The First Step to Creating a Powerful Vision

This is Part 9 in a series on vision. Catch up with the series here:
Part 1. Part 2. Part3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8.

When creating a vision for your life, where do you start?

If you’ve ever created a vision board, this is where the process usually starts: going through magazines to collect images of things you want to do or have. A bigger home, more money, the latest “it” bag, nicer clothes, a lounge chair on a secluded beach, a chalet in a ski resort, a nice car, a published book, a larger audience for your work.

Or maybe you’ll scroll endlessly through Instagram or Pinterest, looking at photos of what other people have and do and adding those images to your wish lists and vision boards.

Western culture promotes this way of seeing, and as a result we spend our energy chasing what is visible. Pursuing the visible is what drives our economy. But the rush of satisfaction or significance we feel when we acquire the visible things doesn’t last. No matter what we get, or what we do, we tend to want more or bigger.

Start With the Invisible

It is only in the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

What we see with our eyes is an illusion. Our eyes can be deceived by appearances or surface-level characteristics.

The things that truly matter are invisible: love, integrity, joy, friendship, trust, compassion. Or things like music, scents, silence, and deep connection and conversation. These are the things that bring meaning and fulfillment to our lives.

None of this is to say that material things don’t matter at all. It’s that they matter a lot less than we think they do. We cannot forsake the material for the spiritual, but we also cannot forsake the spiritual for the material. It’s not an either/or dynamic. Both can and do exist together.

To create a life of meaning and fulfillment, we must begin with what we cannot see — the inner pieces. By looking within first, we will enhance our ability to look outside ourselves and create more powerful vision for the world.

The first step to creating a powerful vision is to cultivate a vision of our soul.