What would your ideal life look like if you could envision it five years from now? This is your life vision, and it’s one of the biggest predictors of your overall success.
However, arriving at that clarity can be tricky if you don’t have a deep-rooted purpose. On top of that, you may see your life in a limited way, only through the lens of your career and finances.
But your life is much more than two or three dimensions. When you come up with a vision for all aspects of your life, it will serve as your ultimate North Star, helping you navigate your journey and stay on track.
What is a personal vision statement?
Your personal vision statement answers the question, “What do you want?” It’s called “vision” because you answer this question as if you have no limitations at all.
In other words, you want to set the bar as high as possible. Most importantly, you should envision your life as broadly as possible from multiple dimensions.
According to Jon Butcher, creator of Lifebook and trainer of Mindvalley’s Lifebook Online Quest, your vision statement refers to the ideal state you would like to achieve in each area of your life. In Lifebook, 12 major dimensions comprise your human experience:
- Health and fitness
- Intellectual
- Emotional
- Character
- Spiritual
- Love relationship
- Parenting
- Social
- Career
- Financial
- Quality of life
- Life Vision
The first five categories are your personal life. It’s all about who you are as a separate individual in terms of your body, mind, emotions, and spirit. And it depends on you alone.
Your relationships include your love relationships, parenting, and social life, profoundly impacting your quality of life.
Your business life includes your financial life and career. A good practice might be to create a business-specific vision statement, especially if you’re an entrepreneur.
The quality of your life is all experiences you want to have and the quality of it. It’s about your dream house, exotic travels, and other adventures.
The last dimension is a vivid description of your future — your life vision. It answers the question, “What does your life look like five years from now if all your goals and dreams in each category become a reality?”
Ideally, you want to envision every category, which will make it complete.
Also, it’s crucial to understand that your vision is dynamic. It can change as you change. It’s a never-ending process of asking yourself, “What do I want in life?”
The differences between vision and mission statements
In marketing expert Jamie Falkowski’s words, “A vision is an aspiration. A mission is actionable.”
Your vision statement describes what it would be like after you have achieved your goal. Your mission statement, on the other hand, should describe how you want to achieve that goal or what you wish to create.
Here’s an example to clarify the distinction between a personal vision statement and a personal mission statement:
- Sample personal vision statement: A world without poverty.
- Sample mission statement: To provide nutrition to those in need.
Essentially, your vision statement is a state of being, while your mission statement is a strategy.
Why is it important?
Your vision statement reflects your self-identity, core values, and meaning. If you don’t know what you want, you have no destination.
There are millions of people, corporations, gurus, and politicians who are willing to fill that gap and make you go where they want you to go as opposed to where you want to go.
On the contrary, having a clear vision and reasons why it’s important helps you take steps toward your goals. Most importantly, it’s completely impossible to live an extraordinary life if you don’t know who you are and what you want.
Jon explains that having a clear life vision doesn’t make things easier — it simply makes it possible. “When you have it crystal clear, you won’t be compromising your relationships, health, career, or any other area of your life,” he adds.
If you don’t have a clear vision of your future, you will be pulled into a rabbit hole.
— Jon Butcher, trainer of Mindvalley’s Lifebook Online Quest
It starts with the understanding that you are totally in control of your life and then it takes living from this place of ownership. Otherwise, speaking with the words of Jack Delosa, founder of Australia’s largest education institution for entrepreneurs, The Entourage, your will end up living OPRs — “other people’s rules.”
In this conversation with Vishen, Jon and Missy elaborate on why it’s paramount to have a clear vision:
How to write your vision statement in 5 steps
Writing a personal vision statement is a process of awakening — awakening to the idea that you are in charge of making your own decisions in all dimensions of your life.
Creating your life vision isn’t easy, but it’s available to everyone who’s committed to themselves. It’s a mental exercise that creates an immense gravitational pull on your daily choices and actions that will eventually become your destiny.
Let’s look at a step-by-step process of writing your vision statement for 12 dimensions:
1. Explore your fundamental beliefs—what are your beliefs?
In Lifebook, it’s called premise — foundational beliefs you hold about each category. Exploring them is critical because they control your thoughts, decisions, behaviors, and destiny.
For example, if you believe that money is the root of all evil, it will sabotage your vision and even strategy to create financial abundance in your life.
Answer these questions:
- What do you believe about health, money, relationships, spirituality, etc.?
- What deep-seated beliefs shape your life?
- Are your beliefs empowering?
- Do they move you at a deep level, or are they holding you back?
Once identified, you can consciously choose empowering beliefs that support your vision.
2. Write your vision statement—what do you want?
In this step, you envision each area of your life the way you want it to be by answering these questions:
- How do you want this area of your life to feel?
- What do you want it to look like?
- What do you want to be doing on a consistent basis?
- If your life were exactly how you wanted it to be in that category, what would it consist of?
Give yourself permission to dream big and write down exactly what you want to achieve.
3. Identify your “why”—why do you want it?
This is your purpose — compelling reasons behind what you want in each dimension of your life. According to Jon, it determines whether you get what you want or not.
Answer these questions:
- Why is it important to you?
- What energizes you?
- What empowers you to take action?
- What motivates you to achieve your vision?
- What will you gain if you achieve it, and what will you lose if you don’t?
Your purpose equals motivation. If your purpose is strong enough, you will do whatever it takes to manifest your dreams.
4. Come up with a strategy—what can you do to achieve it?
Your strategy refers to the specific actions that will get you from where you are now to where you want to be. How will you bring your vision into reality?
Your strategy is where your goals live.
— Jon Butcher, trainer of Mindvalley’s Lifebook Online Quest
Look at where you’re now in relationship to your vision and ask yourself:
- What kind of positive habits, attitudes, and action steps can you implement?
- What’s the recipe for the vision you want to create in each category?
- What support do you need on this journey?
The key is to write down the steps you can take to start moving towards your goals, no matter how small they are.
5. Put them all together into one life vision
Now you integrate all 11 visions you’ve come up with so far into one singular life vision for your future. All 11 categories aren’t isolated from one another — they only give the organizational structure.
So you can’t skip or neglect one of the categories because they are all equally important. They are different aspects of you, a complex being.
The question you ask:
- What does your life look like five years from now if all your goals and dreams in each category become a reality?
- Describe your dream house, your ideal day, your level of health and fitness, your ideal love relationships and social life, your dream family, your dream career, and your high-quality lifestyle.
- How do you push yourself intellectually?
- What emotions are you experiencing consistently?
- What specific character traits have you built?
- What do you do to feel spiritually connected?
When you put everything together, you will have a blueprint for your vision of your unique future in all aspects of your life. It’s a big and complex mission, just like your life itself.
Inspiring personal vision statement examples
Let’s look at vision statements shared by Jon and Mindvalley’s students of Lifebook Online for each category to inspire you.
Health and fitness:
- Being in great physical shape is my identity.
- I choose to be a strong muscular athlete for the rest of my life.
- I will continue improving my aerobic capacity, strength, and flexibility as time goes by.
- I’m planning to live to be at least 100 years old.
Intellectual life:
- I am a highly intelligent person. I trust my mind to come up with good decisions. I live smart, and that makes me smart.
- I will constantly improve my intellectual capabilities in the future. I dedicate myself to a life of never-ending intellectual improvement and education.
- I will use my intellect to live an intelligent life. I will take action on the info I learn.
- I will think deeply and deliberately about everything important to me.
Emotional life:
- I see myself as having very high emotional intelligence.
- I will become a master at managing my emotional states. I will define and create the emotional experiences I want to feel on an ongoing basis.
- I’ll let all those positive emotions add up to an extraordinary attitude.
- I will consciously cultivate and nurture my highest emotional value – Happiness.
Character traits:
- Reliability: Doing what I say I will every time. My word is my bond.
- Courage: I am not afraid to take the necessary risks. I can be fearful and still do something anyway.
- Kindness, compassion, and respect for others. These balance my intense personality. My actions never violate the rights of the people around me.
- Determination: I can accomplish anything that I set my mind to.
Spiritual life:
- The spiritual path is a quest for self-actualization and a commitment to helping others achieve the same.
- I will continuously strive to obtain a clearer vision of reality and my place in it.
- I want to contribute to others to the best of my ability. And leave this world a better place than when I found it.
- I am here to nurture, care for, love, guide, support and protect my family for as long as I live. They are and will always be the focus of the gifts that I’ve been given.
Love relationship:
- We love each other deeply. Love for us means: we adore each other; we have a deep regard for one other, admiration, and respect for each other. We are proud to be in this relationship together. We have dignity in the way we communicate. We enjoy a “profound oneness” in our relationship.
- We put each other first.
- We are an unshakable team. We give each other the benefit of the doubt. We always have our best intentions at heart.
- We are dedicated to constant growth as individuals and as a couple.
Parenting:
- Our vision is to raise independent, healthy, happy, courageous children.
Our vision is to raise independent, healthy, happy, courageous children. - Our children understand that their life belongs to them totally and completely, not to us. They cherish their freedom and understand the self-responsibility that goes along with it. They do what is right for themselves, not for our sake.
- Our children feel deeply loved because we give them lots of physical affection, saying “I love you” and telling them why. They know we are always there for them.
- I will take my children on adventures for learning and exploring to become the most well-rounded, independent people they can be.
Social life:
- I have an extraordinary family life. I want to be a great son, brother, and uncle.
- I want extraordinary friendships. We don’t have time for shallow friendships. I have to pick good friends, and I have to be a good friend.
- I have friends of all ages – it just makes life interesting.
- I yearn for a deep connection in my friendships. We compare experiences, share insights, support each other’s growth and nurture each other’s spirits.
Financial life:
- I see myself as living in an abundant Universe.
- I am destined to be a big financial success.
- I have a healthy, loving relationship with money.
- I know precisely, with clarity, how much money I want and need.
Career:
- I want to choose a career out of genuine interest that gives me joy, fulfillment, and excitement.
- My work is a true and natural expression of my life purpose, and it brings constant joy, motivation, and fulfillment.
- My skills are highly sought after, and I attract wonderful clients. I enjoy the people I work with. I contribute hugely to everyone I work with and make a difference in their lives.
- I feel fulfilled when my work combines analytical, creative, strategic, and social tasks. Having all those things in my daily work makes me happy, joyful, and needed.
Quality of life:
- I want the freedom to do what I want, where I want, and when I want.
- I want our environment to harmonize perfectly with who we are as people. Our environments are where we experience our Quality of Life.
- Travel, travel, and more travel. This is the wealthiest part of our Quality of Life. It is where we can dream, change, see, learn, share, and simply be.
- The environments in which we experience life are where all the love, memories, happiness, joy, and everything good is created.
Writing your most important book—your Lifebook
As the mysterious Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road can take you there.”
It means that if you don’t want to be disoriented in this world full of distractions, you need to get crystal clear about your life vision across the board.
If you want to discover what you want, why you want it, and how you can achieve it, take a free, 90-minute Lifebook Online Masterclass with Jon and Missy Butcher. They will guide you through the fundamental process of creating your personal Lifebook, the most essential book in your life.
Welcome in.
