Visualize Your Vision

The Bible states, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18

This week, I am once again reminded of the power of vision, as Nikki and I make our way to Milwaukee for Northwestern Mutual’s (NM) Annual Meeting. Attending this meeting has been a tradition since I began my career as an intern 22 years ago.

While each NM Annual Meeting has had its special moments, 20 years ago the meeting took on a special significance. In the months leading up to that July, the company had informed me that I had won a prestigious award, and, as a part of accepting it, I would be given an opportunity to address the audience of over 1,000 individuals. While my speech could have focused on any number of topics, that year I had a vision for ‘something special’.

I have heard it said that in life, we often see things twice. First in our mind, and second, when it happens. Whether we realize it or not, we are often imagining an event or moment in our mind before it ever takes place. What we often don’t realize is, that by doing so, our vision is increasingly likely to happen. I believe this is what Earl Nightingale was referring to when he stated in his famous book, The Strangest Secret, “You become what you think about.”What we think about, good or bad, has a greater chance of becoming our reality simply by visualizing it first.

Years after Nightingale’s book was published, researchers began studying this concept, and today, the practice of visualization is well documented, most notably in professional sports. What surprises me is how few of us non-professional athletes use the power of visualization in our daily lives. What a missed opportunity!

How do I incorporate visualization into my personal and professional life?

1. Each morning I visualize myself executing the three most important priorities I have identified for that day.
2. Every week I read my personal vision statement, visualizing the future state as if it has already happened.
3. During our team’s quarterly retreats, we read our firm’s vision out loud as we imagine accomplishing what originally seemed impossible.
4. Every few years Nikki and I spend time dreaming about what we want our lives to look like in the future.

The importance of vision cannot be overstated. And the practice of visualizing that future state is the secret weapon to bringing a vision to reality.

While I was unaware that I was leveraging this powerful concept at the time, it is clear to me today that visualizing my visionwas what led to that ‘something special’ 20 years ago.

What was the ‘something special’ I had a vision for that day in July 2004? A proposal. Outside of a few close friends, that night the audience had no idea what I had spent months visualizing. At least once each day I would visualize how the proposal would happen – the words I would say, the song that would play in the background, and the response I would see on Nikki’s face. Therefore, when I stepped to the microphone and began my speech, I simply lived out the movie I had already watched in my mind many times before. 

The result – ‘something special’ – a moment that Nikki and I, and likely others in attendance, will remember for the rest of their lives.

Many have since asked, “How were you able to do that? You are such an introvert. Weren’t you nervous?” As I reflect on that night, knowing what I now know about the power of visualization, it is clear to me that I overcame my fears that night due in large part to my using this secret weapon—the practice of visualizing that future state.