Vision, Goals And Uncertainty

The Destruction Of Buzz Aldrin's Dream

Do you have a sense of vision, a sense of a clear direction? I often ask myself the question, 'What is my purpose in life?' I always get the same answer, 'To find your purpose!' What help is that? How does that get me to my vision and goals?

The point is that we are here on this earth to have a purpose, through our experiences to make sense of ourselves and the world. The sense of purpose is built in to us as human beings, but the nature of the actual purpose... That's for us to work out.

Goals

It's easy to focus on goals, day to day needs and desires that need fulfilling or completing. I often get tied up with these. I need to finish the article I am writing, I need to pay my bills, I would like to go and swim in the Mediterranean.

For some people this becomes the extent of their life. What is in your mind right now, what do you think you should be doing rather than reading this article? Do you have any vision and goals?

What I missed for a long time was a sense of vision, a sense of a clear direction in my life that drives everything I do forward.

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

Buzz Aldrin's Dream

Buzz Aldrin, an american astronaut, had an amazing goal, to fly to the moon. Many people thought it was an outrageous dream. He proved it wasn't, he reached his goal and astounded the world. But what then? What did he do with the rest of his life. He was lost and descended into alcoholism because there was nothing left.

He had a dream but he didn't have a vision, just goals. The problem with a dream is that when you achieve it you've done. You can create another dream, but is that really your purpose, your vision.

A vision needs to be an over-arching purpose that will keep taking you forward forever. It needs to be outrageous but achievable, it needs to be beyond your scope but not impossible.

Beyond Expectation

Urmila and I have a phrase that has become key to our life together. It is, 'beyond expectation'. We shoot high in everything we do and expect the results to be beyond what we can imagine. We don't downgrade what we expect to ensure it happens, we just let the universe show us how much we are valued and respected. We constantly achieve results beyond our expectations.

Not achieving your dreams should never be an issue as long as you are always on the path to achieving them, As with Buzz Aldrin the danger comes when you make them too concrete, too small. Even the dream of standing on the moon is a physically achievable target, as he proved.

A vision is an attitude of mind, a process. A vision influences how you live your life, it influences everything you do. You take a vision inside and it creates the amazing person you are and enables you to achieve amazing things, forever.

What is your vision? What are your goals? Who do you want to be?

My vision is to live fully everyday, to love deeply and treat everyday as the most important in my life. My vision is to have the resources to do this to the fullest extent possible and to look for results each day that are beyond my expectations. I expect to live everyday in paradise.

What do you expect?

The Difference Between Risk And Uncertainty—The Way To Grow

Sometimes I realise that I escape by being in the present. I find I am avoiding the future, fearful of the uncertainties that lurk there, fearful of the risks I face.

It is not possible for me to completely live in the 'now'. I have to face the future and plan for my growth. It is necessary to choose a direction, select or create a path for myself. Only then can I take the path and on it, live in the present moment.

The problem with the future, however, is dealing with the risks and uncertainties, facing all those unknowns that cross my path.

...there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns; the ones we don't know we don't know.

Fear of Failure and Ridicule

To many people the future is a scary place, a place of danger where dragons lie in wait to breathe fire all over them. They don't know how to deal with it and so become frozen in their present unable to move forward, unable to grow or develop.

Many men live there, in their certainties, in the life they know. They are good at what they do and they don't want to move beyond what they're good at. They frustrate their partners and colleagues who can see such potential in them, frustrate because they won't explore, frustrate because they fear the future, fear failure, fear ridicule.

Is this where you live? Do you frustrate those around you with your fear failure and ridicule? Or do you embrace risk and uncertainty?

Brighter Future

Some years ago I was the Managing Director of a small lighting design practice in the UK. We were doing some great, well recognised, work, but financially things were not good. The firm went into receivership amidst rancour amongst the directors. We were all thrown into deep uncertainty about the future, we were all risking our financial and professional futures.

Fairly quickly I was put in touch with a potential business partner who was interested in putting up money to keep the practice going under a new name. I went into business with him because it reduced the risks, significantly, while not changing the uncertainties, they were still numerous.

In doing this I made my future distinctly brighter because I had the risks under control but could still revel in the uncertainties. How can this be? What is the difference between risk and uncertainty? How do you measure risk vs uncertainty?

Living with Risk and Uncertainty

When you are uncertain, you are not sure of what is going to happen. When you take precautions against an event, you are reducing the risk of it happening. Then it is clear that risk is when you know about a potential hazard is there and can make its occurrence unlikely, but uncertainty is when you know nothing about the outcome.

Risk constantly faces us as human beings. There are risks to health, wealth and happiness. There are risks from other people, from natural occurrences and from systems failure. These risks can be expected and steps can be taken against their effect. You can protect yourself against them. Insurance is a simple form of protection, skill and awareness are important forms of protection.

Uncertainty is simply the fact that we don't know what is going to happen. Even understanding uncertainty we cannot mitigate these we just have to deal with them as they happen. While risks can seen as threatening, uncertainty can be seen as stimulating, understanding their differences is so important.

You show your internal strength when you step into uncertainty with the confidence that you can face whatever occurs, when you become comfortable with uncertainty. Thus the knowledge that you can face whatever life brings you is a powerful state of certainty to be in. Managing uncertainty helps your internal sense of certainty because you have certainty in your accepting uncertainty.

You enable your growth and development through he power of living in this uncertainty. It speeds it up. From this place you can live in the present moment without fear of what is coming.