Why you need to regularly refine your vision

The mission is the map; the vision is the road to get to the destination. Your vision is made up of the nitty-gritty details that help you make real progress. Because your mission provides a framework for your life, you can lead with sharper vision when you know your mission.

Discovering and implementing your personal vision requires the process of self-discovery, establishing specific goals, and continually fine-tuning your direction. It’s a dynamic—and sometimes complex—process.

Your vision becomes increasingly refined as your purpose becomes clearer, and your purpose becomes clearer as you experience successes and failures, triumphs and defeats, joys and sorrows. A person’s vision is an organic, dynamic, growing thing.

Very few people have a clear vision from the outset of their lives and careers. Several of the great leaders we now recognize worldwide have stories that, when studied, reveal adequate response(s) to specific challenges they faced. Situations in our lives change too—so we need to come back again and again to assess our personal vision statements.

At least once a year, we should take time to reevaluate our life’s direction and course. The essence of vision is the ability to see into the future, to envision the desired destiny. J. Oswald Sanders once said, “Eyes that look are common, but eyes that see are rare.” This is explained in another quote by Myles Munroe: “Sight is a function of the eyes, but vision is a function of the heart.”

Vision is how you see yourself fulfilling your mission. This means that we may look at our relationships and careers but fail to see beneath the surface. Sight is the ability to see things as they are; vision is the capacity to see things as they could be.

How are you refining your vision?