To all real estate investors, beginner and experienced alike, I have a question for you:
Are you clear on the person you want to become and are you ok with the person you’re becoming?
If not, then you might be where I was just a few years ago… successful on the outside, but something was missing deeply on the inside.
I had everything, but I was miserable.
I needed a clear vision and a way to get there. And I did just that.
So today, I’m going to share with you the exact process that I used to create and live out my dream life, so you can go do the same.
Back then…
So back in the day, I started making good money, but my energy was just being drained. I didn’t really have purpose… didn’t really feel like I was pumped about the work that I was doing… didn’t feel like I was making a big impact personally or with my customer base.
And everything shifted from there…
To massively upgrading my bank account, massively upgrading the impact that I and my company had, massively upgrading my impact for my family.
How?
Massively upgrading my mindset.
It wasn’t instant, mind you. It took years. But one of the main things I started doing back then that led me to where I am now is something I call a Vision Story.
Sure, you’ve probably heard of vision boards — essentially documenting what it is that you want in life. And vision boards are cool. But they’ve never been my thing. (If vision boards work for you, amazing, do it!)
What works best for me?
A written story.
Honestly, my life was going well, but I wasn’t grateful for the situation I was in, and I really didn’t know how to upgrade my situation…
Some tactics and techniques I’d tried weren’t working, so instead, I decided to write down where the heck I wanted to go, the life I wanted to live, what it all looked like.
Here’s how I write my Vision Story — and how you can write yours.
First, know that this is not goal setting. It’s not business planning.
It’s writing your business vision…
I write down where I’d love to be in business in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. And, it doesn’t always mean it’s this REI business.
I’m saying in any type of business — because if you don’t have a clear vision for where you want to go way down the road…
How are you going to course correct? How are you going to direct yourself today to know that you’re heading to the right spot?
Imagine this…
You’re flying an airplane from Los Angeles to New York — how many times would that plane need to course correct to get to where it’s going on time and land safely?
You’re not going to go up thousands of miles in the air and then think, ‘Oh, sometime over Oklahoma, I’ll get closer to figuring out where we’re going and how to get there.’
That’s why I write a 20-year vision. To be able to get to where I want to go.
When you’re writing your own, don’t try to make it a perfect thing. Just jot down some words and ideas that come to mind — but be specific.
Mine is about 2 pages, handwritten, single-spaced…
- What do I see?
- Where am I waking up?
- Who am I waking up with?
- What are the first words I said?
- What are the smells?
- What are the sounds?
You want to write this stuff down in vivid detail…
Picture and feel the feeling of living your life.
You don’t have to have all the details down. You don’t have to know exact conversations or exactly what your business will look like at that point and where your income is coming from…
You just need to put yourself in a feeling. Put yourself in a spot where you can feel this ideal version of your life 20 years from today.
What are you doing on that day? What will you eat? Who do you talk to? How do you start your morning routine? What habits and disciplines do you have at that point in your life? When do you start work? What type of work do you start working on? When, where and for how long are you working? Working at a home office or coffee shop? What types of projects are you working on — by yourself or with a company? Did you work out?
Literally close your eyes and just picture yourself living that day moment by moment. Write those down in the first person: “I did xxx, and I feel this.” “I smelled amazing aromas from xxx.” “I heard this person’s voice and she sounded so sweet.”
Whatever it is, write it down, vividly.
10 years, 5, 1…
The next thing you’re going to do after that is flip a page and write your 10-year Vision Story.
This will be a little bit shorter… because you’ll take your 20-year vision into consideration: If my 20-year vision story is true, and if that’s where I’m going to be or want to be in 20 years… here’s what I have to do to get there in 10 years.
Again, detail by detail… ask yourself all those questions from before. Many of the answers might be similar to your 20-year Vision Story. And some will be new.
Then, you’ll do a 5-year Vision Story and do the exact same thing.
Where am I going to be 5 years from today?
Finally, you’ll write a 1-year Vision Story.
Why is my Vision Story so important?
Because the clearer you can get on where you want to be, the easier and more effectively you’re going to be able to get there.
I did this in 2012 for the first time. And once I wrote down my Vision Story, it became real in my mind. I knew what it felt like. I started to feel what that life would be like. I felt that experience.
And once you can feel what that’s going to be like, it becomes a lot more real… you start to feel the emotion of it. And then you start to act on it. You begin to create a life that gets you there.
The cool thing about the 1-year Vision Story is that we’re planning for the next year, so there’s going to be a lot of tactical stuff in there. And that’s where it really needs to get real…
The longer-term vision stories are more high level, very feeling-based, very story-based.
But for the next year, it’s very action-based, very goal-based. Milestones to hit.
So, I update my 1-year Vision Story every year. I pull out the notepad I wrote it on, and cross things out that aren’t relevant. Sometimes I even rewrite the whole story over again because I’ll have (hopefully) evolved… I’ll have removed some limiting beliefs as I began to tackle things I didn’t think I could tackle before.
And when you do the same, you’re going to experience the realization that you can be more… that you can do more… that the version of yourself in 5 years and 10 years is different because you have higher standards now — and those higher standards are going to help you in a massive way.
Think bigger all around… I think about being a better husband, better father, better leader, better entrepreneur. How I can make a greater impact.
And with all of that, I take my vision story and write a new one.
You might even want to use the same notepad or notebook every time, so you can look back at the evolution of your vision. Eventually, you’ll be able to look back at a point in your life and see where you started to think a lot bigger and what helped you get there.
Look ahead…
See, so many people start to plan their next year based on what happened in the past. But the second you start making your plan for the next year based on what you did in the past year is the second you lose.
Now, definitely use what you did last year to help add context for the next year. But, if you’re using last year to create your plans for next year, you’ve already lost because you’re not intentional with where you want to go.
Your past year could go exactly like you planned. You met all your goals and metrics… and you can still be absolutely miserable. (Ask me how I know.)
You can be feeling listless and not sure where you’re going in life. You can feel like you’re not sure what you should be doing. You can feel like you’re not purposeful or living on purpose in your unique abilities because you’re planning your year ahead based off what you did last year.
And let me tell you — I’ve been there so many times. Heck, I’ll even catch myself sometimes falling back into it.
And when I do that, I pull back and realize, ‘Damn, I kind of lost sight of my Vision Story. Let me go read that thing again. Is it still relevant? If it’s not relevant, maybe that’s why I lost sight of it, because I didn’t get excited about it anymore.’
So right here and now, I challenge you to undertake the Vision Story process.
You should be crazy, freaking, pumped about your Vision Story!
And after you write yours, if you ever lose passion for your Vision Story or you stop using it, it’s probably because you’re not pumped about it anymore. So go write a new one that you are crazy, excited about.
Don’t wait. Get to it now. Today is a great day for vision writing.