The Oxford English Dictionary defines vision as the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom.
A vision is how we see our future. Our goals are put in place to help us achieve our vision. Visions inspire and motivate us; they make us excited to do more and achieve more. Without a vision, and putting goals in place to achieve our vision, we will never grow. We won’t achieve more or do more because we don’t have anything to work towards.
Iyanla Vanzant said, “If you don’t have a vision, you’re going to be stuck in what you know. And the only thing you know is what you’ve already seen.”
Our visions give us hope for a better future, but we need to work towards them. We need to put our goals in place and work to achieve them so that our visions can be reached. There is a Japanese Proverb that says, “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” We need to work to achieve our visions, otherwise they are just dreams. And if we are not working towards something, or working to grow and do more, then what we are doing is futile.
We need visions that require hard work, sacrifice, and personal growth. We need to be better to do better. If we set our goals too low, and we are happy with that, then we will never reach our full potential. Michelangelo said, “The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”
We need to dream big, and hope for better things and new discoveries, but we also need to be realistic. We cannot hope to be the best painter in the world if we have never picked up a paintbrush and have not learnt the different techniques or tried to get our work noticed. We can’t expect to become successful by luck, we need to work for it. We need to stay humble and keep working to be better. Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.”
