How to craft a powerful personal vision statement & unlock your potential
Summary: This simple guide can teach you how to write a personal vision statement. This is an essential step to fulfilling your dreams and living an extraordinary life.
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What would your ideal life look like if you could envision it five years from now? This is your life vision, and it’s one of the biggest predictors of your overall success. However, arriving at that clarity can be tricky if you don’t have a deep-rooted purpose. On top of that, you may see your life in a limited way, only through the lens of your career and finances. But your life is much more than two or three dimensions. When you come up with a vision for all aspects of your life, it will serve as your ultimate North Star, helping you navigate your journey and stay on track.
What is a personal vision statement?
- Health and fitness
- Intellectual
- Emotional
- Character
- Spiritual
- Love relationship
- Parenting
- Social
- Career
- Financial
- Quality of life
- Life Vision
The first five categories are your personal life. It’s all about who you are as a separate individual in terms of your body, mind, emotions, and spirit. And it depends on you alone.
Your relationships include your love relationships, parenting, and social life, profoundly impacting your quality of life.
Your business life includes your financial life and career. A good practice might be to create a business-specific vision statement, especially if you’re an entrepreneur.
The quality of your life is all experiences you want to have and the quality of it. It’s about your dream house, exotic travels, and other adventures.
The last dimension is a vivid description of your future — your life vision. It answers the question, “What does your life look like five years from now if all your goals and dreams in each category become a reality?”
Ideally, you want to envision every category, which will make it complete.
Also, it’s crucial to understand that your vision is dynamic. It can change as you change. It’s a never-ending process of asking yourself, “What do I want in life?”
The differences between vision and mission statements
In marketing expert Jamie Falkowski’s words, “A vision is an aspiration. A mission is actionable.”
Your vision statement describes what it would be like after you have achieved your goal. Your mission statement, on the other hand, should describe how you want to achieve that goal or what you wish to create.
Here’s an example to clarify the distinction between a personal vision statement and a personal mission statement:
- Sample personal vision statement: A world without poverty.
- Sample mission statement: To provide nutrition to those in need.
Essentially, your vision statement is a state of being, while your mission statement is a strategy.
Why is it important?
Your vision statement reflects your self-identity, core values, and meaning. If you don’t know what you want, you have no destination.
There are millions of people, corporations, gurus, and politicians who are willing to fill that gap and make you go where they want you to go as opposed to where you want to go.
On the contrary, having a clear vision and reasons why it’s important helps you take steps toward your goals. Most importantly, it’s completely impossible to live an extraordinary life if you don’t know who you are and what you want.
Jon explains that having a clear life vision doesn’t make things easier — it simply makes it possible. “When you have it crystal clear, you won’t be compromising your relationships, health, career, or any other area of your life,” he adds.
If you don’t have a clear vision of your future, you will be pulled into a rabbit hole.
— Jon Butcher, trainer of Mindvalley’s Lifebook Online Quest
It starts with the understanding that you are totally in control of your life and then it takes living from this place of ownership. Otherwise, speaking with the words of Jack Delosa, founder of Australia’s largest education institution for entrepreneurs, The Entourage, your will end up living OPRs — “other people’s rules.”
In this conversation with Vishen, Jon and Missy elaborate on why it’s paramount to have a clear vision:
Inspiring personal vision statement examples
Let’s look at vision statements shared by Jon and Mindvalley’s students of Lifebook Online for each category to inspire you.
Health and fitness:
- Being in great physical shape is my identity.
- I choose to be a strong muscular athlete for the rest of my life.
- I will continue improving my aerobic capacity, strength, and flexibility as time goes by.
- I’m planning to live to be at least 100 years old.
Intellectual life:
- I am a highly intelligent person. I trust my mind to come up with good decisions. I live smart, and that makes me smart.
- I will constantly improve my intellectual capabilities in the future. I dedicate myself to a life of never-ending intellectual improvement and education.
- I will use my intellect to live an intelligent life. I will take action on the info I learn.
- I will think deeply and deliberately about everything important to me.
Emotional life:
- I see myself as having very high emotional intelligence.
- I will become a master at managing my emotional states. I will define and create the emotional experiences I want to feel on an ongoing basis.
- I’ll let all those positive emotions add up to an extraordinary attitude.
- I will consciously cultivate and nurture my highest emotional value – Happiness.
Character traits:
- Reliability: Doing what I say I will every time. My word is my bond.
- Courage: I am not afraid to take the necessary risks. I can be fearful and still do something anyway.
- Kindness, compassion, and respect for others. These balance my intense personality. My actions never violate the rights of the people around me.
- Determination: I can accomplish anything that I set my mind to.
Spiritual life:
- The spiritual path is a quest for self-actualization and a commitment to helping others achieve the same.
- I will continuously strive to obtain a clearer vision of reality and my place in it.
- I want to contribute to others to the best of my ability. And leave this world a better place than when I found it.
- I am here to nurture, care for, love, guide, support and protect my family for as long as I live. They are and will always be the focus of the gifts that I’ve been given.
Love relationship:
- We love each other deeply. Love for us means: we adore each other; we have a deep regard for one other, admiration, and respect for each other. We are proud to be in this relationship together. We have dignity in the way we communicate. We enjoy a “profound oneness” in our relationship.
- We put each other first.
- We are an unshakable team. We give each other the benefit of the doubt. We always have our best intentions at heart.
- We are dedicated to constant growth as individuals and as a couple.
Parenting:
- Our vision is to raise independent, healthy, happy, courageous children.
Our vision is to raise independent, healthy, happy, courageous children.
- Our children understand that their life belongs to them totally and completely, not to us. They cherish their freedom and understand the self-responsibility that goes along with it. They do what is right for themselves, not for our sake.
- Our children feel deeply loved because we give them lots of physical affection, saying “I love you” and telling them why. They know we are always there for them.
- I will take my children on adventures for learning and exploring to become the most well-rounded, independent people they can be.
Social life:
- I have an extraordinary family life. I want to be a great son, brother, and uncle.
- I want extraordinary friendships. We don’t have time for shallow friendships. I have to pick good friends, and I have to be a good friend.
- I have friends of all ages – it just makes life interesting.
- I yearn for a deep connection in my friendships. We compare experiences, share insights, support each other’s growth and nurture each other’s spirits.
Financial life:
- I see myself as living in an abundant Universe.
- I am destined to be a big financial success.
- I have a healthy, loving relationship with money.
- I know precisely, with clarity, how much money I want and need.
Career:
- I want to choose a career out of genuine interest that gives me joy, fulfillment, and excitement.
- My work is a true and natural expression of my life purpose, and it brings constant joy, motivation, and fulfillment.
- My skills are highly sought after, and I attract wonderful clients. I enjoy the people I work with. I contribute hugely to everyone I work with and make a difference in their lives.
- I feel fulfilled when my work combines analytical, creative, strategic, and social tasks. Having all those things in my daily work makes me happy, joyful, and needed.
Quality of life:
- I want the freedom to do what I want, where I want, and when I want.
- I want our environment to harmonize perfectly with who we are as people. Our environments are where we experience our Quality of Life.
- Travel, travel, and more travel. This is the wealthiest part of our Quality of Life. It is where we can dream, change, see, learn, share, and simply be.
- The environments in which we experience life are where all the love, memories, happiness, joy, and everything good is created.
Writing your most important book—your Lifebook
As the mysterious Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road can take you there.”
It means that if you don’t want to be disoriented in this world full of distractions, you need to get crystal clear about your life vision across the board.
If you want to discover what you want, why you want it, and how you can achieve it, take a free, 90-minute Lifebook Online Masterclass with Jon and Missy Butcher. They will guide you through the fundamental process of creating your personal Lifebook, the most essential book in your life.
