Vision Of Success

Similar to a map, you need to define the following details: origin, destination, vehicle, backpack, landmarks, and route.

Origin: Who You Are

Moreover, you can also reflect on your experiences to give you insights on your good and not-so-good traits, skills, knowledge, strengths, and weaknesses. Upon introspection of John's vision of success... he realized that he was highly motivated, generous, service-oriented, but impatient. His inclination was in the biological-medical field. Furthermore, he believed that life must serve a purpose, and that wars were destructive to human dignity.

Destination: A Vision Of Who You Want To Be

If you hardly know yourself, then your vision of success for the future would also be unclear.

Your destination should cover all the aspects of your being: the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Continuing John's story, after he defined his beliefs, values, and principles in life, he decided that he wanted to have a life dedicated in serving his fellowmen.

Vehicle: Your Mission

To a great extent, your mission would depend on what you know about yourself. Based on John's self-assessment, he decided that he was suited to become a doctor, and that he wanted to become one. His chosen vocation was a medical doctor. Describing his vision-mission fully: it was to live a life dedicated to serving his fellowmen and women as a doctor in conflict-areas.

Travel Bag: Your Knowledge, Skills, And Attitude

If you apply this concept to your vision of success, you will also bring with you certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These will determine your competence and help you in attaining your vision. When taking this into account... there is a need for you to determine what knowledge, skills, and attitudes you have at present and what you need to gain along the way.

This determination will give you insights on your landmarks or measures of success.

John realized that he needed to gain professional knowledge and skills on medicine so that he could become a doctor. He also knew that he was a bit impatient with people, so he realized that this was something he wanted to change.

Landmarks And Route: S.M.A.R.T. Objectives

So, in planning out your life, you also need to have landmarks and a route. These landmarks are your measures of success. These measures must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound.

So you cannot set two major landmarks such as earning a master's degree and a doctorate degree within a period of three years, since the minimum number of years to complete a master's degree is two years.

Going back to John's vision of success, he identified the following landmarks in his life map: completing a bachelor's degree in biology by the age of 21; completing medicine by the age of 27; earning his specialization in infectious diseases by the age of 30; working in the local public hospitals of his town by the age of 32; and serving as a doctor in war-torn areas by the age of 35.

Anticipate Turns - Detours - And Potholes

Like any path, there are turns, detours, and potholes. So we must anticipate them and adjust our vision of success accordingly.