3 Key Benefits of Having a Personal Vision Statement
Introduction
In the new article series, let’s discuss personal vision statements, their benefits, and how to create one. We will also provide you with examples to help you generate your own.
However, before that, let’s define vision statements.
What is a vision statement?
Vision statements are tools for businesses and organizations to quickly tell their employees, shareholders, and others about their mission, values, and goals.
The goal of a vision statement is to help the people involved in decision-making make decisions that align with it and the group’s overall purpose. They have proven to be valuable tools that help a company achieve its goals without forgetting its values or objectives.
The overwhelming majority of research on organizational vision statements shows they are effective in helping keep an organization on track and aligned with its values.
Unfortunately, there needs to be more research on personal vision statements, but it looks like they have the same effect on individuals when created and used correctly.
What is a Personal Vision Statement?
A personal vision statement is almost the same as a business vision statement, but it is about a single person and their life. It encompasses one’s values, goals, and purpose in life. Sometimes it also includes a statement of the lifetime impact one wishes to have on the world.
Personal vision statements can encompass both personal and professional goals. They tend to be short, only a few sentences long, and can be either kept private or made public. They also tend to include a list of some deeply held personal values.
Some of the world’s most successful and famous people have or had personal vision statements. The list includes Sir Richard Branson, Maya Angelou, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amanda Steinberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Mahatma Gandhi. Each of them used their personal vision statements to guide their lives.
You don’t have to be famous, a hero or a CEO to create and use your personal vision statement. Many people do it. Millions of people worldwide in every walk of life, from students to farmers to artists, have a vision statement they use in their daily lives.
It takes some work to create your vision statement, but it’s not hard to do, and you don’t need any special help or expertise. All you need is commitment and a willingness to do the work to craft it. After it’s finished, all you need is the determination to use it to guide your life.
3 Key Benefits of Having a Personal Vision Statement
You might be wondering why you should go to the effort of creating a personal vision statement, especially if you’re already driven and goal-oriented. What’s in it for you? Will the benefits outweigh the time and effort?
Personal vision statements bring many benefits to the people who have them. There’s not enough space to cover all the help you’ll get from creating your vision statement, so here are the top three.
It gives you a sense of direction.
A personal vision statement will give you a feeling of direction, of knowing where you are and where you are trying to go. It motivates you and makes your work feel meaningful. Most humans crave this, especially in a world as chaotic as the modern one.
If you start feeling lost or directionless, you must look at your vision statement to help you realize the truth. That is an essential psychological benefit—don’t underestimate it!
It helps motivate you.
Motivation isn’t something you feel all the time. It comes, and it goes. Sometimes you’ll be more motivated than others. Sometimes you won’t want to work on your goals at all, either because you’re too busy or you’re frustrated at a lack of progress.
Lack of motivation is where discipline becomes important, but getting it back is also a prime goal.
Personal vision statements have been shown to provide additional motivation when it’s lagging. It can give you that extra “oomph” to keep pushing and get yourself over the finish line when times are tough.
It provides a framework for decision-making.
Making decisions is part of being an adult, and sometimes it becomes hard to make decisions that keep us moving toward where we want to be in life, especially ones aligned with our values.
A personal vision statement helps you make decisions by giving you a way to evaluate your options, especially when you need to make a hard choice. Which options move you towards accomplishing your next goal or further away from it? Which ones would let you uphold your values? Would any of them require you to break your values?
You can use this yes/no framework to determine which options to look into and which ones to eliminate. That takes the stress out of decision-making and lets you make decisions that will help you succeed.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this post provides light on what a vision statement is and how important it is. In our next post, let’s discuss the steps to creating your vision statement. If you are interested, follow us through our FB or Twitter profiles to get our updates. In the meantime, check out our other self-development articles. Thanks for reading.
