I think last week’s blog on developing a vision was a lot to chew on. My experience is that vision-casting gives you the best result when you take a few (or a lot of) passes through the process. Each pass through the exercise – I mean the vision-casting exercise this time – each pass lets you increase the resolution and clarity of the vision. So don’t worry about doing it all at once. Just give it a try and plan to revise it later. Especially in these days of “instant” texting and type-assist, the idea of writing something, then revising (and revising and revising) seems to be so unpopular that it now seems foreign.

I am basically saying that you need to break out of the modern “instant” writing mode and intentionally plan to revise and develop your vision over time. It needs to be flexible and adjustable, so it can fit the twists and turns of your life. What is important, though, is that you START the process. Be realistic and reasonable, but possibly your very biggest challenge will be to actually SEE YOURSELF – as DIFFERENT. When you think of the process of change (personal change), your biggest enemy at the beginning is momentum: you are very possibly in an established pattern of poor habits, inactivity and/or unhealthy nutrition. Your daily routines are established, and they have momentum – they will resist changing speed or direction.

Your first task may simply be to identify and start shaking up your current routines, so that you can begin to gradually change them. I said “gradually” – at least, within reason. If your attempts to change are so radical or uncomfortable to you that you quit, then you will be inclined to give up. So I recommend, once you have determined that you are going to shake things up, that you make small, incremental changes that will let you slowly but surely change your current self into the future, fitter self you have envisioned. Imagine a ratchet, getting tighter one click at a time, but NOT GIVING UP THE PROGRESS MADE.

There you have it. Getting started is difficult. Making changes is difficult. Accomplishing challenging goals is difficult. But all of these things allow us to strive for something better, for objectives we cannot accomplish unless we make ourselves better. My final thought this week is this: your envisioned self should be starting to entice you. It should be calling you toward it. As you develop and refine the vision of your future, fitter self, this vision will begin to sharpen the contrast between where you want to be and where you are now. And THAT contrast should be the fuel that motivates you to change.