It started as many coaching sessions began, especially in the early fall. My client was given an assignment to craft their goals for the coming year. The call began with them sharing their goals.

They are a seasoned leader and have been crafting goals for years. They knew the structure: this much gross sales; this much net sales; this much take home; this many units; add this number of people; add this service.

The goals looked great on paper. It checked all the appropriate boxes and even was quite logical.

As a coach for high performing executives & leaders, I see goals all the time. These looked really good on the surface, as do most goals of leaders who have been around for any length of time.

Yet, these goals, like so many that I see, lacked a passion or maybe clarity as exactly what goals to shoot for.

To make sure that your goals have deeper meaning, passion and clarity, goals should be accompanied by a vision.

Vision comes in two main distinctions: a) a vision of the person that you want to be and b) what you want to accomplish.

Let’s break down these types of personal visions.

Vision: Who You Want to Be

First we want to look at the person that you want to be in the future. Answer questions like: What qualities and characteristics does my ideal future self possess? What does my physical, emotional, mental & spiritual Self look like? Who do I want to be (not what you want to do)?

From there, you can create a North Star. Think of a North Star as actions that do not have an ending to them. These are not goals, this is more about aligned action. Think less about “I want to weigh a certain number on the scale” and more “I want peak physical fitness.” In these scenarios, the number on the scale has an “ending” to it…  Hit the number. End of dream.

The peak physical fitness vision is never-ending. You will never actually achieve it because it doesn’t actually exist. Yet, that becomes a North Star because it guides you like following a star due north. It will require you to do certain things like eat well, exercise, sleep, even work on mental activities because it ties into physical fitness.

So, when you line up the person that you want to be with the North Star that you’ll follow, you will know the direction you want to take your life.

Vision: What You Want to Accomplish

This takes the vision of who you want to be and grounds it into concrete outcomes. As questions like: In order to live out my vision, what must I accomplish to know it’s coming true? What do I want my life to look like 5 years from now or 10 years from now in accordance with my vision?

It’s this phase where you can dream up the trophies you want to achieve and toys you want to have.

Some of us want to achieve a level of financial freedom in 5 or 10 years time so that work is no longer about the need to trade your time for dollars to fund your life. What must be true to make that a reality: Money in the bank? Size & scope of business? Number or amount of investments? Likely some combination.

Put It All Together

My client went through these vision creating activities. They rewrote and reimagined the goals that they have for the next few years. Using those future goals, they reworked their goals for the next year to align with the future goals AND becoming the person they want to be in their vision.

Using the vision of who you want to be and the North Star you want to follow brings so much clarity to a future version of you, therefore allowing you to work from a place of knowing what you want in the future and being able to back it into more immediate timeframes.

Your goals become personal.