I have a vision!!

So finally, I sat down and tackled the "Your Vision" section of The Principles. The vision, as Amy has demonstrated in an earlier set of blogs basically encompasses your biggest desires/goals in life - kind of like your dream everything, however, unlike most dreams, your vision should be something that you plan on making come true. A vision is: I'll direct and produce a Golden Globe/Oscar worthy screenplay... where as (for this purpose) a dream might be I'll win the lottery.

By the way, winning the lottery and doing the Golden Globe thing... both equally as tough :) but I will win a Golden Globe... oh yes. I will.

Anyway, I am not going to list my entire vision exercise as it's ridiculously long and probably pretty dull to anyone but me and Amy... Amy I'll send you a copy! ;) If you'd like to read the whole Vision, feel free to leave a comment and I'll email it to you.

Jack breaks down the exercise into seven parts. You are to vividly envision with as much detail as possible, your ideal home(s), relationships, career, spiritual/community realm, financial situation, what you are doing in your free time, how your health and weight is, etc... Jack says that when you visualize these things, write them down and look at these ideas daily, your internal "GPS" will guide you towards your vision.

This was an interesting exercise. First off, my ideal home is in Southern California. Tried as I might to envision a dream home here in Jersey, I kept coming back to orange trees and So Cal landscaping... also, most of my career highlights would take place there... luckily, my vision also included quite enough money to be able to freely travel to spend time with my East coast friends and family, so we are OK on that front.

Also, I discovered that really allowing yourself to "shoot for the stars" can be challenging. It's fun to dream big but somehow the realist keeps trying to "tone it down." Eh, I don't need to have a private jet or 10 million dollars, a nice car and a million bucks is enough... even when dreaming we (at least I) tend to limit myself. That's very un-jack. So I had to rethink it. In this section, there's a sub-section called, "High Achievers Have Bigger Visions." It's true.

There was also this quote from Michelangelo: "The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it but that it is too low and we reach it."

WOW! Right on Michelangelo! I have sooo many friends who have Ok'ish jobs that they kind of hate but they don't even know how to dream of anything bigger anymore. They have kids, they are late 30's, mid-40's and basically they are "content" with their 3 weeks vacation, modest homes and weekend dinners out. That's OK, no judgement on that... but how many of us, "aim too low?" I am surely guilty of this up to this very minute in my life.

From now on, I'm going to raise the bar - I'd rather miss something a little too high than reach something too low.

No more limits -- Private Jets, Golden Globes, Beverly Hills Mansions, perfect health - it all exists, someone is living that life - why not me?

Why not you?

XOXO

JEN

PS: After writing this blog, and rereading the section in the book, I decided to actually "up the ante" on my vision... I did add access to a private plane and a second home in Jersey... WHY NOT! :)