How to Develop Your Personal Vision Statement

Without a personal vision statement, most people tend to become aimless drifters in life. They have no definite goals for the future and no long-term direction.

Without direction, you will be caught up with short term outcomes like paying the bills, watching your favorite TV shows, going shopping, going through the daily motions and generally just trying to survive the rat race. You will be caught up in a stressed and monotonous existence instead of designing your destiny and truly living.

• A personal vision statement makes it easier to develop the objectives, milestones and strategies that will help you to achieve your vision.


• A personal vision statement acts as a yardstick against which you can measure your current situation and your progress.


• A personal vision statement also allows you to evaluate your values. If, for example, one of your values is integrity, you will know when you are compromising the fulfillment of your vision if you are acting without integrity.

Keep in mind that your personal vision statement is a look into the future. It defines what and who you want to become at a set time in the future. It should not be vague, or else you will not be able to develop a strategy to achieve it.

Your personal vision statement will usually take off from your personal value system and beliefs. Values are traits or qualities that are considered worthwhile; they represent your highest priorities and deeply held driving forces. A person usually stays true to his/her values and therefore it is very important to develop your personal vision statement from the perspective of your values.

A few examples of values are: honesty, ambition, competency, individuality, integrity, responsibility, respect, dedication, loyalty, credibility, efficiency, dignity, empathy, accomplishment, courage, wisdom, independence, influence, friendliness, order, generosity, optimism, dependability, and flexibility.

Proceed as follows:

• Select about five to six values and write them down.


• Write down your passions, your dreams, your needs and your strengths.


• Now write your personal vision statement. Use the preceding information to craft your personal vision statement. Write in the first person and make statements about the future you wish to achieve. Be specific, set goals you want to achieve, set a time frame, and articulate the statements in such a way that they can be evaluated and measured.

Compared to setting up tasks to follow your goals and actually performing these tasks, drafting a personal vision statement is actually a very simple thing to do. If you do not have a system where you can note down your goals and measure your progress against them on a regular basis, chances are that you will never achieve them.

If you had a system where you could do the following, you will be on the right track to live out and achieve your personal vision statement as well as your goals in life:

• Define and visualize your goals, so that you always have a clear view in mind where you are now, and which direction need to go.


• Setting up deadlines or time frames for the timely completion of each oif your goals.


• Break down the tasks that need to be performed in order to achieve your goals into manageable smaller steps.


• Track your time, so that you use your time wisely, get important things done first, and work less but achieve more.


• Review your progress, so that you can see the instant progress on your goal whenever you complete a task, and always stay positive and feel motivated.


• Build great habits, so that you can make the necessary changes in thought and behavior patterns that are required of your goals.

Click here to view just such a system that will hep you to get your goals on track: The Daily Goal Machine.

The main objective of The Daily Goal Machine is quite simple: to give you a simple and easy way to visually structure your day in such a way that you would feel totally compelled to take action and get things done, once and for all - with no more daydreaming, with no more procrastination, with no more being side-tracked and distracted every few minutes by irrelevant things.

• In 10 years' time, I want to be the president of my company


• Within one year from now, I want to be physically fit and be able to run a distance of 5 kilometers 3 times a week. I also want to do one fun activity per day. In 2 years from now, I want to have completed my degree.


• I stand on the podium and I am awarded the Olympic Gold Medal for the 100 meter sprint. I look up at the crowd cheering in the stadium and I feel a tremendous pride as I listen to my country's national anthem being played.

There is no specific format in which to write your personal vision statement. Do what feels right for you and what works for you. Just remember that you must be able to link achievable goals to those castles in the air, or else they will just stay that ... castles in the air.