Dr. Earl R. Smith II

Dr. Earl R. Smith II
Managing Partner, The Federal Circle
DrSmith@Dr-Smith.com
Dr-Smith.com

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Lots of advice is available. The common mantra is ‘get a personal vision’. But the truth is that you already have one. Sure, it may be out of focus and counterproductive. But you do have one. Many would call it your ‘self image’. It is how you decide what you will do and what you will not do. This self image sets your expectations. It holds your private vision of you in the world. It is there with you when you wake up every morning and as you go to sleep each night. So, the question is not whether you have a personal vision. The question is ‘do you have the right personal vision?”

All personal visions are compelling. They control your life and expectations. Your personal vision gets you out of bed every morning and moves you through the day. At the end of each day you have experienced the meaning of your vision. Each of your days is guided by it. So, if at the end of a day you are dissatisfied with the way it went, you need to look to your personal vision and ask ‘am I journeying through life with the wrong one?”

The right personal vision moves you in the direction your life should take rather than one chosen by chance. It gives you a clear understanding of who you are, what you are entitled to and what contributions you can make to the world as you find it. The right personal vision gives you confidence that you are valuable in your own right, that you are entitled to be treated with respect and consideration and that you can make important contributions to the lives of people around you.

You can make changes in your life and those changes are best begun with a search for the right personal vision. My mentoring work begins with this search. It is not as hard as you might think. You need to start with the support of a guide and make the commitment to keep on until you have reached that self-understanding that will reveal the personal vision that is uniquely for you.

Overcoming the Internal Arguments

So what stands in your way? The first is your own inertia. Once you have made an accommodation with life and settled for a personal vision that is a poor fit, you turn that vision into a series of habits. You might consistently underestimate your value to other people, for instance. Once that becomes a habit and part of your personal vision, it is very hard to change the underlying behavior. In a strange way, it involves arguing with yourself.

• You: You need to stop being that way
• You: This is the way I am
• You: Being this way is harming my life and limiting its potential
• You: This is the way I am
• You: I need to change, to become the personal I can be not the one I became
• You: I do not like change
• You: I will change and find a better personal vision
• You: I will fight you on this. This means war!

Once you decide to search for a better personal vision, these kinds of internal discussions are unavoidable. It is not that you like your current vision. You might be either ashamed or uncertain about your place and role in the world. Maybe there is a small voice that keeps suggesting a change. But that voice is drowned out by the insistence of the current vision of you.

Step One: Gather the Courage to Listen to That Small Voice

The first step is by far the most difficult. It takes a great deal of courage to contradict yourself; and that is exactly what you have to do. Part of you will insist that things are manageable if not optimal. Change is dangerous and involves the unknown. The push-back can be daunting. But you must not be daunted. The way forward is through that resistance. There is no way around it. You must push through it.

One way to overcome your own resistance is to build a support network around your project of self reinvention. One mistake people make is to keep their resolve to themselves and not share it with others. Behavior change is hard enough with the help of your friends. You do not want to be locked alone in a dark room with your own aversion to change. Declare your intentions to those around you and ask their help in monitoring your progress. You will receive two gifts if you do this. The first is the support of your friends. The second is the gift that you will give them. Beyond a statement of faith in their friendship, you will also give them an example of what they might achieve if they decided to try.

Chart your course and then set about following it. Begin by writing out a clear statement of intention. Make sure that you keep that statement focused on your daily life. Remember, you are setting out on a search for a better personal vision. The constant questions should be:

• Who am I and what excites me about living?
• What do I bring to the world that is uniquely mine?
• What can I invest my time in that will give me the greatest return?
• What returns do I value the most?

The answers to these questions are as unique for you as they are for every other person. The more work you put into developing the answers, the more unique they become. You see, a personal vision should be, first and foremost, personal. It should relate directly to the world as you find it and to the people around you. Here is an Example of what I mean:

• Who am I and what excites me about living?
• I enjoy spending time with X. He brings me new ideas and possibilities
• What do I bring to the world that is uniquely mine?
• I seem to be able to see the possibilities that X brings and turn them into actions
• What can I invest my time in that will give me the greatest return?
• I need to spend more time with X and turning his ideas into actions
• What returns do I value the most?
• The biggest payoff for working with X is the joy I get from helping others along their journey

If you spend some time thinking this way, you will quickly discover many ‘starting points’. Maybe you have just not focused on those things in your life that do excite you. But they are there for you to find. Remember to keep your focus on your daily life. Do not get caught up in ’strategic think’. Each series of answers should relate to something that you actually can do in the day you are living through.

Step Two: Make it a Journey

Realization is an interesting word. It has two meanings. The first is to realize something. That meaning relates to the idea of understanding. For example, ‘I realized that I was standing too close to the edge of the Grand Canyon’. There is that ‘ah ha’ moment of realization. The second meaning relates to accomplishment. ‘At my graduation, I realized a life goal of completing a university education’. So you see that realizing that you need to find a better personal vision is only the first step along the path to realizing the goal of having it.

Like most journeys, the search for a new personal vision is full of stop, go, forward, back sliding and many ups and downs. For instance, you do not work on it twenty-four hours a day. In the time between, you have the opportunity to realize the goals you have set for yourself. Some you will make and celebrate the success. Others you will miss and vow to try again.

A good rule of thumb is that it takes about two months to make a new habit and about twice that to overcome an entrenched one. It is important to see your efforts as a journey that you have committed to. You need to become and remain disciplined and focused. It is important that you see the journey in terms of progress and movement. Remember, you are working to overcome the inertia that kept you stuck in an unproductive personal vision. A good vision of the process will involve a journey from the stifling atmosphere of a confining rut to the clear and invigorating air of a open meadow on a sunny day. The more you are able to see your efforts in this light, the better your chances of continuing on the journey and realizing your goal.

Each step of the journey should be seen as a chance to experience your personal development towards a better place. It is your journey and your place that you are going to. That meadow is your meadow and only yours. It is the place of all places in the world that you ought to be. Moving towards it means finding and following your true north. That is the direction that you life should take to lead you to that place.

Step Three: Accounting for Yourself

This journey you are on has its own kind of accounting. Each action has a cost and benefit. Some the costs are incurred because you want to get somewhere. For instance, you may spend time reading about an idea or learning a new skill. You make the investment to be able to understand better or make bigger contributions to the people around you. Other costs come because you are operating with the wrong personal vision. You have the costs of lost time or opportunity but no balancing gain to show for it.

Some returns, once they are achieved, do not seem to have the expected value. How often have you responded out of anger towards a situation or person only to realize later that you should have held your temper and moved towards the mutual benefit that was there for both of you? Why did you settle for the bogus return of anger when the gem of mutual benefit was there to be shared? Another example might be those people who dedicate their lives to scrambling after celebrity. Many of them will do almost anything to be famous; if for only fifteen minutes. But the graveyard of their lives is the final realization that nothing of value was being pursued.

Then there are the returns which are so valuable that they need to be cherished and honored. Each step you make towards your own true personal vision is such a return. Each goal you realize is another. Every time you make an effort and drive through the resistance, you give yourself a gift of rare value.

Step Four: Celebrate Your Victories and Redouble Efforts to Overturn Your Defeats

Remember to honor your dedication to this journey. You will stay motivated as long as you reinforce your resolve by celebrating your successes along the way. As you move forward, your vision will become so compelling and empowering that you will do anything to achieve it. Once you reach that level of commitment, nothing will keep you from the goals you have set. Your quest of the right personal vision will be there in the morning when you awake and with you all through the day. It will be with you as you fall asleep and inhabit your dreams. Your quest will become the core of whom you are and who you can become. It will define your mark on the world and contribution to the people around you. It will define you as a unique and important person who is in touch with your value and ability to contribute. It will make your life your own.

© Dr. Earl R. Smith II

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Related Articles:

• Life Coaching – The Propose of a Compass

• Apprehension – Fear or Understanding?

• Finding Meaning Without Manufacturing Meaning

• Making the Possible Probable

• Finding a Mirror – Realizing

• Change Aversion – Coming to Terms

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Dr. Smith is Managing Partner of The Federal Circle. The Federal Circle partners with teams and existing companies. We help them up their game and win big in the Federal space. We also arrange funding for acquisitions and expansion by acquisition. Our model is based on the belief that, if you select the very best and work with them in a highly professional and focused manner, the results will be truly amazing. He is the author of Amazing Pace: Turbo-charged Business Development – a book that shows how Advisory Boards can dramatically increase revenue. Dr. Smith is also the author of Dream Walk: Parables for the Living – a book of Raven Tales and exploration.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 12:39 PM and is filed under Executive Coaching, Life Coaching, Personal Growth, Thought Pieces. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.