Writing a 1 Year Vision Statement for 2009

By dougnau on Jan 4, 2009 in Consciousness, Goal Setting, Success, Tools

The One Year Vision Statement

At the end of this article you’ll find a lot of resources on How to Write a Vision Statement. What you won’t garner by reading these articles is the impact they can have on your life – unless you actually take action to write your own. Similarly, while I can write on my experience as to what format and content has worked best for me and numerous clients of mine, ultimately your best results will be gleaned by embracing a format and model for creating a vision that you can take ownership of. My hope is that this format works for you, and that you embrace this concept listening to your inner voice of wisdom.

In this article, I provide a sample of my personal one year vision statement, such that 1) I can share my vision and in doing so increase my own personal accountability in moving in this direction and 2) to demonstrate to you what a 1 year vision statement looks like should you choose to model your vision after this format.

Quite often there’s a lot of ‘internal chatter’, or ‘monkey mind’ that comes up when someone sits down to write their one year vision. This process can stir up all the conversation about how difficult it will be to create change in the following year, it may bring about feelings of ‘I can’t’, or we may even find ourselves coming up with excuses even as we just think about what the next year may bring! If you find yourself with these thoughts as you create or think about your one year vision statement, consider the following. I’ve found that quite often its better to start with developing a vision further down the road – say 5 years, then come back to the 1 year vision statement after that process is complete. A five year time frame is farther removed from today and it creates a sense of spaciousness of time that our minds don’t fight against. Once you’ve become comfortable writing in the 5 year format, it is much easier to regress back to writing about the things that are possible within your personal belief system such that you can write out a 1 year vision. I know for myself, when I think 5 years out, I often think 5 years back, and there’s been such a huge shift in my life over the past 5 years (including buying a house, getting married, starting a business, remission from cancer, 2 beautiful children – and the list goes on and on), that its easy to create a life far removed from today’s if I dream it.

For now, here’s the example of how a one year vision statement looks (it’s my actual vision for the year 2009)

Doug’s 1 Year Vision Statement (January 1, 2010) – Written January 1, 2009

I am here at the coffee shop, spending some beautiful time alone after an active holiday season. Its nice to have a chance to recap the amazing events that occupied this past year. It always amazes me just how much changes in a single year.

My daughter is 2.5 years old now, and its hard to imagine my son is walking and running all around the house, they are two fantastic kids that have brought so much joy to our family. We’ve gotten a chance to know our son more this year – he’s such an amazing little boy, reminds me of myself in so many ways! Our daughter’s personality continues to develop and she’s definitely daddy’s little girl. It would be hard to imagine life today without these precious two little people. Christmas this year was very fun, our daughter understood the Santa concept and seeing her excitement was exciting for us. Ahhh, we’re so blessed with this family.

In other news 2009 was a year with new ventures. In May, we took a big step in our financial plan by purchasing a small and reasonable rental home nearby. After a couple months of research, we decided on an entry level house we could comfortably afford – and most importantly, turn a monthly profit on! Its funny how you think something like this might be ‘hard’ before you get into the game. Once we found the right place (emphasizing the effort we spent making the right decision), everything was easy! It pretty much takes care of itself now and while the monthly revenue it brings in is not huge – hey, we’ve got excellent tenants, that are paying our mortgage and they give us a few hundred dollars a month on top of it! We timed the purchase very well with low interest rates as well as low housing costs, and now we’re planning a second rental to buy in 2010 since we know a lot more now and feel we can do even better (housing prices are still great!).

The early part of the year brought about some adjustments for the family. I returned back to work prior to 2009, but my wife went back on January 16. Getting into a routine of day care for the 2 kids was different for us, but it quickly became the norm. We had a big entry to the new year with my wife’s folks visiting and a wonderful 5 year remission party with nearly 80 friends that came up for the day to celebrate. Everyone really enjoyed the get together – it was a truly blessed reason to celebrate. Speaking of which, I continue to feel awesome, PCR tests – all negative! Wow – what more can I say.

Financially, 2009 was exciting. 2008 brought about the worst market crash, and highest unemployment rates since the great depression. This had no realized fiscal impact on us, except that it brought about opportunities that were not necessarily present before. Since 2009 brought with it a subtle rebound our wealth grew as a result of the rebound + continued investment and sound financial decisions. We’ve got more liquid assets now than before we even owned the rental! My wife’s work, though it took a good month or so to get back into filling her schedule, turned out to be as prosperous as any year in the past. She still enjoys the 4 days/week, and its been fun for her to have the fifth day off with the kids.

I am very pleased with my work situation right now as well. My day job has recognized what I bring to the table for several years now as my skills go well beyond coaching individuals. In 2008 I was introduced to the business side of things through my involvement with our software vendor. While it did not really do anything to change my technical skill set, it did introduce me to the important aspects of running a wellness program and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed that.

I’ve continued my own personal education by completing the stress management certification program– and I’ve also been listening to audio cd’s in the car driving home from work. Recently, I’ve begun another certification program which my employer has graciously agreed to cover the costs for. In addition, my typical routine also incorporates workouts Monday, Wednesday and Thursdays attached to the end of my work day - this has been a very cool way to get my 5 days/week in still, while doing more strength training. I also did several long distance bike events this year, I’ve enjoyed meeting some new friends through this as well.

I-grow.net, The Personal Growth Network has been an interesting blog to develop. Each month through the year, web traffic has been growing, and the ad-revenues today are the highest they’ve been (I keep costs low, and on an annual basis this blog has been quite profitable). I am pleased with the results and my focus with this site for the past year has been developing more content – right now with over 200 quality articles. Its also got several ways to make revenue – each of which has actually brought in dollars. Adsense (my top contributor), my audio book, my donations link, and my book recommendations. My newsletter has finally built up a substantial list of subscribers as planned as well (that was a big milestone!). And now I’ve been thinking about how to take this site to the next level, to turn it into The Personal Growth ‘Network‘. In the past couple months I’ve been developing a plan which appears to have significant potential to increase subscriber levels and of course add value to my readers – I came up with the idea by researching market gaps that exist today, a bit more science to the approach. I am excited to move on this in early 2010. Its great to have the foundation I’ve already built to do this on. In recognizing that I am the brand for this website, this year I’ve developed – well ‘me’. I had a radio interview and have appeared as a guest writer on a number of occasions in local and national web/print publications. That’s been fantastic! Its helped bring in traffic as well.

Our home is absolutely beautiful and a great thing was that there were no major home projects in the past year! We took care of the yard – did some refreshes of decomposed granite/bark etc., but otherwise, the home’s is where we’d like it to be. Our garden flourished as well this year! We decorated the downstairs a bit more, finishing the office/our son’s room and furnished the guest room, but its been nothing major.

Well, as I sit here thinking about 2009 at the coffee shop, I appreciate the time to myself, but look forward to being at home with my wife and kids. We still have so much fun together, I recall the vacation to Canada this year, and the mini-vacations to the coast in which we had so much fun together as a family. Our life is rich and full and I look forward to each and every day we are blessed with.

Make it Successful

Once you’ve got your compelling vision statement, I suggest that you commit to reading this regularly. At least monthly. Since this projection is only one year out, familiarize yourself with it, feel the excitement, and make it part of you. The more you embrace the vision, the more you will connect with the actions you’ll need to take to turn this vision into a reality. Some of the more important and less important aspects of the vision will unfold over the course of the year, and you are welcome to adjust as your priorities and vision changes – but that’s not a statement telling you to give up. When you truly feel differently about something happening, whether its what you want, or when you want it, then altering your vision is no big deal.

One final suggestion on making your one year vision successful is to make sure it incorporates all of The Six Components of Whole Person Wellness. Its easy to get focused on the vision as if it were a specific and measurable goal (which it is not), so you want to make sure you are basing it on a sound model that incorporates life balance. Briefly, these components are:

Health
Career
Relationships
Personal Growth & Development
Finance
Enjoyment

If you’ve missed out on any of these topics on your vision – its a good idea to revisit it to see what is missing. As always please comment on your ideas and suggestions for creating a valuable and powerful vision statement.

Be Well