Have you ever been asked the question, “where do you see yourself in one year?” or “where do you see your company in one year?” Both questions focus on the one year vision that you have in your mind and it’s a clear indicator of how clear you are on who you want to become as an individual or as a company.
No matter what people tell you, they are lost without a clear one year vision that they are constantly reminding themselves of and working towards on a daily basis. I know because I once was more focused on longer term visions, let’s say 2, 3, 4 year visions, and it was extremely difficult to stay focused on those long term visions and link them to the present.
It was only after I read Napolean Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” that I had a revelation around the idea of having my own one year vision. The book is an amazing read that dives deep into the psychological tendencies of the most successful business people and politicians of the 1900s while Napolean Hill was still alive and studying the art of these individuals. The book is world renowned for its messages and I believe that it makes a slightly different impact on every single person that reads it.
In this article, I am going to explain why you need a one year vision and how it will impact your ability to make your goals come true faster than you could ever imagine. It is with a one year vision and laser focus that allows the most productive people to change the world.
What is a One Year Vision?
Glad that you asked. A one year vision is a very specific, definite outcome that you want to achieve. It can be specific to your personal life or your business, but it must be definite and you must really understand what your life will be like once it comes true. I know that it’s hard to wrap your head around that simple definition so allow me to provide you with an example from my life so you can see what a real one year vision looks like.
About 1 year ago, I finished reading Hill’s book and I was ready to create my own one year vision for who I would become over the upcoming year. I followed the directions outlined in the book and I really took the time to imagine who I wanted to become as an entrepreneur.
I spent a couple of hours writing in my notebook about this life that I would eventually be living and I described it in detail. I thought about the clothes I’d be wearing, the home that I’d be living in, the amount of money in my bank account, the number of customers that my businesses would be serving, the trips I’d be taking, and everything else in between.
It was a tough activity at first, but then I just let my mind go as if I were writing a fiction novel about a future life that I always wished I could have. I let my hand do the writing as my mind controlled what came out of the pen. The following goals are what resulted:
- Earn $250,000 in 2017
- Build FreeeUp to 10,000 hours billed per week by end of 2017
- Re-build Portlight to earn $100,000 in net profits in 2017
- Become a best selling author in 2017
- Become an industry figure –> be featured on 60+ podcasts by end of 2017
- Build ConnorGillivan.com to over 10,000 visitors per month and make it profitable by end of 2017
That is what I mean by a one year vision. It is a set of specific goals or outcomes that you want to achieve within a given period of time. Notice that almost all of my goals are extremely specific. They outline a quantitative goal and then provide a timeline in which it must be completed.
Why You Need a One Year Vision as an Entrepreneur
Now that you understand what a one year vision is, let me explain why you need one. The human mind is an amazing part of the body that most of us do not fully tap into as we are growing as people, and especially within entrepreneurship. Over time and through many studies and tests, I’ve learned different features of the brain and mind that allow you to create the future that you want through training.
Just like any other part of your body, your brain requires training in order to fully believe in something and direct your entire self towards that outcome. The brain is different in that it has the ability to remove doubt and instill confidence once it has been trained so much on a given topic or goal that you want to achieve.
As an entrepreneur, you are always looking to build and grow your business as quickly as you possibly can. You want to become the next big company that others look up to for advice and you want to achieve success without running into many failures along the way.
When you don’t have a one year vision as an entrepreneur, you can still head in the right direction of where you want to go by landing new customers and selling your product, but your mind will not be fully trained to achieve a definite outcome. It’s almost like you are leaving extra money on the table when you don’t have a one year vision and when you don’t train yourself to work towards one given outcome or a set of outcomes, as outlined above.
However, when you have that one year vision and when you really take the time to think about who you want to become in a one year span, you become an unstoppable force that is simply on its path towards the end reality that you’ve thought up. I know that it’s hard to believe if you’ve yet to tap into the power of one year vision planning, but I can tell you that it is 100% real.
Within weeks of creating the one year vision that I outlined above, I saw immediate changes to how I was running my life and how things were starting to come together that were leading me closer and closer to that one year vision. While I worked my ass off day in and day out, I could tell that things were different. My mind and my entire being was pointed in the same direction 100% believing in the one year vision that I had created. It became less of a question about “would it happen?” and more of a question about “when will it happen?”
If I lost you at all in this section, continue reading. In this next section, I’m going to outline how the one year vision links to your daily routine. I’ll outline exact steps you can take to make your dreams become a reality through the one year vision and daily focus.
How to Use Your One Year Vision to Achieve your Dream Reality
Once you have created your one year vision, the true secret to setting your mind on the right path is your day to day focus. Without a hyper focus every single day, you can easily lose sight of your one year vision and your mind will become focused on other things around you. You’ll start to see other visions and you’ll be distracted from who you want to become. When this happens, you can be turned completely off track and lose everything that you started.
In order to avoid that from happening, follow these steps. They are steps that I have been practicing every single day for the past year and I can tell you that they are working.
Step 1: Create your definite one year vision. Write it down somewhere that you can easily see it every day.
Step 2: Make reading your own year vision the first thing that you do when you wake up and go to sleep every single day. Once you’ve memorized your one year vision, repeat it to yourself as you fall asleep and right when you wake up. Close your eyes and imagine how your life will be different once your one year vision is reality.
Step 3: Create goals every single day that propel you towards your one year vision goals. Focus on those goals and avoid any distractions that pull you away from it.
That’s it. Do that for one full month and reflect on how much progress you have made towards your one year vision goals. I guarantee that they seem way closer than they did when you first wrote them down one month prior. Reflect at the end of each month throughout the following year taking note of changes that you’ve seen to your habits, your beliefs, and the reality of your life.
Make corrections where you slipped up (if you missed a day of remembering your one year vision) and share your one year vision with others. When you tell someone else about your visions, you feel more obliged to make them come true. It’s almost as if you are giving them something that you highly treasure. When you do that, you want to make sure that you keep it true to its word.
Create Your One Year Vision Today
The first step towards achieving your goals and your desired lifestyle is building your one year vision. If you can’t imagine it, you can’t make it a reality. Take 1 hour, sit down in a quiet place, and write/type about who you want to become in 1 year’s time.
Once you have that definite vision in your mind, break it down into simple bullet points that you can remember. Work the habit of thinking about those definite goals into your daily routine when you go to bed and wake up.
Each day, align your actions with your end goals and find ways to take baby steps towards creating the life that you want to live.
If you have any clarifying questions about creating a one year vision, leave them in the comments and I’ll be in touch! If you’re interested in a private call with me to learn more about a one year vision, contact me at Connor@ConnorGillivan.com.
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The Two Key Characteristics of Influential Entrepreneurs: Vision and Focus
