What do you imagine?
What is your vision for how things will turn out and your future?
Very few people can avoid this. It’s an element of the mind’s workings that it pictures likely and possible events so that it can help keep us safe and alive.
Vision and imagination are core elements of our mental process.
The trouble is that most people don’t realise that this is occurring automatically as we go about our daily lives. Operating based upon the views and considerations we put in there. And most of them aren’t very positive at all.
And so we end up seeing our once hoped for good future slowly disappear in front of our eyes.
So, here is how and why a strong vision is the key to lifelong lasting achievement.
The Future from the past.
Many people predict the future.
Most of these however are basing it on how today will turn out. In other words, adding some extra developments to build from current times. It’s perhaps less a vision for the future as a plan for next steps.
It’s far more impressive to see a future that in no way looks anything like today.
That’s what Jules Verne accomplished. You hear or read his name and old fashioned tales of trips to the Moon that have featured in films come to mind. Victorians travelling on basic boneshaker rockets to the stars as if it was that easy.
But, he was far more accomplished than that actively predicting where science and technology would end up. End up from the fairly limited understandings they possessed at the time.
He spent long hours in the BNF (France’s home of all published works) fuelling his mind with scientific journals. This led him to expanding his own ideas and publishing them, these visions and concepts at the time seeming far fetched, even crazy.
Not to him. He clearly saw submarines, helicopters, air conditioning, skyscrapers, and most famous of all, moon trips on advanced space ships that could break the Earth’s orbit. His books have been translated into 150 languages, far more than Shakespeare can claim!
He was revolutionary in vision. A strong vision that improved his life until the end.
The Beginning not the end.
Strong, powerful vision sees the end result, not the current situation.
It’s one very ill people often utilise. And Bob Champion was one such person.
He was a successful National Hunt jockey riding hundreds of winners. Then in 1979 he was struck down with cancer and given only a 30% chance of survival at best. The treatment was invasive and debilitating and nearly killed him then and there. At the same time his beloved mount, Aldaniti, had suffered a terrible injury in a race and the vets recommended he should be put down as it was his 4th bad injury.
Both were in dire straits.
But Champion always believed that the horse would win England’s prestigious Grand National race with him on board. And while in bed seriously unwell he began to imagine just that. Something that appeared to have about 0% chance of ever coming about.
His vision got him fighting. It gave him a goal and dream to pursue.
He did recover and back to health and immediately went to see his pal Aldaniti, who was now amazingly doing the same. He told the racehorse’s trainer his belief about the race and luckily he also thought it could be possible.
In April 1981 both Bob and Aldaniti lined up in the race and powered to victory. Bob is still alive and going strong himself 45 years later! His story was even made into a successful movie called, naturally, Champions.
Everything he saw in his vision came true.
A champion vision in every sense.
Have the vision, hold the vision.
It’s easy to have a big vision.
We can all conceive some dream scenario for ourselves. One where our life is rosy or stunning outcomes have manifested. But, two factors are a MUST in ensuring these imaginations turn out as conceived.
- You have a crystal clear vision of what you seek to bring about and keep holding it no matter the challenges (hold ’em, don’t fold ’em as they say in cards). If you truly believe in your final aim, don’t drop the ball in your mind if things get tough and
- The initial vision must be founded on strong ground not fantasy. If you aren’t very good at football, seeing yourself as the world’s best player is setting yourself up for a fall.
Bob Champion WAS a jockey and Jules Verne WAS a writer when they set out on their quest to personal achievement. Both lifted themselves up from a sold platform underneath them that was there already.
The basis of strong vision is found in a strong individual with a strong awareness of who they are and what that person can accomplish.
Only Picasso knew he was Picasso. Which is why many pretenders try to copy the original and never get near. The same in business, music and life as well as art. Mastery is often being the only one doing what only you sought to do that your mind kept showing you.
Personal individuality expressed via a vivid mental picture is the key to a pinnacle life achievement. That and abiding by the two factors above. Whether you want to create a new hot drink or form of clothing.
Be yourself, be fully clear what this you wishes to create, keep that image alive in the mind, and stay the course to your own mountain top. History proves this – Picasso couldn’t ride racehorses. Verne could not paint Cubist style art. And Champion could not pen about futuristic machines.
What they could do and chose to do, their own strong vision helped take them somewhere memorable.
And if you use this too, you could follow them to lifelong triumph.
References – casdinteret.com – Jules Vernes, Captivating Storyteller.
Sportsgazette – Bob Champion: From surviving cancer to winning the Grand National.
Photo attributions – free to use under Pixabay Content License by Ahmad340 and geralt and Hansuan_Fabregas.
