The Most Important Book in Your Life
No, it’s not another self-improvement book, I promise.
Let’s cut straight to the chase and make it clear that this piece isn’t about a self-improvement book.
I love my self-improvement books and would always encourage you to read them as they expand your mind and unleash your potential.
But for this piece, I’m talking about a different type of book — a vision book that you won’t find at any physical bookstore or online.
You need to create it — and it’s not a journal, diary, or workbook.
Nothing wrong with these.
But if you want something that expands you and enables you to manage your life and goals better, then you need a vision book.
A vision book is essentially a blueprint and road map for your life.
It’s the most comprehensive account of how you want your life to be in each area of your life.
It enables you to customize your life and design it, so you're not on autopilot.
It's a life by design, not by default.
Most of the human population lives a life by default, and it causes much misery and unhappiness.
But 1% to 2% of the population live a life by design.
You can join this group, but you do need a fair degree of emotional intelligence, courage, and faith in yourself to be able to pull it off.
A vision book is a great launching pad to help you with it as it will inspire and ignite that flame within you that wants more out of life.
Without further ado, let’s dive right into creating your own vision book using the 6 steps below.
Disclaimer — If you’re in a bad place in life, perhaps feeling lost and depressed, now is not a good time to create a vision book.
You won’t have clarity. Come back to it later. I’m a firm believer in timing.
Step 1: gather materials
Get a large notebook, or a large three-ring binder with paper and dividers, or use your computer or any other digital device if you prefer.
It should be portable and something you can easily access and carry with you when you need it.
Ensure you are comfortable with both the format and the aesthetics, as this impacts your use of it.
Get creative and use images, photos, cutouts from magazines, sticky notes, glitter, etc for a print version.
But even for an online version, you should still get creative.
Dedicate a whole weekend to creating your vision book.
Even better, invite some friends over, and you can each create your own vision book.
It's a fun and inspiring weekend!
If you need more time, then dedicate more time.
It's your vision and your life. Take as much time as you need.
Step 2: categorize your vision book into 7 areas
Divide your vision book into the seven areas/dimensions of your life.
This gives you a more integrated and holistic view of your life.
I’m just using seven as a nice framework but feel free to come up with your own number.
Remember, these areas determine much of how your life turns out, so they are far too important to ignore.
You must empower and even master them, or else others will empower them for you.
“Any area of life that we don’t empower, somebody else will overpower.” Dr. John Demartini
7 areas of life you want to empower & master:
- Health and Wellbeing (health should encompass mental, physical, emotional, sexual, etc.)
- Vocation (career, business, personal brand)
- Finances (financial intelligence)
- Relationships ( family, partner, and other relationships)
- Personal development (mindset, emotions & character)
- Social life (your contribution, hobbies, activities, etc)
- Spirituality (connecting to a higher power or something beyond yourself)
Step 3: identity what you want in each area
Identify specifically what you want in each area.
Start with your WHY.
Don't obsess over the how. The how will show up later.
Remember if you have a strong why the how takes care of itself.
I love how top medium writer Tim Denning puts it:
“Know your why and Google the how.”
A good framework to start with knowing your why is to ask yourself the following questions:
- Who am I?
- Who do I want to be in this area?
- What do I really want?
- What do I love doing?
These will help get you clear and specific about each area.
Remember, vagueness breeds ambiguity and keeps you stuck in life.
You must get clear about what you want, or else it's pointless to even have a vision book.
Focus on what you really want, not what you think you can have.
The latter will just limit you and makes for a dull life.
You must come from that hunger that comes from deep within.
For each area in my vision book, I got crystal clear and wrote down:
- My goals for each area
- Quotes that inspire me for each area
- The progress that I am making in each area ( I review regularly)
- A mini-mission statement for each area
- Visuals — pictures cut out from magazines and other sources that inspire me
In all, I’ve created a very detailed account of what I want for each area of my life and I suggest you do the same.
It serves as my north star for my life.
The goals I set daily, weekly and monthly are aligned with my vision book.
Step 4: come up with an action plan
This is the ‘how’ of making what you want in each of these areas a reality.
For your action plan to work, you need the right strategy, story, and state.
That is the right course of action, mindset, and emotional state.
Remember so much of life is psychology and the rest is mechanics.
“80% of success is psychology, 20% is strategy,” says Tony Robbins.
Another way of putting it is “life is 90% mindset and 5% strategy.”
Remember these percentages when going about creating your vision book and more importantly bringing it to life.
It's the best math I've ever come across.
I never liked the math they taught at school.
Step 5: implement your action plan
Structure and systematize your life in such a way that allows you to work on your vision and hence bring your vision book to life.
I structure my days (excluding Sundays my day off) around six goals each day.
Along with giving me direction and purpose, these goals enable me to work on so much of my vision.
Even if I don't achieve all six goals six days a week, I still get some done and so my vision book is always at the top of my mind.
This work is not a once-a-month thing or when you feel like it, it must always be at the top of your mind.
Work with a coach or mentor to help stay accountable and on track.
Step 6: review your vision book
Your vision book is an active, not passive, book.
It's not something you create for fun and then forget about or just come back to it when you feel like it.
To get the most use out of it, you must review it regularly.
It must live in YOU, not on your bookshelf or computer if created visually.
This allows you to bring your vision to life and allows you to also see where you are making progress and where you are not and what needs changing.
I review my vision book every Sunday morning as that's when I plan my week ahead and month too when it's the end of the month.
It helps me with my overall planning and setting goals.
My vision book has become a must, not a nice-to-have.
It should be the same for you.
Keep readjusting, fine-tuning & changing it till you get it just right.
Remember, it’s going to evolve as you evolve. You’ll add and take things away.
See it, feel it, manifest it
There’s a hack for bringing your vision book to life faster, and it involves you working from the end, not toward it.
Traditional goal-setting and vision-making teach you to work towards your goals and vision.
But mental science and now even quantum physics show the potency and validity of thinking and acting like the person you want to become.
In your mind, you must see the vision as already happened, and you must feel it in your body.
From this, it's only a matter of time till it manifests into physical reality.
There are basically three steps:
- see it
- feel it
- manifest it
This type of thinking requires a radical shift in your perception.
Remember, most of us haven't been taught to think like this, so it's an alien and even downright ‘weird’ concept to most people.
But there’s just so much power and potential in it.
So you'd be crazy to not try it.
Don't tell anyone unless you really trust them.
But even then, it's best to keep it to yourself and only reveal it when you see that it starts to work.
Summary
Your vision book must be tangible, practical, and life-transforming.
It allows you to design your life, and customize it the way you want so you are not on autopilot.
Of course, you won't be able to design everything in your life — pandemics, accidents, the weather, etc but you can design so much of your life & not to mention you can design your response to events outside your control.
So make time to get clear on what you really want for your life and start creating your vision book.
It will become one of your most treasured and important books.
If there was a fire at your place, it would be one of the first things you would save.
That’s how important it is!
Creating it is a lot of fun but bringing it to life is even better — Pure Magic.
So get started on creating your vision book for your life.
I promise you it will be a game-changer and life-transforming once you bring it to life.
To Creating Your Vision Book
Sandra D
P.S. I'd love to see what you’ve created. Feel free to connect with me and share your vision book. I'm on LinkedIn a lot so send me a message.
