How To Create A Personal Vision And Live That 

 

Creating a personal vision seems easy, right? Who wouldn’t love to spend time dreaming about the life they really want as the way to create it? How difficult could that be? If you have ever tried to create your ideal life by using your imagination and found the results disappointing, you are not alone. On today’s show, Rebecca Victor talks about the idea of creating a vision for our lives and learning to live from that vision. She shares some of the important steps to guide you in becoming effective creators of your thoughts and turn them into realities. Join Rebecca as she helps you understand how to create the success you desire.

—

Listen to the podcast here:

How To Create A Personal Vision And Live That

I wanted to share with you some thoughts I had around this idea of creating a vision for our lives and learning to live from a vision. I hadn’t intended to present that right now, but it came up when I was in a program. I’m in a program with some other individuals in learning skills to master sales in business. I’m good at what I do. Selling is something I’m learning. It is what I’m gaining strength in. One of the things that we were asked to do was to create a vision for our lives, for our business, and give it depth, give it color, give it feeling, give it sensory components because giving it sensory components allows it to become more real for us. For they’ve discovered that the brain does not know the difference between what is experienced in a moment and what we can bring to life in our imagination.

One of the participants in the group though had shared that she had tried this and that she failed at it miserably. It was not successful. I thought I understand that feeling. I understand how you set out with this big intention. Somebody shared this great idea, that you build this vision, you can live this vision, see what you get to do, and how different will be the following year. I know what it is to have set that vision and created it only to have it fall short. I thought, “What is going on? Why does it seem that others are thriving? I can’t seem to create an experience what I’m building in my vision?” I realized that was a while ago and through the years, I’ve come to understand why it was difficult for some things in my dream to come to fruition. I’ll touch base with that later.

What I wanted to share was when she was talking, I appreciated her genuineness and her honesty. It helped me to realize that in the creation of a dream, we’re using our mind and our imagination. But our mind and our imagination most likely has not had a lot of experience with imagining, building a vision, and allowing that to be the precursor for the creating of the vision. As a matter of fact, for most of us, this idea of imagining anything has been thwarted. We were discouraged as children to dream. Put those dreams away. You need to put your head in reality here. You need to get your head out of the clouds, bring it back down, put your nose to the grindstone, get the job done. We live by that. When somebody says, “I want you to use your imagination,” you look at them and like, “I don’t have time for this. Let’s set forth. Tell me the next step I need to do and I’ll do it.”

The brain does not know the difference between what is experienced in a moment and what we can really bring to life in our imagination. Click To Tweet

Why visioning is so important is because what we’re discovering, what science is discovering, and what in spirituality they have known is that matter itself, what we look at, feel, and touch that is solid is actually at a very fundamental level. When you get down into the tinier components, when you’re in a quantum arena with respect to matter, you notice that it’s not so much matter as it is energy. Einstein talked about everything being energy and that energy cannot be created nor destroyed but it can be changed.

In addition to Einstein, a well-known physicist by the name of Max Planck talked about energy, consciousness, and matter. He made the statement that consciousness is the precursor to matter. If we know everything is energy and is malleable, then we know that we can change it. We can shift it like we do when we’re lifting weights. We can change and shift the shape of our muscles, the shape of our body. Our minds, our thoughts, our consciousness are energy. That energy has the capacity to affect change. In addition to setting forth a vision that has the capacity to affect a new outcome, we also have old thoughts that we’re not often aware of that keep us stuck. They’re thoughts and experiences that we may have had that have been ingrained in us somewhere, whether in our mind or our body that speaks to the opposite, whether what they’re speaking to is valid. It was valid as an experience at that moment and it gets ingrained somewhere within the psyche of the person. Those types of things will often come up or be present in addition to what we’re creating and setting forward in our vision.

Effective Creators Of Our Thoughts

How do we help ourselves to be effective creators, effective managers of our thoughts so that we can create experiences in our lives that are most meaningful to us, that are of value that we want to have as an experience? Part of that is the ability to imagine it. We often think that because we can imagine that we should be good at it but working with our imagination and using it to create an idea that has depth to it, that has a feeling tone to it, that has a sensory awareness for us takes practice. For me, it’s no different than if I walk into a workout room having never lifted a weight and they have a series of weights there before me and I’m supposed to step up in 45-minute intervals on a platform holding weights and moving them up and down to gain strength. Maybe I have a vision for what I want my body to look like, how I want it to feel, and the way it’s going to move. I have that, but when I step up and do that first activity, having not done it, it’s not going quite to respond how it will when I have practiced with it enough that it has become my reality.

When I first begin this workout routine, I am nowhere near what my vision is at all. I go down to the weights that feel the most comfortable to me, which at the time is enough. I start my workout routine and I develop the strength to take it to the next step, to add another weight, to step onto a higher step. Instead of a four-inch high step, I go to a nine-inch high step. I do that gradually because working in the arena of strengthening the muscles of my body is a process that takes some time for my body to get acclimated and accustomed to and to be built up. That’s the same way for me when I’m thinking about creating a vision and living my life from something that’s meaningful to me. I have to practice what it feels like and looks like to imagine.

 

I used to be good at it as a child. I don’t know about you, but I was really good. I could imagine all kinds of things, and I did. I was a famous dancer. You wouldn’t believe the beautiful things I could do with my body as a dancer, which actually didn’t even look anything like it did but I didn’t care. In my imagination, I was the top dog there. I was like, “Go, girl.” I had all these visions, these ideas, and I played with them. It’s fun when we watch children play with these but there comes a point that we were taught, “You need to put that aside now. No more playing. That’s play. That doesn’t have any reality.” What we’re coming to realize is that is a reality, that simple act of playing as a child is the ability to strengthen these muscles of imagination so that we can do what Max Planck encouraged us to recognize. That matter comes as a result of consciousness. It was a result of what are we thinking? What are we believing? What are we engaging with? Not the other way around.

As children, we were practicing the things that were essential to assist us in the development and growth of what it is to be free and powerful beings. As we grew up though, that wasn’t necessarily taught, at least to me. I would go to school and my mind was always thinking of all kinds of things. I don’t know about the rest of you, but quite often, I would be called back by the teacher. “Ms. Rogero, knock, knock. Ms. Rogvicableaaaero, where are you?” To the point that sometimes they’d have to walk up and stand in front of the window where I was gazing out to break my concentration. I’d be like, “Where did I go?” “Get your head out of the clouds. You need to come back into the classroom.” It wasn’t necessarily that friendly. There was more of that frustration of, “What are you doing? Get back on task. We need you back on task. You’re not here to daydream.” It’s like, “Okay.”

I wasn’t encouraged. I know that a lot of my peers were not encouraged. We would get caught staring and daydreaming. That’s not something that we had a lot of practice as we grew older. As a matter of fact, what we were encouraged to do was “face reality.” That means you need to get your head out of the clouds, get your nose to the grindstone, do the job that has to be done so you can get what it is that you need to get so you can purchase by having to do whatever’s that you want to purchase, buy, or do. It’s a tough world. These were things that were socially expressed in movies, books, and what was seen as a smart wise person or a person that people wanted to emulate. They were hard workers. They were people that work themselves into the ground. Look at what they accomplished. Often what they accomplished was to the detriment of their being, but they accomplished it.

It’s this idea of it being a struggle and imagining almost seemed to make that struggle be less and that couldn’t happen. You had to work hard for what you got. That’s what makes it valuable. To allow something to come easily means it doesn’t have real value. I don’t agree with that. I am learning that things can come easy and they can be of great value. It depends upon what it is that I want to bring forth and how it is I want to bring it forth. In the process of creating, what I realized is that like building my muscles to strengthen from going a 2 or 5-pound weight up to 10, 15, and 20, I had to do it, first of all, with the vision that what I wanted to have for my body. I had to honor the fact that my body needed to do this in stages. That my mind had this idea and my body needed to do it in stages.

Get your head out of the clouds, get your nose to the grindstone, and do the job that has to be done to get what it is you need to get. Click To Tweet

Begin With Consciousness

That’s the same way with using the imagination. We’ll step out because we tend to be thinkers and our minds tend to be going all the time that this imagining shouldn’t be a difficult thing. I’ve created this vision in my mind. I’ve written all I want. This is all I’ve ever wanted. I’ve written it down. I was clear and it didn’t come to pass. I’ve either failed miserably or it’s malarkey. There’s so much more than defining what it is we want that’s a part of the creation of what we are wanting. It begins with consciousness but consciousness is more than mere thought. Consciousness includes the inequivicable knowingness that what you’re putting forth is in fact your reality.

Coming to know that thoroughly, completely, means it’s going to require the opportunity to move through the process where we become aware of beliefs that we have that are in opposition to that idea or to that goal. We’ve all had experiences in life. We’ve all learned things in life that not only do we have a memory of that are contained within the memory banks, but they’re also contained within our body. As we are stepping forward to create something that we’ve wanted, oftentimes it may trigger, without a real understanding, the beliefs that we have of why what we want is impossible. We’re not even consciously aware of it.

I’ll give you an example. Part of the work that I have done in my business is learning how to value what it is that I bring to my business because so much of it is a more intangible, spiritual nature. I grew up with this idea that you don’t charge for anything that has aligned with spirit, God, or anything. Let yourself be taken care of because that’s the nature. Part of that nature means I need to stand up and own what I feel it is that I bring, but I wasn’t even cognizant of that at all while I was establishing this dream and establishing this vision of what I wanted to create. Only to find that I kept falling short of it and I couldn’t understand why. I can remember working exclusively with this coach. She’s like, “You should be kicking it, girl, but you’re not. There’s got to be some underlying element.”

In the course of that, I went and I started to connect and work with people to help me to explore what could be going on. I became aware, not only in my mind, but where in my body, I was holding on to these ideas that fed into this concept a lack of value for what I was bringing and also a lack of value within myself, things that I wasn’t conscious of and it was surprising. I’m like, “Wow.” The wow wasn’t necessarily verbal. Sometimes the wow was tears because I’m like, “What is going on?” I would connect with people who I always had in my corner. I worked to have people in my corner and I worked to be in the corners for people that as we started to move through these understandings, we had somebody in the corner going, “You got this. Trust.” That’s how in my journey I learned to trust.

 

I learned to trust that inner voice, that voice inside me, that guidance that often could be words, oftentimes it was impressions, was feelings registering in different parts of my body that I knew intuitively this is what I needed to do. This is what I needed to tap in more of. It might be that I wasn’t tapping into everything but there might have been a piece of information in a book that I needed. Not the whole book but a piece or maybe it was a whole book. The idea was listening, paying attention to, and learning to trust and follow this internal guidance. That is why I teach it. That is why this show is here because there is something profoundly beautiful, something profoundly valuable in that journey for each of us, however, it looks and it’s different for everybody.

Putting That Sensory Feel To Your Vision

Through that process, I began to honor and acknowledge the value of what I was bringing, the value of myself and the value of what these ideas that were coming through me so clearly could have for another. As those were beginning to come through, this vision of what I was creating and what I wanted gained greater clarity, gained clarity in what it looks like, how it would unfold, and what I’d really want. It began to have a sensory feel to it. Let me give you an example. I had a client whose dream was to live on the beach. This client was as far away from living on the beach as you could possibly imagine. Financially, interest-wise, all these things were in the way within this client’s mind and understanding of getting to the beach. This person decided to play with these concepts, to explore because they felt called to that. They began to play with the concepts. I’m going to use they rather than he and she out of honor and respect for my client. They began to play with the idea.

They went through the process of where do you want to be? What do you want it to look like? How do you want it to feel? When you’re walking when you’re on a beach? Does it mean that you’re walking on the beach and going home? Do you have a home on the beach? What does it smell like to be on your beach? What can you hear? Who are you with? Are you by yourself in quiet contemplation? Do you feel what that feels like? How does that register in your body? Are you with somebody and a bunch of friends, you’re laughing, and having a great time? Are you with someone special and you can feel the warmth of their hand in yours as you’re walking? Are you sitting, looking out and you’re seeing porpoises jumping, watching skiers, listening to the waves crash? What does it feel like?

At first, that person struggled to bring that into clarity, like me trying to struggle with bringing a fifteen-pound weight when the best I was able to do at a time was five pounds. I had to start simple and move my way up. Before long, this individual had a very clear picture and every day took time to play in the image of that picture. that one picture, played with it and moved about their days. It wasn’t long. I would say within two years. That individual, through a series of experiences, ended up living on the beach and that’s where that person is living now.

The biggest gift that we have is the freedom to decide if we're going to listen to the guidance around us. Click To Tweet

How it unfolded for him wasn’t as much as concern as what it was that he was really wanting and paying attention to how that felt. He was creating in consciousness what he wanted to experience within matter. As he was doing that, he gave permission for it to unfold in a way that was going to be in the highest service. It came in that way, opening up connections that hadn’t been opened in a while, reconnecting with individuals that there had been a separation. Very fascinating to watch but that all came to, not only in this idea of creating this vision and opening to the possibilities but the experience of learning how to trust that it would unfold for their best good. Often times, we hear for your best good. Does that mean I’m going to get slapped around for a while? That’s where my best good because I need to learn my lesson. It really depends upon the background that we’ve come from.

What’s so interesting for me is that as I’ve walked with individuals, each one has had their own profound, I want to say reconnection, not that there’s ever been a disconnection, but reawakening to that inner guidance that has offered wisdom and knowledge in a way, that enabled them to come to it in terms that felt the safest for them, even when it still felt scary because we’re stretching out beyond the unknown when we start to listen to this internal guide. Sometimes we get this impulse to move down there and logic steps in and says, “You don’t want to go that way.” Intuitively, there’s something saying, “Check that out.”

There’s a process of growth but it’s not going to be such that you’re going to be asked to jump in a six-foot pool when you’re a small kid and you don’t know how to swim. It’s going to say, “Here’s at this end.” It’s going to be what we’re capable of and working within that. It comes forward too. It may be one of my journeys to connecting with a man in my life, that I would want to live my life with, who would want to have all these things on my head and be a father that I wanted for our children. I had all this and I moved through all kinds of relationships, but what happened is that there came a point in time that I needed additional help. This was long before I began the visioning process.

I needed additional help because I was caught in a belief structure that kept feeding the sense of unworthiness to me. I kept believing in this structure that was harsh to me, was judgmental of me but somehow by being judgmental, I was being better. I don’t know. I was not going to get caught unawares. I have no idea really. There are all kinds of little fingers in there throughout that work but I ended up moving into therapy. It went from me thinking that, “You need me to lock up because of how weird you’re feeling to.” It was one of the best experiences I ever had.” because I was introduced to new ways to see things. I was open to receiving new ideas about me. I had the opportunity to process things in ways that I got to decide if I was ready for it or not. That opened me up in a world where I could start owning what it was that mattered to me so that I could move into a relationship with someone owning that. That was a key to having the relationship I wanted to have.

As you are playing around with what you want to bring to the world, what you want to bring for your life, and you’re playing with this idea of creating a vision for yourself, and you’re turning inward for guidance, I would say know that it’s okay that it goes the way that’s most supportive of you. If there’s nothing else that this guidance is, it is absolute love. There’s going to be love to agree that each of us is able to take it in. It’s not going to go away because we can only take it in at a certain degree. It’s going to be there so that the next time we open up and we can take in more, it’s there and we can realize more, it’s there.

As we pay attention and we start to gain a sense of trust, then we’re going to be open to new opportunities, experiences, and possibilities that will open our personal world in ways that we could never figure, but are very affirming, even in a world where it feels everything but that. I support you as you take this journey to do it your way, to be honest with where you are, and know that right there, that guidance is present in service to you. It’s of service to you even if you’re looking at me going, “Rebecca, you got your head up in the air.” There’s always a way that guidance is continuing to speak to us. The biggest gift that we have is the freedom to decide if we’re going to listen to it and if we’re going to listen to what it has to say. I wish you a great day and a life that feels honoring and joyful, whatever it is that you want your life to feel. I’ll use words that are meaningful to me but I don’t know what that is for you, Know that you are honored and respected. Have a great day. Here’s to your life. Embrace it.