How’s Your Vision?

When I was in 4th grade, I was getting pretty annoyed that the teacher’s writing on the chalkboard was so faint and fuzzy.  Finally, one day I complained about it to a friend who sat next to me.  She looked at me oddly and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.  I can see what she’s writing just fine.”

Oh.

“Then I guess it’s me,” I realized.  

Yes, that was the year that I got eyeglasses.  I wasn’t particularly thrilled about that development, but I do vividly remember what happened when I walked out of the optometrist’s office:  

Me:  “Mom!  Look down!”

Mom:  “What?!”

Me:  “Look at all the little pieces and different colors in the sidewalk!”

It was a concrete sidewalk, and I was astonished to see all the little particles that made up what had previously looked like just a solid surface to me.

This was followed by discoveries of how interesting all the different leaves on trees were, how much better I could play “the license plate game,” and of course, how much more visible the chalkboard was at school.  

I hadn’t realized how much I was missing.

As much as I was self-conscious about my new “four-eyed” reality, I must admit that the quality of my life increased as my clarity of vision improved.

Yes, it’s a metaphor

In my work as a life and leadership coach, I’ve come to see first-hand that improving the clarity of our metaphorical vision for our lives is a key factor in improving our overall quality of life.  And it’s been a privilege to work with others as they find the clarity that allows them to move toward a more fulfilling life.

It's like being an “optometrist for your life.”

I recently facilitated a four-session immersion track at the Creative Problem Solving Institute entitled “Real Focus for Your Life.”  The first two days were a deep dive into the “being” sides of ourselves:  our needs, our values, our talents and strengths, our priorities.  The process I led the participants through gave them a chance to pause and reflect honestly on who they really were and how they wanted to live.  They began to reclaim a sense of their authentic selves.  At the end of Day 2, I asked for a word to summarize what they had gained up to that point.  

“Clarity”  (mentioned twice)

“Clearer”

“Focus”

These “vision” words were alongside words like “hope,” “inner peace,” and “wellbeing.” 

So it’s not just me who sees (pun intended) the correlation between having clearer vision for our lives and having a greater quality of life.

To that end, I thought it might be helpful if I offered you some questions as a “vision check” for your life.  I hope you’ll take a pause to reflect on what’s clear and what’s blurry in your life.  

Distance Vision 

How's your “distance vision” for your life?

Certainly, none of us can predict our future or actually see it clearly, but do you have clear hopes and desires?

Long-range goals:  What are your long-term goals?  Or if you don’t really have long-term goals, what are your hopes or wishes for a few years from now?  

I’ll be honest in saying that I’ve struggled with this one in the past.  While I’m a high-achiever, I haven’t usually had clearly articulated goals for my future.  In the past, I’ve dismissed the idea of creating a vision board.  

But that’s shifted recently.  I recently created a vision board and saved it as the desktop image for my computer.  I still wouldn’t say that I’ve created “SMART goals” for my life in the next few years, but I’ve taken the steps to more clearly identify and imagine some of my desires, and I can feel the difference it’s making in my life.  It’s exciting and motivating to see those images, and it helps me begin to plan the steps I need to take to bring those desires into reality.  

Retirement:  What do you wish for your retirement?  

If you haven’t really thought about that question yet, you’re in good company.  Most of us haven’t.  My husband and I really hadn’t until just a few years ago when we started working with a financial planner.  He asked us about our hopes for retirement, and we looked at him blankly, realizing that we’d never thought about it before.  

Since then, we’ve thought and talked about it a lot more.  We’re not obsessed with it, and we’re not planning for that to happen in the near-term, but we’ve realized that we need to keep it on our radar so that we can be intentional about laying a foundation for some of our hopes and desires.

Purpose & Legacy:  What do you want your life to be about?  What do you want your legacy to be?

There’s great value to “begin with the end in mind,” or in this case, to live with the end in mind.  At the end of your days, what do you want to be remembered for?  

When we have a clear vision of who we are, what our purpose is, and what matters most, it becomes a lot easier to live in alignment with our purpose and priorities.  The clearer we are about our “being” (who we are) the easier it is to make choices about our “doing” (what we do), and the more likely it is that we’ll end up with the “life results” that we’re hoping and praying for.  

What aspects of your “distance vision” are fuzzy or unclear?

In what areas might you want greater clarity?

Close-Up Vision

How's your “close up vision” for your life?  

Are you able to see the patterns in the everyday details?

Relationships:  Are you investing in relationships that are life-giving for you?

Sometimes in everyday life we can run the risk of settling into the status quo and our “default position.”  We might overlook important details about things (and people) that are close to us.

It’s valuable to pause and consider:

• Which relationships in your life bring you joy and energy?  

• Which relationships drain you, or worse – leave you feeling bad about yourself?  

With clearer vision about your relationships, what changes might you want to make in how you (and even whether you) invest in those relationships?

Scheduling & Time management:  Do you live from rest or rush?  Do you manage your calendar, or does it manage you?

If you find yourself frequently rushing from thing to thing to thing, your life might become a bit of a blur.  This can happen to all of us from time to time, but it might be enlightening to look more closely at the pattern and routines of your life.  Do you find that this is more of a “way of life” than an anomaly?  

And when your calendar is full (ok, in all honesty, when is it not??), is it full of the things that are most important?  Is it filled with your priorities, or those that others have pushed upon you?

When the speed and busyness of life create a blur in our lives, we can usually only clear up our vision when we slow down or even pause or stop for a while.  

Self-Care:  What are the patterns of how you take care of yourself and your soul?

What activities replenish your energy, and how often do you make time for those?  What activities generate new and different energy for you, and when do you enjoy those?

Admittedly, very often we can’t experience rest and renewal as much as we’d like because of the demands of others (family, jobs/co-workers, volunteer commitments, etc.).  But if improve our close-up vision and get a better look at our patterns, will we notice that we rarely or never make time to care for our own needs?  

What aspects of your “close-up vision” are fuzzy or unclear?

In what areas might you want greater clarity?

When Our Vision Isn’t Clear

Sometimes, when we can’t see clearly, we suffer from eye strain.  We might get a headache.  We sometimes bump into things.  And, as I discovered when I got my first pair of glasses, sometimes we miss out on great and interesting things.

Similarly, when we can’t see our lives clearly, we experience “life strain.”  We feel stressed and overwhelmed.  We get headaches and heartaches (and sometimes heartburn) from trying to take care of everyone else’s needs and neglecting our own.  We bump into our breaking points because we can’t see our own limitations.  

And when we don’t see our lives clearly, we often miss out on good things.  Even the best things.

The good news?

It’s possible to alleviate those symptoms by addressing the root causes and gaining more clarity about your life.

The better news?

You don’t have to do it on your own (with just the questions above and your journal).

I’m a “life optometrist” who can help you see yourself and your life more clearly again.  I’ve got instruments that provide helpful assessments, tools that give you new lenses, and a process that can show you all the interesting dimensions to your life that you’ve been missing.

Next month, I’ll be opening the doors again for my signature program, Real Life Refresh.  I’ll be sharing more about this over the coming weeks, but if you’re reading this blog and thinking, “That’s me!  I need more clarity in my life!” then please don’t wait.  (In fact, there’s some very good reasons for you to act now.  Read on below.)

Let’s talk about it now.  Click here to schedule a call.  The sooner we connect, the sooner you can start clearing up your vision for your life.

Haven’t you suffered from life strain, overwhelm, headaches, and heartaches long enough?  Haven’t you missed out on enough of the best of life? I can see a different future for you, and I'd love to help you see from that perspective, too.

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