This might sound like hoopla, but there is immense power in having a vision for your life. Your vision can manifest as an image in your mind, or be as detailed as a handwritten story posted on your bedroom wall. Whichever way you go about it, having a vision provides your life with direction, keeps you motivated, and gives a sense of belief that you can achieve what you set out to do.

The counterargument would be that perhaps, a vision doesn’t help, so don’t have a vision at all, but then you leave everything to chance and may end up just drifting aimlessly and going nowhere.

I notice there are two kinds of people in this world, those who take matters into their own hands and act, and those who end up following the plans of others. For me, I’m happiest when I have control of my own time, so my vision has in large part an element of being able to decide what I do whenever I want to do it.

Here are 5 exercises that helped me come up with my vision in life:

1. Write a manifesto - Who are you and what are you about? What do you aim to do? What is the ultimate result? How do you get there? How will you feel when you get there? Write it out by hand and tape it somewhere you can see it every day as a reminder of your direction in life. 

2. Describe your perfect day - Sit down with a pen and paper and write out exactly how you want your life to look like from the moment you wake up to the moment you go back to sleep. Each and every day makes up a page in the story of your life, so it serves you to be intentional about it. Be as detailed as you can be. Where you are living? Who’s the first person you see when you wake up? What are you doing for work? What kind of work are you doing? What are you eating for breakfast? Don’t hold back. This is your moment to allow yourself to acknowledge the life you want to live and to truly illustrate what your life can look like one day.

3. Ask your friends - Sometimes we don’t know what we’re good at. We can also be very bad at knowing what we suck at. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable and asking your friends for their honest opinions can be very helpful. Stick to those you trust, and be selective about the advice you take. You don’t have to listen to everyone. Focus on the ones that will help you most. You might find that you are good at a lot of things that you can then turn into a career. You will also discover the things that you should work on, or avoid completely.

4. Write yourself a million-dollar check - This one’s a little silly, but also one of my favorites. Take out a blank check and write it out to yourself for a million dollars. That’s right, $1,000,000. That’s six zeros. Who’s paying you? Why are they paying you? Who is your dream client? What is the positive impact you have on their lives? Money is a tool we all need to help realize our visions. Tape this check on your wall to further realize your vision as a possibility. Sure, a million dollars might be a little much, but better to aim too high than to aim too low.

5. Embed your vision into a daily ritual - It’s one thing to spend an afternoon doing these exercises, it’s another to remind yourself of your vision and to solidify it as a real possibility in your life on a daily basis. I remind myself of my vision every day by integrating it into my morning routine. Seeing my manifesto on my wall sets the tone for my entire day and provides me with the belief and energy to seize every opportunity. If I can do that every day for the rest of my life, then each and every second of my day is directed towards getting one step closer until, of course, I get there.

It might take some time to develop a vision for your life. Your vision might even change as you learn more about yourself. But regardless of the energy required to discover your vision, it still serves you to have one. From my experience, it’s the difference between those to make it far and those who end up drifting through life. Your vision is your own personal roadmap to where you want to go. Nobody can do this for you. You must decide for yourself the type of life you want to live and the ultimate impact you want to have in this world. Don’t hold yourself back. You are much more capable than you believe. Go out there and get after it.

I would like to end with a quote by Dale Carnegie:

“Two men looked out from prison bars, One saw the mud, the other saw stars.”

by Jason Lam