Now that you have the important areas of your life covered, with input from the exercises you’ve completed, it’s time to expand on those words and phrases to turn them into sentences and add vivid details for each area to add clarity and to generate powerful emotions. There is still no need to worry about grammar or perfect word choice; after all, this is only for you. It’s the ideas that matter, not the writing quality.

Today’s Action:

First, take the words and phrases you’ve written, and turn them into sentences, adding details and specificity as you go.

Next, evaluate your written Vision and continue revising it: Is it complete? Does it cover all the important aspects of your life? Remember the 8 parts of your life: Business/Career, Relationships, Health/Fitness, Financial, Environment/Home, Recreation/Fun, Personal Development, Service/Contributions. They don’t all have to be in your Vision, but make sure you have considered whether they should be represented or not.

Is your Vision crystal clear, in vivid detail? If your Vision was the instructions for a movie director to film your life, would it be sufficient for them to know exactly what you look like, how you feel and act, where you are, who you are with, what you are doing all day long?  

Can you add multiple senses? In the future, when you are practicing visualization, the more senses you involve, the more powerful it will be.

Read your Vision: Is it inspiring and motivating to you? Does it get you charged up, wanting to get started to make this Vision a reality?

When you finish this draft, it doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should now be complete and clear, with powerful and motivating images you can call up in your mind.

If you have written it on the computer, this will make it easier to update over time. Print it out.

Whether you printed it out, or you wrote your Vision out by hand, you don’t want to just write it once and file it away or it won’t help. Make sure it is somewhere easy to access, so you can read it over every day. I keep my printed Vision as one of only 5 pieces of paper on my desk. Each day, as part of your morning or evening routine (much more on this in the full Be Happiful Course) you should review your Vision and do your best to fully envision yourself living that life. Put yourself in the scene, and try to envision truly being there, as though you are in that scene, looking around. To be most effective, incorporate as many senses as possible in your visualization, and try to generate powerful emotions – what does it feel like to be living that life?

Daily visualization is important because it will program your subconscious mind to help you achieve your Vision, and it also gives you daily motivation and drives your decisions and prioritization. And the more you perform the visualization, and the more powerful the emotions you can generate, the more impactful it will be.

2 more Exercises; do 1 or both of them:

  • Best Month Ever: Imagine you are at the end of your life and you are granted the ability to repeat one month before you die. Reflect back on your life, and pick that one month. Which period of your life was that month in? What were you doing and who were you with? Does that tell you anything about how you really want to be spending your time in the future? Now review your Vision and see if you should make any changes based on this Exercise.

  • More Of/Less Of In My Life: Most people have simply accepted their life as it is, without examining it to see how they can improve it. This exercise can give you helpful clarity on what you want to change in your life. Step 1: Reflect on your current life. Consider all the things you are spending time doing. Think about the key parts of your life (Business/Career, Relationships (consider spouse/partner, family, friends), Health/Fitness, Financial, Environment/Home, Recreation/Fun, Personal Development, and Service/Contributions). Step 2: Now start writing. What do you like about your life as it is today/what do you want more of in your life? What can you do to make this happen? For example, if you like being outdoors in nature, how could you make sure you do more of it? What don’t you like about your life as it is today/what do you want less of in your life? What can you do to make this happen? For example, if you don’t like spending time in meetings, how can you make changes to do less of it? You are likely to have found some obvious changes to make that will increase your happiness. Now review your Vision and see if you should make any changes based on this Exercise.

  • Submit them here.