How do you get a vision for yourself?

Grant Leboff: Pete, we talked about the importance of self image and how you see yourself, and being the best person that you can be. How do you get a vision for yourself? How do you put it together? Because a lot of people just want to improve their lives, right? Business, or personal, whatever. How do you get something that you can articulate, how does that work?

Pete Wilkinson: Very simple way is answering six questions, and the six questions would be: you think about time frame first, so if this is going to be a twelve month vision or a three year vision, you answer the questions within that time frame. If you’re going to build a three year vision, you think, “Okay, three years from now, if I was the very best version of me, what would I be doing?” That’s question one. “Who would I be doing it for?”, question two. “How would I be doing it?”, that’s your method, question three. Question four is about the value, you need to think about the value you want to create in your best version of you for the people you want to deliver value for, and that could be your family for example or it could be your customer. Then you need to think about what you’re going to get in return, so it’s really important to understand this vision’s about giving and then receiving, that’s number five. The last question, number six, is, “What lifestyle will I have or how will my lifestyle be enhanced?”

What you want to do is take those six questions and then answer each one in the mindset of, “If I was the very best version of me, what would these answers be?” Then you take those six answers to those six questions and you craft a very succinct paragraph, and you write at the top and say, “This is my vision. It says that in three year’s time I’ll be doing this thing for these people this way, I’ll deliver this much value, I’ll be having this in return and my lifestyle will be like whatever.” The idea being that you’re going to be giving something and then receiving something, and then as a result of that, your lifestyle will be enhanced. I recommend connecting to that vision at least every week.

Grant Leboff: Okay, so it’s interesting you say about giving something before you receive anything, because I think most people, quite fairly, they might be great people and giving lots in their lives, but when they start to think about a vision for themselves, “This is who I want to be, what I want to become,” they wouldn’t think about the giving first. Why is that important and how does that fit, because someone might be thinking about their own, say, professional career for the next three years, so how does that work?

Pete Wilkinson: I think it works, first of all, because it’s completely natural. You should give first in order to receive, and I think people talk about being a go-getter. I really want people to become go-givers, because if you give and you give time or you give energy or you give support or teaching or whatever you give, then you will naturally get things in return. That’s why it’s really important. I think the space I want people to come from when they’re creating their vision is to think, “What impact do I want to have on people? How do I want to influence, how do I want to support people?” Because if you came from that space, you can then technically have whatever you want, whatever you want, as long as you help enough people get what they want. It’s quite straightforward for me.

Grant Leboff: It’s very interesting, because you talk about connecting with the vision and say connecting on a weekly basis —

Pete Wilkinson: At least a weekly basis.

Grant Leboff: — what does connecting with the vision look like?

Pete Wilkinson: Connecting with the vision looks like some time, in your diary, set aside at least weekly, where you read your vision and you spend a couple of moments feeling it and thinking about how life is going to be like when you achieve your vision. Even today, getting an early train down here, I’m on the train, I have my action plan, and I’ve read my vision this morning, and I’ve reconnected with it, spending a few minutes to try and internalize it, because you really want this vision to be front of mind. It doesn’t want to be vague, it wants to really clear about where you’re going, how you’re going to get there, what you’re going to give, and what life’s going to be like. That should be quite inspiring, it should be quite motivational.

Grant Leboff: This touches on something else which I know you say in the book, which is, you’ve got to write it down.

Pete Wilkinson: You’ve got to write it down, yes. Type it, okay, physically writing is better, but yes, don’t just have it in your head. Have you got a vision? “Oh, yeah, yeah.” Where is it? “Oh, it’s in here.” (points to his head) That’s all right, but when you write something down, Grant, you’re kind of committing to it, and when it’s written down you’re going to do a certain thing, you can hold yourself account to that. If it’s in your head, you let yourself slip, so it’s really important to have it written down.

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