial cart before the horse.
3. Are your business vision and goals aligned with each other?
When you tweak or expand your vision, don’t forget to adjust
your goals. Serena, head of the sales division for a cookware
company, described her vision and its supporting goals this
way. “My vision is that within five years, my company will be
#1 in sales for this cookware niche. Our cookware will be
regarded as high quality at a tremendous value. We will be
bringing in $2 million annually in sales, and have a national
and international presence.” In order to build her vision,
Serena set these goals: cultivate national and international
distributors to sell her product in their areas, get large
retail chains to carry the cookware line, and to follow up
aggressively with former and potential customers.
4. Does your vision still excite you? At one point or another,
most visions need to be expanded, tweaked or abandoned. Here
are some common vision traps:
– You feel chained to your vision forever. “Now that I’ve built
my vision, I must stay with it. Even if I don’t want to.”
– You have blinders on. You miss recognizing the expansion
necessary to keep your vision alive and insure its success.
“My initial vision is actualized – okay, I’m done.”
– You don’t honor your own vision style. Some people are
vision-expanders and some are vision-starters.
Vision-expanders build their vision and continue to grow it and
move it forward. For vision-starters, the joy is in the
initial design and implementation of the vision. Once their
idea comes to life, these folks get bored and restless, ready
to move on to the next idea. Both styles are valid. If you
feel bored, restless or frustrated with your business or your
business vision, these can be clues that something needs to
change!
Vision is the “big picture” that keeps us going, the carrot in
front of our horse. If our vision is doing its job, we are
continually inspired by its existence and by the refinement and
expansion of it. Set aside time for your tune up today. Paying
attention to your “vision-sense” may just what you need to
recharge your business and reignite your passion.
