How to make your vision for 2014 a reality!
I love this time of year. So many new projects, start-ups pushing forward and freelancers touting their wares. It fills me with a mix of trepidation and excitement. Like a great fantasy movie full of promise, new possibilities, and some stuff people don’t really believe is possible.
There are a million tips out there, endless lists and loads of advice so why aren’t we all cyborgs, conquering human and technological feats way beyond even our most expansive desires.
Easy, the answer lies not in lists but in the bespoke, in you, what is unique to you and your skills. Sorry there’s no escape from that one.
As you might guess, with most subhuman activity, there is some metal involved. Though here we’re talking ‘mettle’. Courage and strength but that’s pretty obvious. All successful freelancers, entrepreneurs, and small business owners are warriors. In fact anyone who realises a vision is a warrior.
So how to do it? Here are two big clues! Yup, that’s it, just two. (There are many more but I’m going to keep things easy because getting a vision off the ground is hard enough.)
1: Eye for detail
Envisioning spectacular worlds. To take an idea from the sock drawer, or a company to the next level and turn it into a reality you need to know how to look, what to look at, what others are looking at and when to stop looking. You’ve guessed it: your vision is actually about vision in all respects, metaphorical and otherwise.
But it’s not enough to say these things so here’s where the science fiction ends and the reality sets in. It takes skills. If you are not sure where you are on the optical skills scale or how to attain these skills, here’s an exercise to get those juices flowing. Have a look at the little orange image above on the right – what do you see? There’s no right or wrong here, what’s interesting is what you are thinking and doing. How many elements have you found? Ok – I’ll tell you there are 55 elements to that image, (Well that I’ve found). I’ve listed 45 at the bottom of the page. If you want to cheat take a look now. That’s fine, as now you know that you need two additional people in your team. One that likes to look carefully at the detail and one that loves divergent thinking!
2: Divergent thinking
Innovation that makes an impact. Let’s take the Indri lemur and not because of its similarity to Darth Vader in colour but because of how in the 60s the Natural Historian David Attenborough discovered the key to turning a vision into a reality. This was cutting edge innovation that changed the way we see the world, only a few years before it was the stuff of science fiction.
For days and days Attenborough followed the sound of these incredibly sensitive, agile, fast and isolated lemurs in Madagascar, with a then state of the art recording device, only for them to elude him time and time again. He was almost on the brink of giving up when he stopped the pursuit of his project in its tracks and decided to communicate with the lemurs via his recordings. He stayed put and played their language and they simply came to him!
I love this metaphor because it teaches us so much about what’s important – the impact your vision makes on others. It also teaches us the importance of knowing when to stop and rethink.
There will always be an element of science fiction to our visions, a bit of suspended disbelief or fighting consensus reality but to make it achievable, an understanding of ourselves, an eye for detail and above all an understanding of our audience or consumer, (or in this case, lemurs), is what’s needed for it to end up in a future that works beautifully for you and others!
© Copyright 2014 Coaching Nation – all rights reserved. Feel free to share.
Image when upright:
- House
- A doorway
- A door knob
- A pathway
- A birds house
- A triangle
- A rectangle
- A sad character person
- A frame
- A gift tag
- A Chinese man
- Eyes
- Another eye
- An eyebrow
- Another eyebrow
- A mouth
- A nose
- A nostril
- A sleeping person
- A road
- A white background
- Three little chips at the bottom of the house
- Orange
- Blue
- A series of lines
- 14 corners
- Letters
- Dots
- A web address -:)
- A hole
- A roof
- A hole in the roof
- An arrow
- A circle
- A tunnel
- Pencil lines
- A slanted line
- Two windows
- The tip of a mountain
Image when horizontal:
- A road
- A T junction
- A roundabout
- A car
- A bend in the road
- Part of a vaulting box
Let me know if you find the remaining 10 – [email protected]