Revisioning our Visions: Halfway Through 2020 Edition
It is halfway through 2020, which for many has been the strangest and toughest year thus far. When we started 2020, much like any other year, we made plans and set goals while feeling excited about the possibilities of the new year ahead. However, none of us could have anticipated a pandemic that would lead to a global shutdown, and weeks turning to months under quarantine.
Business owners have been forced to pivot quickly, rethinking the revenue goals and client targets from earlier this year, and many even having to restructure their business' foundation completely. Personal goals for employees likely went out the window as many employees had to scramble to prepare for working from home, and others were dealing with the stresses and pressures of working on the front lines of the pandemic. And health and wellness goals? Those have certainly been hard to maintain considering slim pickings at the grocery store while gyms and nutrition centers were shut down for so long.
The world may have thrown a wrench in our plans for 2020, BUT we're only at the halfway mark! What I have been doing, encouraging my clients to do, and am now encouraging YOU to do is dust off those New Year’s Resolutions, goals, and intentions, and take a fresh look at what was included before COVID-19 hit.
So here's the plan:
Schedule yourself an hour this week or over the weekend to review your goals from the start of the year. Think about why these goals were so important to you when you set them. Remember how you felt when you first thought about them. Motivated? Excited? Hopeful? Get reacquainted with your goals and the emotions that they bring.
Then, think about your current progress on these goals. If you're not as close as you hoped you'd be halfway through the year it's OKAY! Don't be hard on yourself here, the world is doing enough of that for us. Do, however, re-evaluate what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what you may want to do differently as you move forward to keep making progress despite our current "normal". You may even find you need to totally eliminate some goals and start new with a fresh vision since so much has changed.
It's important to realize that our vision is not a fixed entity. At some point, we will all have new desires that will call us into immediate action. For example, many of us have been recently inspired to increase or add involvement with the black lives matter movement within our daily lives and in our businesses. This vision takes time to enact and could even be a factor of our larger overall vision for years to come, or indefinitely.
Now I'm going to drop a truth bomb on you about visions. This doesn't get talked about often but it's critical to creating a good vision: Your vision should not be created as a way to calm yourself, or help you run away from or save you from anything. I believe a good vision is designed to get us into action and it has to be compelling enough for us to face our fears.
A good vision is designed to get us into actionand it has to be compelling enough for us to face our fears.
Melanie Shmois
Consider the following questions when reviewing your existing vision:
Does your vision make you feel calm and comfortable?
Is your fear of taking action greater than the positive emotions you'd feel after achieving your vision?
Are you unmotivated to take action on your vision?
When faced with a block or a challenge, do you think "it's not worth it"?
These are all signs that point to you needing to re-assess your vision BEFORE you re-assess the smaller goals that contribute to it. When you're goals are aligned with your truest vision, they become instantly easier to manage and achieve. Think of it like this: if you're not fired up about what waits for you at the end, you really don't have any incentive to work towards it, right?
When your vision is aligned with what you truly desire, it will wake up the parts of your personality that have been wanting to come alive again.
Here are a few questions you can use when re-visioning your vision:
What is meaningful to you?
What makes you feel more alive?
What are you passionate about?
What would make it worth itfor you to take a stand for yourself by showing up and facing your fears?
And finally, what is your vision for the rest of the year?
Start here, and remember you don’t have to treat this like a standard goal list! Instead, view it as making space to have a deeper relationship with yourself. Find the strong vision that will pull you forward for the remainder of the year or beyond. I am rooting for you!
If you are struggling in any way to find your purpose or live into it, I invite you to message me or schedule a time to chat. Let's work together to uncover your most aligned vision. It could make all the difference for the rest of the year.
Mind Your Strength,
Melanie Shmois
