Do You Have a Vision for Your Life?
So often entrepreneurs are so focused on getting their idea or business off the ground that they lose sight of the bigger picture of their own lives. Traci and Rob talk about how having a defined mission and vision for your life can lead to great clarity and increased confidence as you look to the future.
Transcript
Traci:
Welcome to the Overly Human podcast where we discuss all things human in the workplace because it's not just business—it's personal too.
Rob:
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Overly Human podcast with Rob and Traci.
How are you today, Traci?
Traci:
I'm good. I'm good. How are you doing?
Rob:
I'm living the dream. Everything's good here in sunny Dayton, Ohio.
Traci:
That's awesome.
Rob:
Today we're talking about having a vision for your life. I'm pretty excited because I get to talk to you Traci, and you're one of the experts at this. One of the things that you do with Navigate the Journey is help people create a life vision. I think I'd like to start with a really simple question just for everybody is how do you know you need one and where do you start?
Traci:
Well, those are all great questions. What I typically find when clients are coming to me to do a life plan and to create a mission statement and a vision statement for their life is that all of us in American society have gone through this predetermined trajectory for each of our lives, right? We go through high school talking about what college did we want to go to or what do we want to do post moving out of our parents' home. Then for some of us who go to college or go straight into starting a business or starting a career, that's what we're working towards in the early adulthood years, right, is building that career or building that company and finding a spouse or a partner, maybe having kids. All of these things seem to be just on the list of things that we're either supposed to do or have been longing to do from childhood to adulthood.
Then we approach middle age, and as we do, we begin to take a breath. For some of us, we've built that career or we've built that family or we've built that company and now we realize, we're at this crossroads. What's next? In light that there's no predefined next step for us from a societal standpoint, what's next? We're living longer, we're more active than we've ever been. We have the ability through technology to have multiple careers. Our generation is a bit different than the generations that preceded us. We have that ability and gift nowadays to actually ask ourselves this question like, “What do the next 20, 30 years hold and should we be intentional about defining that? Should we make the most of the next 20 or 30 years?”
A lot of research is showing that we should. Actually, one of the fastest growing demographics of suicide, which was one of the most surprising things that I read, was 75 year old men. Men who have come to a point in their life where they've looked back and are like, what just happened? Feeling a little bit of lost or directionless. That kind of wakes me up and oftentimes my clients to say, you know what? I don't want to wake up at 75 and think I just went through the motions or I grew stale or I wasn't living an intentional life. I actually want to define what I want to do next over the next 20 or 30 years.
Rob:
It sounds like you're talking about like even defining one's purpose a little bit too. Is that all part of this?
Traci:
It is all part of it. Actually, my daughter is taking Latin and I admire her for that. I don't understand any of it, but we were actually looking at the word ‘vision’ and it comes from a Latin word that actually means wisdom. Really what we're talking about is, looking at your past and your present, what do you want to do with your future? Where do your abilities, your gifting in your passions lie?
One of the exercises I do with my clients is called Talent Heart Assessment. What we believe is that where your talents, your innate unique gifting, what you're encoded to do, which is different than just the things you're good at, right? This is really what are you genetically uniquely designed to do? Cross that with your heart, which is what are you passionate about and that's your purpose. Where are those two intersect as your purpose? From there we can create a purpose statement or why we exist statement that will then feed in to your vision.
Rob:
Okay. Can I be just cynical just for a minute?
Traci:
Sure.
Rob:
Because I identify with a lot of the things you're saying about…hey, you're middle-aged, check. You've done things for a while and now you're looking about what's next and you want to live with intentionality. I identify a lot with that. I think about, is this almost like first world problem? Like, we figured out how to survive. I don't worry about where my next meal is coming from anymore. In a lot of ways I don't even worry as much about my company surviving the next...we've been doing Sparkbox for 11 years now. Is it trying to fill that need of, hey, you've accomplished a lot. What are you going to set up yourself next to do?
Traci:
Well, first I'll say that one of the things that can kill creating a vision for your life is cynicism. I always say that's the number one thing is entering into the process with cynicism, right? Which is super easy to do because it's easy when you have this conversation to think, oh my gosh, this is just a bunch of mumbo jumbo weird stuff or something. You know?
The way I look at it is, is that we're often times admired and remembered for our character, not our accomplishments. When you go through life and it is a first global problem in some ways because we're talking about success versus the positive impact on the world around us, which actually I think makes it more universal, right? When we think about how we want to positively impact the world around us versus I just want to be successful, right?
I think that is the tie that binds all of us universally and globally, right? Is when you think about, America is often known for its ambition and its success and its power and its profitability. That's not how the whole world is looking at life, right? What can tie us globally is remembering who we are as human beings, right? This is our Overly Human podcasts and let's make it human. What are we admired for when it comes down to it? What are we remembered for when it comes down to it? Ultimately that's our character, not our level of success, not the amount of money that we make. How do we build that? How do we positively impact the world around us? The only way that we're really going to do that is putting some thought into who we are and how we're uniquely designed and what we love and what we're passionate about. And then really putting words on paper and effort behind how we're going to live that out to positively impact the world. Does that help?
Rob:
You know, I don't have the experience you do coaching others. I have watching what me, myself, and people close around me are going through and it feels like, what I see over and over again is, especially with small business founders and creators, is their purpose and drive when they get started is to merely be successful. You see the character and the things that they believe be represented and what they're building.
And there comes a point when usually they've had some success because they stop worrying about survival anymore and they get into a thriving mode. And what that thriving mode requires is having really capable, smart, intelligent people that you've surrounded yourself with. And at that point, you become less necessary to the thing you created. I hate the phrase “single point of failure,” and I much prefer the “single point of success." But at some point, successful businesses don't have a single point of success in them. They’re teams, they’re systems that get set up.
A lot of times, most of the owners that I know or people who run these businesses have this moment where they're like, well, what do I do now? That's the point where even myself, it's like, okay, well, I've been somewhat successful, what is my purpose now? How do I add value? What is those things? I see where this kind of thing would make a lot of sense in that situation.
Do you see in your work where people are like not in that place?
Traci:
Yes. I mean, I see people at all different crossroads that bring them to me where they're asking these types of questions. I mean, what you described…the majority of my clients are CEOs, are owners, are founders who have reached this point where they're saying, “Okay, I want to be less necessary, but I want to be necessary.” So how do I define that for myself?
Oftentimes after going through the process of a life plan or going through the process of sitting down and trying to define these things for themselves, it can be a really invigorating or reinvigorating process where it allows you to go back to your business with a totally different perspective of how you can...again, this is about wisdom and positive impact…and not only how you can breathe life, a new life into your days at work and new life into your team and those around you, but also how you can do that in all domains of your life, right?
So we're talking about your life at home with your family, with your community, with your neighbors. A true purpose and vision statement should actually breathe life into all areas around you. You're thinking about all avenues of your life. That is why I'll see people outside of the stage that you're talking about as well is because many people will come to this crossroads or time in life and they're like, I really want to make the next 20, 30 years matter, but I want to make it matter in a different way. A way that's unique to me, a way that doesn't feel like I'm just trying to keep the lights on at work or I'm just following the steps that were laid before me, but really going deep.
I always use Peter Drucker as an example because it's fun to think about him. The father of modern management, so successful, so revered by so many people in the business world. He wrote about 39 books in total, two thirds of those books he wrote after the age of 65. He gave his last lecture at the age of 95, right, not that long before he died. And he always felt like the best years of somebody's life was between the ages of 60 and 90. When you look at it that way, that's invigorating. That's amazing to think about and can really give people that extra oomph that they really need to either go back into their company, to start a new company, to really just be a better parent. There's all different ways that you can look at, how this really can refresh and reinvigorate your life.
Rob:
I really like that whole 60 to 90 is the best years because that completely coincides with my belief that life keeps getting better. I haven't experienced any of the downsides of middle age, yet, I'm having more fun than I ever have. I love that part.
If somebody is out there listening to this, do you have a couple pieces of advice or a couple things that they should look for to know if this is an exercise or something they should be thinking about? What are the signs?
Traci:
What are the signs? The signs are that you feel like you're feeling somewhat dissatisfied, apathetic, tired. That you're just going through the motions or maybe everything's going well, but you're just longing for something more. Maybe you're not feeling as impactful as you used to feel. You're just feeling this discontent and it doesn't mean that your whole life is falling apart. It actually oftentimes, I don't want you to be doing this work if your whole life is falling apart. I really want you to do it with a healthy mindset that you're going into this, I want to optimize my life.
One step that I have people do is sit down and look at all the different domains of your life. Look at your personal, look at your family life. Look at your vocation, your work life. Look at your community around you, how you interact with your friends and family. Look at your spiritual life if you have one. Do the exercise of what's right that I want to optimize? What's wrong that I need to fix? What's missing that I need to add? What's confused that I need to clarify?
If you ask those four questions in each domain of your life, see what you come up with. Sit down and really look and see and decide, are there some things I want to change? Are there some things I want to get behind? Do I really want to sit down and do this work, this vision work, this mission work, and really think about what my future holds? I think that's a good exercise, it's a good place to start to look at your life 360, full 360 perspective on how you're showing up and what you might be needing or wanting for.
Rob:
There's just seasons for all things, right?
Traci:
Yeah.
Rob:
For me personally, and I know that you and I have had this conversation in the past, I'm not the same person I was 15, 20 years ago. At least I hope not, in a lot of ways, and I think that purpose can change, right? Even what you desire and what you've learned.
One of the things that I've thought about a lot recently is this whole idea of wisdom versus baggage and how we go through our lives. We're always collecting both of those things. The trick is to figure out which is which, because if we let baggage dictate our future, then we're ruling out things that we learned in the wrong season or things we think we learned and could be wrong about. The wisdom is things that we should follow.
Deciding and being able to pick things, those things apart I think is a lot of what you're talking about is actually this retrospective a little bit. We do even like with our projects at work is like, hey, what's working? Let's continue those things. What's not working? Let's stop. What new ideas we need to start? Right?
Traci:
Exactly.
Rob:
Then move forward with that. It's feedback loop, right? Iterate and go on for that, those things.
Traci:
I think what you just said is really beautiful. I think, we start all of our life plans with the past. Where are the turning points? Major turning points of your life from birth to today. The reason we do that is for exactly what you're talking about, the baggage. Sometimes we have to see the patterns in our life and we need to have some closure on those old wounds before we can decide what we want to do moving forward. That's really healthy and really important for us.
Rob:
I think that's absolutely right. One of the things that I constantly say to myself mostly is I need to leave room to be completely wrong about things I'm sure of, and always leave that space because things are different. The lessons I've learned could have not been real lessons or been wrong timing. Like, sample size is too small to draw absolute conclusions from.
Traci:
That's really wise and it's important to be looking at life through that lens. I think oftentimes as we get older, things tend to become too black and white for us. We get really set in our ways or we really believe something and that's how we become those scary older people that our kids laugh at or shake their heads at.
So having that perspective that I'm not going to always think I'm right about everything or leaving that space to know that I can be wrong or maybe I need to look at things in a different way or relearn some old habits I think is a great way of approaching life.
Rob:
I completely agree. I flipped from the cynical side to agreeing with you now.
Traci:
I love when you do that. It's my favorite part.
Rob:
No, I know. All right. Well, do you have anything you'd like to add at the end here?
Traci:
Probably the last thing I'll say is that as we age and we might know this, I feel like I'm feeling this even especially right now, is one of the big constraints or risks we can come up against is energy. We just feel tired and sometimes when we enter into thinking about these types of things, it sounds really good, but we're just so tired.
I just want to encourage people to really think about putting that oxygen mask on themselves first. Think about the things that they need to do to replenish themselves, to refuel themselves. Whether that's alone time, whether that's exercise, whether that's thinking about your health habits, whatever it is, spending some quality time with your family. Just re-energize and refuel because energy is essential to a process like this and really thinking about the back half of your life and making it great. We need to take care of ourselves and re-energize.
Rob:
Oh yeah, self-care is huge. You can't do the work on oneself if there's not time and the space to do it.
Traci:
Exactly.
Rob:
Hey, thanks for chatting today. I always appreciate it and we'll see you next time.
Traci:
Thank you.
Traci:
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The Overly Human podcast is brought to you by Navigate the Journey and Sparkbox. For more information on this podcast, or to get in touch with Traci or Rob, go to overlyhuman.com. Thanks for listening.