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If you missed the beginning of this post, you can go here to catch up, or go here to start at the beginning of my Tips for Aspiring Leaders series.
Having said a few words about the creative aspect of speaking your vision (creating a network of interrelated and relevant conversations to articulate your vision), another important thing to talk about is the discipline of engaging in these very intentional conversations.
Like any other discipline, speaking your vision requires practice and dedication. One of the most important concepts to incorporate into your practice is speaking your vision even when you have absolutely no evidence that you will ever succeed in fulfilling it!
When the going gets tough and resignation creeps in, it may seem to you that your vision is dead in the water. It may seem that nothing you can say will ever make a difference. It may seem that the world has rejected your vision completely.
Anyone with any leadership experience has been in this boat before. This is where the discipline of speaking your vision becomes critically important! When you have no external confirmation that your vision is working, no outside indication that the world is accepting your vision, you have to be disciplined about sticking to the game plan! You have to continue to speak your vision, even if it seems pointless.
One mistake that aspiring leaders make all the time is allowing their perception of the world around them to influence or suppress their vision for the future. When they don’t see the results they want to see, they make the mistake of changing their conversations.
The network of conversations they were engaging in then starts to shift and change. Instead of articulating their vision, they start to articulate their fears and doubts. The network of conversations shifts toward survival and scarcity… “we’re not gonna make it”, “we don’t have enough”, “It’s not working”…
You may not see any evidence around you that your vision is getting fulfilled, but this is when it’s most important to keep speaking as though there is only one path ahead… the path that fulfills your vision. No matter what the circumstances are, if you can create a conversation with a broad enough context to include those circumstances, people will continue to follow your vision.
Possibly related:
[…] And then I read something on Verve Coaching of extreme relevance whether it’s vision or just plain getting your head down and getting things done with that vision in mind. When the going gets tough and resignation creeps in, it may seem to you that your vision is dead in the water. It may seem that nothing you can say will ever make a difference. It may seem that the world has rejected your vision completely. […]