The Art of Creating a Vision to Change Your Life

Surprisingly few people have a clear idea of where they want to go in life and who they want to be. Even fewer people have spent some time actually laying out their vision and creating a system to help them work towards it consistently.

To many, mapping out their life vision may seem a little woo-woo, or like a giant waste of time. The way I see it, everyone’s goal in life is to be happy and fulfilled. Getting super clear about what that looks like for you is the first step towards making it happen.

This article will cover everything from getting clarity on your vision, committing to it, and taking regular action to help you realize it.

Why having a clear vision is life-changing

When you have a clear vision of who you want to be and what you want out of life, it serves as a guiding compass. It gives you a sense of purpose, informs all your decisions and shows you where to direct your energy. Instead of just winging it, you’re able to set goals and plan your days so that you’re consistently taking tiny steps towards the life you want.

Life goes on whether you’re living in line with your bigger picture or not. The mission here is to help you avoid the hamster wheel of being constantly busy without moving an inch towards a life you love. In the words of Jim Rohn:

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”

With that out of the way, let’s get into how to craft your life vision and create systems to help you actually take action on that vision!

BTW: We cover a few of these activities + a bunch more in the Future Self Challenge. This free 5-day email challenge is perfect for anyone looking to recenter and get intentional!

Scripting your life vision

Goal: Clarity

The easiest way to figure out where you want to go in life, is to simply ask yourself what kind of person you want to be and what their life looks like. This will help you pin-point the gaps you need to focus on, and give you a place from which to reverse-engineer and take action.

Feel free to use this journaling prompt:

Imagine future you. You are feeling totally content and happier than ever. What does your life look like?

I recommend looking 3 to 5 years down the line. Answer these questions, and be as specific as you can:

• Where do you live?
• Who & what are you surrounded by?
• What do your relationships look like?
• How does your work situation look?
• What do you do to stay healthy and fit?
• What have you learned? What are your skills?
• What do you do in your free time?
• What does a typical day look like?

Tip: Try using the present tense as you write all of this down, instead of “I will” or “I would”. You’re describing a destination, not just something you hope for. The language you use matters!

Sending a letter to your future self

Goal: Commitment

Although the act of writing out your vision alone is very beneficial, chances are it still feels quite abstract and distant.

That’s why I recommend sending a letter to future you to make it more real and tangible. These kind of letters aren’t just a very fun and special surprise to give yourself in a couple of years. They’re also an amazing way to give you perspective and motivate you to take action towards who you want to be.

I recently discovered a website that allows you to send your future self a letter via email. It’s pretty straightforward – you just pick when you would like it to be delivered, and start writing.

How you go about writing your letter is up to you (after all, this is as personal as it gets). You could start by talking about your current self (where you are in life, your values, accomplishments, skills, fears, etc). This will be a great – and often entertaining – way to see how much you’ve changed in a couple of years.

Next, I recommend checking in with your future self. Ask away about all the things you’ve laid out in your vision. This will not only help you solidify and commit to your intentions, but also allow future you to reflect on what you’ve done to realize your vision (and how it may have changed over time). You could even make some promises to your future self to create external accountability.

Creating a vision board

Goal: Inspiration

The next step is laying out your vision in a creative, visual way. This will help remind you of your goals and get you inspired, which in turn helps you stay on track and take regular action.

I recommend hopping on Pinterest and creating a board specifically to represent your vision. The key is to find powerful pictures that truly inspire you in all the categories you wrote about. Don’t just add anything that looks nice – be intentional about really capturing the life you want.

Once you have your images, you can either print them out and create a physical board, or create a digital one with a tool like Canva (my preferred method). I keep my vision board as my desktop wallpaper. It’s the perfect spot, because I spend a lot of time on the computer and therefore see it constantly.

Pro tip: Feel free to get creative, but try to keep your board simple – it won’t be of much use to you if you can barely tell what’s on it. You want to be able to immediately see and feel your vision when looking at it.

Setting up a system

Goal: Action

So far, we’ve covered scripting our vision, committing to it and laying it out visually. That’s great, but worth nothing without the next step.

When it comes to actually moving towards your vision, it’s essential to have a system in place. Although having a clear idea of your vision as well as a physical reminder can definitely help you be more intentional, big changes only happen through consistent action.

Decide which habits you need to build

It’s important to understand that the future self you described in your vision and the life they live are simply the result of their habits and behaviors. Any change we want to create in our life will require a change in our current behavior.

That’s why I recommend making a list of habits you need to cultivate to realize your vision. It can be helpful to think about everything your future self does in a typical day – those daily habits are largely what got them where they are in the first place.

• If your future self is running a successful side hustle from home, they’ve probably built strong routines and implemented time management strategies that help them be productive.
• If your future self is debt-free, they probably built better spending habits, used budgeting strategies or set aside time to make extra money on the side.
• If your future self has high self-esteem, they may have built the habit of reviewing their big wins every night, getting out of their comfort zone regularly, or being mindful of their self-talk.
• If your future self is in the best shape of their life, they probably improved their eating habits and followed a consistent exercise routine they really enjoy.

Once you can identify which habits you need to build, you can start creating a plan to incorporate them into your life one by one.

Create a life planning routine

In order to take action towards your vision consistently, you need a routine to help you plan those actions and review your progress.

Ideally, I recommend scheduling time for this kind of ‘life planning’ on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly basis. If you use a digital calendar, you can easily plan recurring blocks of time so you don’t have to think about it.

Personally I like to use quarterly (12-week) goals. Some of these goals are big goals, such as ‘Write my thesis’, which I will divide into sub-goals. Others are smaller goals, such as ‘Improve my public speaking’ (I call these mini goals). All of this leads to the following life planning routine:

Daily

• Make a to-do list that includes habits you’re working on and actionable tasks that will help you achieve your goals. Ask yourself how you can be a bit more like your future self today.
• Write down your big wins and learnings at the end of the day.

Weekly & Monthly

• Review your highlights and things that aren’t working. Check in with your progress on your goals and habits.
• Plan the next period by scheduling actionable tasks to work towards your goals and habits. Use the insights from your review to adjust your plan if necessary.
  
  

Quarterly

• Review whether your quarterly goals have been met.
• Set goals for the next quarter that will help you move towards your vision. Split them up into bite-sized pieces you can tackle monthly, if applicable.

Yearly

• Review what you’ve accomplished over the year and what progress you’ve made towards your vision.
• Re-align with your vision and adjust if necessary. Use your vision to set your intentions for the next year and your goals for the first quarter.

Keep in mind that the most important aspect of your system is not the planning and reviewing, but the actions it helps you take. Continuously living intentionally towards your vision and taking actual steps is the key to designing a life that you love.