Welcome to Tony Richards Messages

20 Writing A Vision Statement Pt3

Welcome to this week’s message on leadership, self-confidence, and how to feel good about yourself everyday as you interact with people, in safety and comfort, at home and work.

Last week’s message was about Critical Step 2. Celebrate Your Achievements.

It was a wonderful message that provided us with an opportunity to practice a skill that we may not have used since childhood. It is the second of the Five Critical Steps that combine together to ensure your security within the Cycle of Confidence and Leadership.

If you wish to be reminded of that message, it is also available back on the message page.

This week’s message is about Critical Step 3. Writing a Vision Statement.

Your Vision Statement will be reflective of who you are and where you’re going. It is imperative in providing you certainty and direction in decision-making, and will also help you understand why you’re making decisions, and where they’re taking you. This is the Critical Step that links the first three Steps together, to ensure you never loose sight of your real value as an individual, and also displays that value to everyone else you come into contact with.

Provided you have had constant access to these weekly messages you will have gone through a process that explained the Cycle of Confidence and Leadership, and the first two Critical Steps that re-established your place in that Cycle. Those two steps were, 1. The Recognition and Embracing of Your Own Uniqueness, and 2. Celebration of Achievements. This writing of a Vision Statement is the third Critical Step and in previous messages you were given explanations as to WHY you need a Statement, and HOW to write one.

I choose this week to concentrate on why you need to read your Statement everyday. That may also mean reading it a number of times during the day. This is to ensure it provides the support it is designed for, of reminding you of your real value as an individual, while giving you certainty and direction in all your decision making.

The first two Critical Steps, listed above, were designed to give you an insight into how you recognise your true value as an individual. And having done that, it becomes imperative that you turned those positive, intangible thoughts into a tangible reflection for guidance and certainty.

Your Vision Statement actually links the other two steps with itself so you find it much easier to like the unique person that you are, because you recognise yourself, and your value, in that Statement.

However if you can recognise your real value, why should you have to read it in your Statement everyday?

If you have ever had moments of self-doubt or uncertainty during the day you will understand that we all forget, and positive reinforcement is imperative when we have issues to deal with that have us under stress.

The example I like to use is like a visit to the Doctor. If you are prescribed a course of antibiotics, and decide to stop taking them when you feel better, even though the full course could go on for some months more, you know you are risking a return to the condition that required treatment in the first place.

At any time during the day you may be confronted with road rage, disagreements at home or work, difficult negotiations, all due to the pressures that you or others are feeling at the time.

Your Vision Statement gives you immediate and sustained relief of those pressures so you can concentrate on the direction you have previously chosen to adopt.

Businesses use the same technique of falling back on their Statements at moments of crisis to keep profits, and direction of policy, on track. Why would any individual person want to risk less certainty, and accept more pressure, than a well-run business?

When I work with politicians or elite athletes, I am not surprised by how many have, and how often they read, their own Statements. And those Statements don’t have to be long, just decisive. Take for example the Statement of the late Mahatma Gandhi, who lived by:

“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

I shall not fear anyone on earth. I shall fear only God. I shall not bear ill towards anyone.

I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. I shall conquer untruth by truth.

And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.”

The interesting point to that Statement is that first line. There is no doubt he is making that commitment to his Statement every day because his Statement requires it by saying just that.

And you can bet that if there were moments of doubt during the day it was read again. This is a small Statement but it serves the purpose for providing direction and certainty. It clearly gives an insight into the person you are dealing with as well. He knew where he was going, who he was, and what he wanted.

Your Vision Statement should have the same reflection of who you are and where you’re headed. I have never met any real leaders that didn’t have, and didn’t read constantly, their Vision Statements, by whatever name they called them. If you need assistance with writing your Statement you can contact me personally, or if you have time, wait a few months and the previous messages on HOW to write it will be repeated.

Please take the opportunity this week to think about your Vision Statement and how it must become an imperative part of reminding yourself of your value as its words provide direction for personal or business decisions and interactions with others. We would all love to hear about any Statement, historical quotation, or positive affirmations you have used to maintain certainty, or direction, in guiding your everyday actions.

Your stories – even short comments – are of great value to inspire others, and I would like to take the opportunity to include your stories, or comments, in upcoming episodes of ‘Special Interest Items’. They will be included as they fit into the theme of the message for that week.

Do you know anyone you can help with leadership issues, or just feeling good about themselves? Forward this message to friends and work colleagues; print it out and place it on notice boards, and give copies to those without computer access. Printing out, and compiling each weekly message in a folder, is a good way to build a total knowledge of self-confidence and leadership. It will provide certainty in dealing with every aspect of your life.

Next week’s message will be about Critical Step 4 Setting Goals. You will feel the benefits of taking small but positive steps that reinforce your focus on how important YOU are. You will also come to understand why setting goals is the 4th Critical Step, not the 1st, 2nd or 3rd. It will be followed in coming weeks by Critical Step 5 and a message of Special Interest.

Until then, please continue to see yourself as a unique and remarkable person, who deserves to feel good about yourself every day.

Tony Richards.

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