6

CREATE YOUR FUTURE

Destiny is not a matter of chance. it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

—WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN

Commitment involves feeling as well as thinking. It is the result of a well-documented formula: Thoughts plus feelings equal action.

Everything you do has to be born in the brain as an idea. That idea gives birth to a feeling. You act on the basis of the feeling. In this way, your actions translate your thoughts into reality, once you have been motivated by your feelings. The deeper and more intense your feelings, the more powerful the motivation to turn thoughts into action.

The thought creates an image. The feeling makes the image glow. Action brings the image to life.

THE VISIONING PROCESS

The process I have just described is what we know as visioning. Many people go through life unaware that this creative power lies within them. Yet we all have it. You can create the future you want. It’s all a matter of forming a vision, committing yourself to that vision, and acting in harmony with the vision.

The power of visioning has been statistically demonstrated. Harvard University once surveyed a class of its alumni over a twenty-year period to learn what distinguished the successful ones from the unsuccessful.

It found that 97 percent of the wealth of that class was concentrated in only 3 percent of its members. The ultrasuccessfull 3 percent had one thing in common: All of them were clear about their goals, had written them down, and reviewed them daily.

Goals are simply a way of breaking a vision into doable units. Your vision should involve much more than your career. It should encompass all areas of your life. Many people create visions for their careers, their families, and their physical, spiritual, emotional, and social lives. All these components together constitute a holistic vision.

Making the Vision Glow

You learned in Step One how to decide what you want in life, based on your talents, your values-based principles, and your preferred behavioral mode.

Now you need to make those desires glow by shaping them into a vision. Then you must translate that vision into a written mission statement. Next, divide it into achievable goals.

How do you create a vision? First, the vision must involve a future that excites you. It must be something you desire passionately. You must want it so much you can see it, feel it, smell it, and taste it.

That must have been the way Preston Smith felt when he first stood on Killington Peak in Vermont and envisioned a ski resort there. Though the reality was still in the future, he must have smelled the cold scent of the wind blowing off the forested slopes, seen the pattern of sunlight and shadow on the ski trails, heard the shouts of skiers calling to each other as they rode the ski lift to the top, heard the screams of novices taking their first spills on the beginners’ slopes, and felt the warmth from burning logs crackling in an open fireplace while the sun sank into its nest of splendor behind the Green Mountains.

Use Both Sides of Your Brain

Can you see a vivid picture of yourself in the future you desire? It may be hard to do while you’re sitting behind a desk, grinding away at your workstation, or pounding the streets looking for work. When you’re occupied in this manner, your left brain is fully engaged.

Your left brain is the logical, decision-making side of your mind. Your right brain is the intuitive, creative side. To create your future, you need to form an image in your right brain, then use your left brain to turn the image into reality.

All of us use both sides of our brains. But in most of us, one side is dominant. The side of the brain that you use the most determines whether you are basically a logical or a creative person. Successful people can be found in both categories. High achievers learn to integrate the creative and the logical sides of their brains.

The left brain is more disciplined than the right. It can absorb information, organize it, compare one fact with another, and reason step-by-step.

When Preston Smith stood on Killington Peak and dreamed of his ski resort, he viewed it through the right side of his brain. But when he began to map out a strategy for achieving the dream, he turned to his left brain.

We can hear him saying, “If I’m going to build a ski resort here, I must first negotiate a lease on the land. Then I’ll need to get financial backing. Next I’ll have to persuade the state to build a road into the area. To guarantee success, I’ll need to find a reliable way to keep an acceptable amount of snow on the slopes.” That was Smith’s left brain at work.

The right brain is more freewheeling. It daydreams. It focuses on the forest instead of the trees. It looks at possibilities instead of realities. The left brain is interested in the world as it is. The right brain is interested in the world as it might be. The left brain relies on facts. The right brain trusts its intuition. The left brain is anchored in the here and now. The right brain vaults into the future.

The right brain is the source of ideas. The left brain finds a way to implement these ideas.

Getting into Your Right Brain

To begin the visioning process, you need to get into your right brain. There’s no magic to it. You do it all the time. Have you ever wrestled with a knotty problem all day, then decided to “sleep on it”? And as you were drifting into sleep or waking from a night’s rest, did the solution pop into your head?

When you’re falling asleep, your mind relaxes. The left brain surrenders its dominance, and the right brain takes over. This is when you’re at your most creative. Your right brain pans your storehouse of knowledge and experiences, like a flashlight beam passing over the contents of your attic. When it comes across the right gem of information for the problem you’re seeking to resolve, or the stored-away idea that is just right for your purposes, the gem lights up, like a jewel reflecting the flashlight rays. A light comes on in your conscious mind.

So to create your future, find some time when you can relax your body and your mind. You may want to retreat to a hideaway by the lake or seashore or up in the mountains. Or you may have a favorite nook at home where you can relax and get comfortable. You may even be able to relax, with your feet up, in the privacy of your office. Let your mind wander. Don’t try to concentrate. Just relax and get in touch with your deepest values and your strongest desires. What would you want to do if anything were possible? Picture your ideal world, and put yourself there.

For some people, dreaming is like watching a movie. They’re in front of a screen viewing the action. The most vivid dreamers are able to put themselves on the screen. They’re actually experiencing the environment and the action.

Let your thoughts take you into the future without worrying about where you are now. Remember, you’re creating the future, not remodeling the past. As Carl Jung, the renowned psychiatrist, noted, “Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth.“

Setting Up a Force Field

When you vividly picture the future the way you want it to be, you set up a powerful force field that draws you toward the fulfillment of the vision.

Your subconscious mind—the seat of your motivation—doesn’t distinguish between reality and perception. It believes what the conscious mind tells it. So when you consciously envision your desired future, seeing yourself in the role you want to play, your subconscious mind sees this as reality. It motivates you to act in harmony with this perceived reality. And your actions turn the dream into actuality.

Begin the creation of your vision by asking these questions while you’re in a peaceful, relaxed state:

• What am I passionate about?
• What makes life worth living?
• What do I desire most strongly?

Then form a vivid picture of the things you desire.

BYPASS YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES

Don’t limit yourself to the things you think are achievable, given your present circumstances. If you’re hungry, you want food, regardless of whether there’s anything to eat near at hand. Your hunger will focus your mental and physical faculties on the task of finding food-and you’ll probably find it. Think of the times when you’ve wanted to buy something but didn’t have the money. If you wanted it badly enough, you found the money, one way or another.

It’s that way with a vision. Without a glowing vision, you’ll regard your desired future as unattainable, and you won’t focus your efforts on attaining it. You will be imprisoned by your circumstances. In the words of British statesman Benjamin Disraeli, “Man is not a creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.”

A vision bypasses circumstances. It finds a way over, around, or under them. It may rearrange the circumstances. One way or another, it will take you toward your objectives.

Many people form visions for each aspect of their lives. They have visions for their families, visions for their careers, and visions for their social lives. These visions, of course, must complement one another, or their lives will be out of focus.

Create a Mission Statement

After you’ve created your vision, you need to keep it in front of you at all times. To do this, it helps to have a mission statement.

Your mission statement translates your vision into words. It tells why you are here and what you propose to do with your life. Your mission statement should be brief and simple. It is more powerful when it is expressed in the present tense. Describe your vision as if you had already achieved it.

If your career vision calls for you to become the president of your own company, state it as if you were already in the CEO’s chair: “I am the president of a software company. My office is in Carmel, California, overlooking the Pacific....”

Your vision gains power when you go public with it. Let your friends and associates know what you expect to achieve. When you put your commitment on record, you’re giving yourself an extra incentive to succeed. Perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history was struck by Babe Ruth after he had taken two strikes, then pointed to the outfield fence. On the next pitch, Babe sent the ball flying into the section of the stands where he had pointed. Imagine how he would have felt had he struck out. Babe had given himself a task and gone public with it before thousands of fans. He now had all the more reason to accomplish what he set out to accomplish.

A copy of your mission statement, framed and displayed in a prominent place, can be a constant reminder for you, your family, and your associates of the commitment you have made. Your subconscious mind will adopt the vision and will constantly direct your behavior toward achieving it.

Something You Passionately Desire

Your vision can’t be a halfhearted thing. It must be something you passionately desire, and it must represent something you believe you can attain. But it must also be something that will inspire you to rise to the best of your ability.

Many people deny themselves the pleasure of living life to the fullest because they follow limited visions. They dream modest dreams, so they compile modest achievements. The limiting factor is not their capacity to achieve but their willingness to believe in themselves.

Don’t let self-doubt stand between you and what you desire. You can achieve what you want to achieve, provided you believe in yourself.

The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius put it this way, freely translated:

Don’t think that what is hard for you to master is impossible for man; but if a thing is possible and proper to man, consider it attainable by you.

In Chapter 12, we discuss ways to achieve the self-confidence you need to create and fulfill an ambitious vision.

Your successful future is waiting to be created. Get in touch with your values, your principles, and your desires. Then use the power of your mind to create the future you want.