3 Steps to Creating a Life Vision

In both my corporate and entrepreneurial career I’ve worked with and hired nearly 1000 millennials. One of the things that keeps coming back is that the majority has a challenge to define a clear vision for their life. This might sound heavy and abstract, but not having a clear vision (read “direction”) in your life is like sailing without any wind in your sail. I hear you thinking, who of the millennial generation has a clear vision of their life. Most of the millennials are just thinking about the next move, more salary, better position, bigger house, nicer car, the next holiday and the list continues. But with more and more millennials taking over management positions, this is a huge chance to put our mark on the world.

With the increasing number of millennials flooding the labour force and taking over leadership positions, they are becoming a force to be reckoned with. Globally millennials represent the increasing majority in the labour force, where in Indonesia 4 out of 10 workers is a millennial. As of 2016, according to the Central Statistics Agency’s estimations, “Indonesian millennials — born between the 1980s and early 2000s — make up about 41 percent of the 258.8 million population”.

“I believe millennials are not the leaders of the future, but are the leaders of today.”

This makes it even more important that this generation understands how to create clarity around their vision. Because when you have a clear vision you’re able to inspire yourself and the people around you. You will find purpose and meaning in your life.

“A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more.” ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter

I recommend the following 3 steps to create, finetune and execute on your vision on a regular basis, at least every 6 months. Let’s dig in:

Step 1: Write your story

This step is all about self-awareness (read more on selfawareness here). Understand your story and get grip on your why. To do so, take a pen and write down your story starting from your birth. Sure you’ll not jot down every detail from the moment you saw your mother for the first time, but just give it some time and write down memories and specific milestones. Remember your so called mess, could be a message to many other people so don’t hold back. Your story, including all it’s ups and downs, can be an inspiration to other people.

“Life is too short, to play small.”

Question to ask yourself:

• What dreams did I have growing up?
• What have been milestones in my life so far?
• What “mess” did I go through?

Step 2: What matters most to you?

The easiest way is to analyse the specific areas in your life that are important to you or you have a passion for. Here are some examples that are on my list:

• Family — marriage, parenting
• Health — fitness, nutrition
• Ability — skills, knowledge, character
• Relationships — build meaningful relationships
• Wealth — creating wealth around a desired lifestyle
• Spiritual — church

Think about each category on what you want or need in that area of your life, then write down a goal for each category. Think about the things you want to accomplish or experience and reverse engineer. In addition think about how the other categories should can support your life’s vision. Your vision statement will consist of an overall description of your ideal life, combined with a list of areas that matter most, and high-level goals for each area. Questions to ask yourself:

• What would you do if you have 1 billion USD? What would you do with your life? When we take money out of the equation we get to the truth of your identity.
• If your life should leave a message to the world, what would it be?
• What do you stand for?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses? This will give more insight in what you stand for and understanding of your strengths and weaknesses.
• What is the movement that you would like to start?

Step 3: Make your vision actionable

This final step should take you from a macro vision into micro actions so you can track progress. If you have a clear picture of where you want to be 5 years from now for each category you mentioned in Step 2, you should be able to reverse engineer short term goals that lead to that desired life picture. Example: I want to become fitter (macro), and lose 5% body fat and 5 KG (micro) and be able to do 10 muscle ups (micro). Then put your micro goals in a timeline and work towards those micro goals. I want to lose 5% body fat in the coming 3 months and be able to do 10 muscle ups in the coming 4 weeks.

Final

In general your vision should answer the following questions:

• How does your life picture look like 5–10–20 years from now?
• Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future: What type of people support your vision? Hang out with people that can inspire or mentor your to your destination.
• If you had 1 billion USD in your back account, what would you be doing?
• What do you wish you could change about the world? What could you contribute to the world that would make you feel proud and content?

To your success.

Peace out, AS

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Andrew Senduk is an Amsterdam entrepreneur currently living in Jakarta with his lovely wife and two sons. He juggles family life and entrepreneurship, tries to eat Paleo and is big fan of P90X. You can follow his LinkedIn Profile or check www.andrewsenduk.com for more information. He is a highly sought after keynote speaker and has built multi venture backed startups.