Recently, I had a client who was interested in doing some long term goal planning. In coaching, we try to emphasize the shorter, more actionable goals. Goals that can be reached in 3-months, or 6-months, or a year are tangible and achievable. There are logical steps that can be taken to move toward these goals and measurements of success that can be addressed and refined as needed. With longer range goal planning the ability to take adequate action is questionable because life does not play out in a set order, following a straight path. Things change, and we have to have the ability to change also.
In 5 years, we will be in the year 2020. I worked with my client to create a vision of their life in 2020. Visioning allows the process of goal setting to remain more creative and open to interpretation. There is more chance that over time, a vision may align with reality because it is less concrete and more subjective to the twists and turns of life. I began to think about the year 2020 and the vision that she had for her five-year goals. There was a degree of perfection in them. Then I read something that awakened me to the concept that the year 2020 just like 20/20 vision would suggest a degree of perfection in it!
Perfection seems like a goal for most, but it is actually the fear of not being perfect that shuts so many people down from achieving their dreams. Fear that what we want, or who we want to be, may not be right in every possible way, often paralyzes us, holding us back from completing a project, or making a change, or seeing a situation for its true value. We don’t start doing something because everything is not exactly aligned, or we start and stop and never finish something because we feel as if we cannot get it just right. Often, the perfect persona that the outside world gets to view and to know does not even resemble the person we really are.
Anyone been there?
20/20 vision and long term five-year goals have a lot to do with how we view success. If our measurement of success is an unattainable illusion just out of reach, then chances are high that we will not quite grasp it. If our measurement of success is about all the steps and effort put in on our way toward a specific goal, there is a good chance that the goal will be reached as we experience and enjoy both the moment and the many steps along the way.
So here is my question. Is it really possible to achieve 20/20 or perfect vision? Can we ever really know with certainty what our lives will look like in 5 years? Perhaps the greatest achievement we can each experience is to be able to see clearly what lies right in front of us and to access our mental, emotional, physical, social, environmental and spiritual state in regard to securing what we most want in the now.
Having 20/20 vision by the year 2020 does not have to mean perfection as the dictionary defines it. It can just as easily be about tapping into our ability to accept our imperfections and embrace moving ahead with the momentum and achievement that is most important to us individually. It is about defining and measuring success with our own yardsticks.
Let me know...what do you see?
~ Randi Levin, Certified Transitional Coach, mentor, writer and inspirational speaker, partners with her clients to define and navigate the many “acts or chapters” of their lives. She is a subject matter expert in the art of reinvention and it is her joy to unleash her client’s unlimited potential and to tap into what she calls, “the evolving business of you.” Contact RandiCLevin@gmail.com or 347-395-6255.