If you crave meaning in life, you’ve come to the right place. Many people have vision, and they want to get more of it and learn how to fulfill it. Others have yet to arrive at a place where they’re pointed in a direction, but they want to get there. Both parties are welcome here. Let’s take a walk together, and learn How to Get Vision for Your Life.
Here’s step one to Getting Vision For Your Life: Reclaim and Clear Your Mind.
A busy mind is a great gift. Our brains are not simple. They’re complicated and overwhelming. That’s a beauty of them. This disarray can give birth to great dreams, visions, ideas and plans. But some measure of harnessing must take place. Sometimes in the busiest of moments a brief experience of extreme clarity can take over and something “clicks.”
These moments can’t exactly be manufactured. But we can set-up or optimize ourselves to make way for this clarity.
Every person gets clarity differently. How do you?
[Before we jump in, I want to give you something to listen to as you’re reading this. I know sometimes silence is beneficial, but I find this music exceptional when I need some inspiration or separation, even as I’m writing this. So as you’re getting some vision and clearing your mind, maybe give this a listen:]
How to Reclaim and Clear Your Mind:
1. Enter into the chaos
If you are wracked with pain, guilt, distraction, busyness, loudness and constant ringing, stop worrying about it or fighting against it—just for a moment. Embrace that things are tough. Come to terms with it. Allow yourself to be disappointed; don’t deny that there are moments you wish you had seized earlier.
[You might want to see what I have to say about Becoming More Resilient.]
Why? I’m not encouraging anyone to give up, I’m encouraging them to not live steeped in denial. Life is full of disappointed expectations and fabrications. Instead of pretending they aren’t there, look them dead in the eye. It’s pretty hard to move on to a new era of vision for your life if you’re consumed with shutting your eyes to the past up through the present.
What fills us with fear for the future rather than hope? The disappointment and hurt from the past. To turn a deaf soul to it only shuts down the lamp that’s pointed at the shadow of the past, but your fears will come to light when you look forward to the future. By doing so you allow your past fears you are subduing to prop themselves back up in your future plans.
You can’t stop all of life’s disappointments from coming, but you don’t have to give them a chair to sit on.
Not fearing the chaos is just one of many things I’ve learned over the years. [Check out what else I’ve learned in the School of Hard Knocks.]
2. Step away from the circus
I just encouraged you to face the busyness and craziness that is life. Now, I’m encouraging you to find away to walk away from the loudness of it.
Life’s a huge, jolly, disturbing, odd circus. It’s entertaining. We get to see a lot of strange sideshows and artifacts along the way. But when it’s time to clear your mind and think about getting vision for your life, you’ve got to step away from the busyness, clutter and loudness that is life.
How each person does this varies widely, so I’m going to give you some ideas here, and I ask for you to add your own to the comments below:
Get away-This is extremely simple to say, but very difficult to execute. If you’ve got no PTO or money for a vacation, that’s fine. Just find a way to get away from your normal environment. Go to the desert, the forest, the beach, or just the corner of a lonely bar.
Collect new experiences-I’m going to quote an old executive coach of mine. He told me, and I cannot establish the veracity of this, that executives should spend 50% of their time developing themselves. That includes getting new experiences. It gives them ideas, breaks them out of routine. Helps them to see things differently.
Whether someone somewhere actually teaches that, I don’t know. What a grand idea anyways! It shouldn’t be applied to just executives. Sure, we can’t invest 50% of our time into developing ourselves, but getting up and out and doing new stuff outside of the norm will help till the ground of “ideation.”
Take a walk-I actually hate taking walks. Unless I’m really upset about something, they do nothing for me. But some people love them and find them useful. Give it a shot!
Sit outside-I find that I do most of my thinking indoors, but going outside and putting my fidgety gadgets away even for 30 minutes can bring extreme clarity and calmness.
Shut your door-If you’ve got a house full of kids, have you ever considered getting a babysitter just so you can think? Ha, well, I’m sure you have a lot. But did you do it? Not to run errands or to buy groceries, just to think?
Get Rested-Per Michael in the comments below (nice to meet you Mike!), there’s nothing that can contribute to clarity of mind like being rested!
3. Dream While You’re Awake: Carve out some “Think Time”
A lot of people I know like to journal (I suck at it) and pray (I hope to get better at that). What I’ve realized with prayer is that sometimes we fill the air with words without getting quiet. A while ago Jesus told some listeners, “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.”
Dream While You’re Awake
What do you think that says about prayer? Yeah, I think prayer can be hard work, but I think sometimes we just like to make noise because we like to be heard. Do you ever try to still your mind/heart? Yes, pray. But also “listen” and process.
What is processing time? It can be journaling, reflecting, praying. I also like to carve out “Think Time.” That is time to literally do nothing, listen to no background noise, talk to no one, and just think. Think through my day from beginning to end. Or think through a situation.
During times of processing and think time, myself and many others have experienced big-time clarity for the future. Getting vision for your life may take exactly that.
Is it actually possible to clear your mind?
Let me tell you this: it’s impossible to think about nothing. So “clearing your mind” is actually impossible in a way. What I really mean by saying “clear your mind” here is to sit back and to think about your day. Think about what you encountered. Think about yesterday and tomorrow. That’s what we do when we dream, why don’t we take some time and do it while we’re awake?
Don’t Wait–Start Getting Vision For Your Life
There’s no reason to rush, but there’s not reason to wait. Do you have vision but want more of it? Carve out time and protect yourself from distractions. Don’t have vision at all? Hey, we all start somewhere–start now!
What are your thoughts on getting vision for your life? What do you do to clear your mind of busyness and distraction?
And do you have any great music you’d encourage readers to listen to when they need to get away or get some creative vision?
Keep your eyes peeled as more on Getting Vision For Your Life is coming soon!
[Featured image courtesy of Raul Islas] [Clouds in Mind image courtesy of Jonathan Key]
The key for me to clear my mind is to get plenty of sleep. My mind works the best when well rested.
Ah, point taken. And added. Thank you! I’m just the same.
Great stuff! I find rest becomes a time to refresh and be in a good place for what is coming next. The key to rest, is to not do any regular work. With that said, rest looks different for each person, because what is regular work for you isn’t for me. I even find walking around the zoo with my kids to be mentally restful and refreshing even when I physically need a nap when we get home!
That’s a really strong point Paul–and exactly why I think taking a walk for me isn’t rest (unless it’s on the beach!). Whereas for someone else walking, or even detailing their car, can absolutely be rest.
Denial of the situation is the biggest hurdle in our life. Once we start accepting and come in terms with the situation we can actually handle them in a better way. I generally go for a long walk when things bother me or when I am upset. It gives me a lot of relief to mind and I am ready for the next challenge
I agree–denial is the total death-knell to our ability to move forward and have some victory in life. How can we conquer anything if we pretend it’s not there??
I like creating a vision by pointing my goals in Excel spreadsheets and then just going over them to my self. A lot of time that means when I am just either walking, laying on the couch or chilling at the beach. I go over them in my mind and picture where I want to be and how I am going to get there. I agree it is hard to actually think about nothing but thinking about your day/future are things most successful people do. I started a few years ago and things seem to work a lot better for me.
This is really great insight. You should write a post about it too! Maybe a sequel on here, or even on your own site! 🙂
Getting to know, love, accept and appreciate yourself is the first thing one requires to do before thinking about future and create a vision for life , is what i think.