Success is accelerated in every situation when you’re operating with a vision of where you want to go.

Let’s talk about setting a vision and achieving that vision:

Setting the vision.  Whether you acknowledge it or not, you are heading in a direction.  When you arrive, is it where you want to be? This is why you have a vision  – Decide where you want to go before you start.

“You have to know where you are going. If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll never know if you’ve arrived.”– Denis G. McLaughlin

How do you know what direction to head in?   No one can tell you what direction to head in – that decision is yours to make.  Whether you are thinking of your personal life, your professional career, your team or your company this is on you.  Jack Welch held nothing back when he said this about vision, “Good leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”

You are the leader of your success.  You are the leader of your team and company’s success.  This is why you must have a vision for what success looks like.

Achieving the vision.  Setting the vision is an important step, but it is only one step.  Once you decide what success looks like and have a clear picture in your mind, and on the minds of everyone involved with the vision, you need a plan for how to achieve this vision.

“Achieving your vision will be the culmination of many small achievements.” – Denis G. McLaughlin

The best way to build your plan is from the vision backward.  Start with what you want to accomplish and settle on the big successes that need to occur in order for that to happen.  Then move to closer to today and more granular goals.  Finally boil it down to what you should be doing on Monday morning. Then do it.

Recognize that the farther away from today you get, the more likely that your plan will change.  That’s ok.  Stay focused on the vision and adjust and adapt your plan based on the current circumstances.

“One of the best paradoxes of leadership is a leader’s need to be both stubborn and open-minded. A leader must insist on sticking to the vision and stay on course to the destination. But he must be open-minded during the process.” –  Simon Sinek