Develop A Vision For The Future

Get New Posts via Email
Get this episode on iTunes

SUMMARY

  • “If you are struggling with purpose today, you’re simply lacking a routine or practice to look at your tomorrow.”
  • Are you connected with how your next year, two years look? When you plan for your future on a regular basis, you’ll find more purpose and more motivation. If you find yourself lacking that vision, then this episode is for you!
  • “When you feel connected to the future, especially when it’s something that you are choosing to go do, to go build, to go manifest, you will feel more purposeful.”
  • It’s important to live in the moment but also to continually think about your future. Even when you’re not in action, be sure to consistently keep your goals top of mind. In this episode, learn ways to better connect and progress towards the future you desire. 
  • Watch the video to get the full training.
  • Already have the High Performance Planner and CRUSHING each and every day? Let’s celebrate you! Take a photo with your planner and use #GrowthDay so we can find you on social media!

HOT NEWS & DEALS!

  1. Get the Confidence Masterclass

    Stop letting limiting beliefs and lack of confidence hold you back! Learn the SKILLS of confidence from 9 of the world’s best personal development experts in the most comprehensive Confidence training ever created! $400 worth of training – just $7.99 today! Get the Confidence Masterclass!

  2. Get the GrowthDay app! 

    Make self-improvement a way of life and get the GrowthDay app! GrowthDay features all your personal development tools, coaching and community in one place. Write your journal, track your habits, take wellness challenges, watch live influencers teaching new life strategies, and join a global community of positive and supportive high achievers excited to improve their lives! Get the app on Apple app store here. Get on Android here. Get desktop here.

DID YOU KNOW?

I give weekly prizes, gratitude and shout-outs to our students, so post a screenshot or video on Instagram and use #TheBrendonShow! I can’t wait to hear your thoughts about this episode!

RELATED POSTS

Find Purpose Through Relationships
How to Rekindle Your Relationships
Tips for Developing Close Relationships
The Friendship Masterclass
Nurturing Great Relationships

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[The following is the full transcript of this episode of The Brendon Show. Please note that this episode, like all TBS episodes, features Brendon speaking extemporaneously–he is unscripted and unedited. Filmed in one take, The Brendon Show has become one of the most viewed unscripted, direct-to-camera self-help series in the history of YouTube. It has also been the #1 Podcast in all of iTunes and is regularly in the top podcasts in the Self-Help and Health categories around the globe. Subscribe to the free motivational podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.)

1. Maintain a Battle Board

When we don’t have a vision for next week, next month, next year, life can start to feel like we’re just in, you know, kind of in a swamp and that we’re just going through the motions. And oh my God, I’m working so hard, Brendon. Or, oh my God, but I have all these reasons to be happy. I already have the great kids. I have a house. I can afford the car payments. I mean, I have all these reasons to be happy, but I don’t know – something’s missing. I don’t feel purpose either. It’s usually a disconnect or a lack of clarity about your future. And I don’t mean ten years out or 50 years out. I mean, sometimes next month and next year. Really just  – sometimes it’s just a couple month horizon and lacking clarity and connection with just the next couple of months. Or in some cases, if you’re a longer term strategic kind of guy, the next year or two. I can feel that. 

If I feel a disconnect for my next year or two, I tend to lose a connection with purpose, a connection with motivation. I feel like the intentions or the productivity of the day are kind of like for what? You know, it’s easy go: I’m working so hard but for what? And that ‘for what?’ I know equals vision.

What is the vision of your next couple months or next couple of years? No one will give you that. It’s time to sit down and think about that.

It’s why you all know I keep a battle board over here on the wall, and my battle board is like – it’s basically like a arts and crafts version of a yearly schedule. It’s like, it’s like a big piece of butcher paper with 12 boxes drawn on it. And the 12 boxes each represents one month of the year. And I create themes across the boxes. I write the major projects and deadlines upon the boxes, and I write a bunch of my values up there. And all I do is every day I just kind of stare at it. 

2. Practice Living in the Moment

I’m a person who is really good – any persons here you’re really good at just living in the moment? I know a lot of people aren’t good at that, but I’m really good at just being here in the moment. I’ve had to teach myself to do that. I’m not as good of making sure I’m connected to my vision or to a longer-term plan. I’m like, I’m like at the moment, I’m a happy-go-lucky kid.

But if I lose connection to the vision, to the future, the happiness goes down. I also see that the luck tends to go down when you’re disconnected from a vision.

So what do I do? I force myself every day when I come into this office, I’m like in a home studio here. When I walk in, I stare at that for like – and I force myself to stare at it and think for 5 minutes. I have a little notepad next to me. And I look at where everything is lining up over the next year, sometimes the next two years. And I just look at it. I mean, if you walked in, I mean, it’s really not an attractive thing. I’m kind of like this: I’m just standing there kind of dumb looking, just looking at like – I hope when something comes into the brain that day. Walking through each month, even if I saw it yesterday, I’m still going … I’m just forcing myself to look out.

3. Break Out of the Survival Mindset

You know why people tend to be motivated January 1st? Because they’re looking out again and they hadn’t done it for a while. They were trying to survive the holidays, so they spent October, November, December in the hustle and the grind, finish the year strong, do the family stuff, have the holidays. Exhaust, exhaust, exhaust, exhaust, exhaust. I’m tired. And then at some point, they find a nice moment, maybe some green tea and a journal or away from the kids, or just out on a drive. And they start thinking about the year ahead and what happens? They tend to get more hopeful. Research shows it’s not just more hopeful. Research shows just by doing that, just literally thinking a year out, they become more hopeful, more optimistic, more motivated, and more likely to change. Despite all the stuff that we hear that people don’t change, well, that’s because they didn’t make self-improvement a way of life. They had the inciting incidence – January one! But they didn’t follow up with habits and personal development, so nothing changed 30, 60, 90 days later. No surprise there.

4. Look at Your Tomorrows

 

But what we found is that act of looking out a year can truly transform how you feel about your life and make you more likely to actually take action. And so I think it’s important to really connect that also with purpose. That if you are struggling with a sense of purpose today, you are lacking a routine or practice to look at your tomorrows.

Raise your hand if you got that one. If you are struggling with purpose today, you’re simply lacking a routine or practice to look at your tomorrows. I tell everybody you want to be a better leader? You want to be a better parent? You want your day, your health together? You want to build a bigger business? You want to earn more money? You got to look at your tomorrows way more consistently. Not on January one or December 31st, but daily.

5. Create Routines You Can Keep

That’s why I force myself to look at a year calendar every day because I’m not good at that and I know that about myself.

And sometimes when you’re not good about something, you need to create a habit or a routine that you will stick to and find some joy in.

So usually before I get to that wall, that battleboard, I got a cup of green tea in my hand because I love it. I got a journal next to me because I love that. I love green tea. And I love journaling. Not so good at the vision part, but I create the routine. Just like on email, I’ve created a routine there that helps me go through a process that I know I need to do, but I’m not as good at. You all follow? So, this is what I’m suggesting to you: If you’re lacking vision, we need a practice to look at your future more often. So critical. It’s why when you do that morning mindset prompt in GrowthDay, one of the questions asks: What is a project I should keep in mind that I’ll be doing in the future that I might be able to do today, but I just need to keep it on the dashboard of my mind?

And people always ask: Well, I when I do this thing, it’s kind of same thing every day. I got to, you know, I wrote down, I’m gonna write a book one day and I got to write it again and again. I’m like: Yes! You have to again and again and again think about your future, even if you’re not doing anything for today. You know? Even if you’re not taking the action, so you have to think about it. You know? Right now, I’m thinking, I’m working on some major media projects. I’m not doing them yet, but I’m thinking about them. I take a moment to think about that project. Just trying to get in the unconscious, kind of scrolling around back then to connect me to the future. Because when you feel connected to the future, especially when it’s something that you are choosing to go do, to go build, to go manifest, you will feel more purposeful.