Episode #34 Transcript
The Key to Creating the Year You Want (the VISION episode)
INTRO: This is the Decision Masters Podcast. I'm Kirsten Parker, the Decision Coach for Overthinkers. When you feel good about your decisions, life feels good. You get to be present in your days and excited about where you're going. I'm gonna help you build your decision mastery. So it's easy to know what you want, navigate uncertainty and handle any feelings that happen. Whether you're in the middle of some overthinking angst right now or you simply love feeling in charge of your choices, you're in the right place. Clear confident, decisions are right around the corner. Let's get into it.
KIRSTEN: Happy New Year, buddy. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited for the timing of this conversation with you because I just got back, at the time of this recording, from two weeks in Italy with my husband. And it really felt kind of like a trip back in time. So I am super jazzed to talk with you today about creating the year you want, looking ahead at 2023, establishing a vision, which is gonna be so much fun, but doing it kind of from the perspective of just having traveled through time a little bit. Because we got to see so much fun stuff.
We got to see how they've been blowing glass in Murano for centuries, and how they've been making parmigiano reggiano and balsamic vinegar in Modena, just these timeless ways of doing things. We got to see old timey Ferrari's, that was so much fun. And we climbed to the top of the Duomo. Just so much has been preserved physically and also in the way things are done, and it was really special to feel connected to people in that way.
And now as we are rounding the corner into 2023, new year, clean slate, it's nice to have this feeling almost like a bolstering of hope. I'm not gonna lie to you, I wanna be able to keep looking forward with you and help you stay connected to what matters, what's important, what you want. Because if we can do that, if we can keep looking forward, but keep what we want that's working, that makes us feel special, that makes us feel like we're being who we wanna be, then we can keep making this world and our teeny unique individual lives better.
And the great thing about that is we don't need to start all over. We don't need this “new year, new you, let's throw everything out and blow everything up and start over” mentality. Because A, we're not gonna do that, and B, ugh, God, that sounds like so much work. And C, that discounts everything that is great about your life, everything that has been working, everything that maybe wasn't perfect, but you still wouldn't change, probably, if you had your druthers. So we get to look ahead, we get to create this vision for the year you want ahead, but we don't need to do it from the mentality that nothing has worked and everything is crap, now we have to start from scratch. No thank you.
And we also don't have to feel stuck where we are. We don't have to feel burdened by the past, like, “Well, this is how it's always been, so this is how it just has to stay.” There's possibility for building on things and evolving things. So I don't know, I'm not sure if I'm making any sense because I might be a little jet lagged, but that's the spirit that I'm talking to you from today. From hope and connection and a little jet lag, and we're just gonna call it fine.
And we're gonna talk about your vision for 2023. Vision is one of my absolute favorite things to work out with clients, because when you do it right, it unlocks something for you that makes everything easier—which, yes, please, this is what we want. It connects you with yourself in a totally authentic way, and it feels super powerful, super self-honoring, to watch yourself turn a vision into truth.
These are some of the funnest conversations I have with clients, when we look back at, okay, what was your vision that we set up for you, three, six months ago, and to check in: That was who you wanted to be, how do you feel now? And it's so, so, so much fun when you can look at the life that you have created for yourself and be like, Yep, that's just true now. So good.
All right, so I know you might be thinking what I used to think when I used to hear words like “vision.” My question was often, how is this wackadoo nonsense gonna help me make decisions? Like what do I need a vision for? And I also used to just feel really intimidated about the idea of creating a vision because I felt very, very confused.
So I'm with you, if these are your questions, if this is where you are, no worries. What we are talking about when we talk about creating your vision is who you want to be. It's super simple, that's all we're talking about. The person you wanna become on purpose, the person you would love to be in real life, come July of 2023. Because you're going to be a real person in July either way. At least that's the hopeful assumption we base our plans on.
But there are a couple ways you could go about becoming that person you're going to be. There's the default way and there's the deliberate way. The default way is the easiest: you keep your head down, you get through this busy time, and then you get through the next hard time, and your lifelong habits dictate much of your decisions, what you say yes and no to, what goals you pursue, blah, blah, blah. And by July you are where you have happened to land. That's the default way.
The deliberate way is harder, I'm gonna be straight. It's harder because it requires you to think now about where you would like to land. And then once you identify that, you have to do a teeny bit of work most days between now and July to edge yourself in that direction. If you've read James Clear's book Atomic Habits, he would describe this as casting tiny votes for being the person you want to be with small decisions every day.
This deliberate way of becoming who you're going to become by July is also harder because it is not super satisfying to our instant gratification wiring. Pursuing a vision is playing a long game, and it means we have to not be upset and disappointed with ourselves for not changing overnight instantly and adopting a brand new perfect routine, and, I don't know, dropping a bunch of weight or making a bunch of money within 24 hours. that's not the idea. But the deliberate way that we're talking about being harder is also so much richer because you get to feel intentional. You get to feel like you are steering your ship. You get to have a reference point informing your decisions, the reference point of, Who do I want to be in July?
And this comes super in handy when you are confused about what to do. You get to feel more like your authentic, real, genuine self, now. Every day between now and July. Not have this idea I used to have, like, “Hopefully someday I'll feel more like myself. Hopefully when things settle down and work themselves out, and I'm less confused and less anxious, sometime down the line, I'll feel better. I'll feel more like myself. I won't feel like I'm working so hard every day.” And that's what operating with a vision on a daily basis helps you achieve. That's why it's worth the effort. That's why the harder way is worth bothering with.
So right now, I would like you to imagine you in July of 2023. Or, if you're not listening real time, just imagine you, the real life fantabulous person that you are going to be, six months from now. Not the “perfect” version of you, not who you think you should be, not who your relatives would want you to be or your boss wants you to be. Just think about if things went the way you want them to go. How are you in six months? What stands out about that person? What are they doing? What are they not doing? How do they feel? Notice what's different about this future you from you today.
A lot of things might come up at this point in the process. That is a-okay. Let your mind go wide before you make it pare down. Eventually I want you to find one, two things maximum that feel like the most important differences between you today and this future, six-months-from-now-you. Because those most inspiring, freeing, energizing, peaceful, whatever the differences are, those are what will become your vision statement.
When I ask clients to consider these questions, I hear all kinds of answers. So I want you to know there's no wrong answers. You might have very specific things that come to mind, you might have really vague answers, and that's okay. When I ask my clients this, they're describing their future selves like they're taking time off. “Six-months-from-now-me does not work seven days a week.” Super valid answer. They’re seeing their family more often. They're not putting it off. I hear they have fun. They feel relaxed. Those are perfectly acceptable answers.
I also hear things like they are making six figures in their own business. I hear things like they don't worry what other people will think. They're not totally consumed by other people's opinions of them. They totally trust themselves, or they feel confident in their decisions. A good one I hear is they put themselves first. They take up space for themselves. This is the simple process of crafting your vision statement.
Now it's normal to need help with it, so I don't want to present it as if you should immediately come up with this on your own and it should be done and perfect. Never the case. But let it be this simple. Okay? Imagine yourself six months from now the way that you would love to turn out, where you would love to land six months from now. And think about the important differences between that version of you and today's version of you. And I wanna give you some helpful parameters to follow once you start crafting the actual vision statement you're gonna end up with.
You're gonna make it one sentence and you're gonna make it a maximum of 12 words. That's an arbitrary number, but I really want you to be able to remember your vision statement. It's kind of nutty pants, but we can create goals and visions for ourselves that are super authentic and inspiring, and we really, really, really want to live them as our truth, and we can also make them very complicated to the point where we cannot remember them. And I don't want you to feel bad about this, but I do want it to be a solvable problem. I see it a lot and I've done it before too, so no judgment. But let's make it easy on ourselves, okay?
I want you to create a vision statement that you can actually remember and walk around with in your life every single day for the next six months, and know who you are becoming on purpose. Whether that's someone who is making six figures in their own business, or taking time off and having fun. So make it one sentence and make it 12 words or less. You can have a whole larger vision story attached to it, and that would be super beautiful and yummy and delicious, but boil it down to something impactful and concise.
The second parameter is to use positive phrasing. It is super dupes normal to start from a place of what you do not want. I hear this all the time. It's also a really easy way to identify what you do want, by starting with, “Well, here's what I don't want.” So it's totally normal if you think about you in July and you think, “Well, I don't wanna be working seven days a week. I don't wanna be saying yes to all these extra things that I don't really wanna do. I don't wanna be putting this off. I don't wanna be so hard on myself anymore.” Really good information.
Use that as your starting point to get yourself to a place of naming what you do want. This can be a little tricky, but I promise you can figure it out and I promise it's worth it, because you don't wanna walk around for the next six months saying, “I don't wanna work seven days a week. I don't wanna be so hard on myself.” It's very hard to walk around the grocery store and tell yourself, “I don't wanna buy Oreos, I don't wanna buy Oreos.” Like, what do you buy? It is easy to walk around the grocery store saying, “I want to buy mangoes and coconut milk.” You wanna give yourself actionable targets at which to aim.
So if you don't want to be so hard on yourself, how do you wanna treat yourself? “I wanna treat myself compassionately.” “I wanna be on my own team.” “I wanna be nice to myself.” Find some kind of positive phrasing to what you want.
The third parameter is leave out the goal bits. Sometimes we are such overachievers and we want so desperately to fulfill our goals and stay accountable to what we want that the nitty gritty of the actions we want ourselves to take can seep in to this idea of the vision. So what your vision is not going to sound like is, “I am writing four blogs a week,” or “I am selling five paintings a month,” or “I am working out six times in a row.” Those are goals, not visions.
If that's where your brain is focusing, that's okay. If the strong image you're getting is “I'm writing four blogs a week,” and that's what seems like the biggest, most important difference between you and them, I want you to think about, Well, what's allowing you to do that? What is enabling future-you to write four blogs a week or sell five paintings a month? Do they have boundaries? Are they not so hard on themselves? That will tell you something about who you are being that can inform your vision statement.
And the final parameter, that is perhaps the most important one, is it's totally okay if it's boring. Clients get very concerned when this teeny, super boring sentence that we come up with seems very impactful for them, because they feel like it should be more complicated and more specific, more snazzy. I promise, if your vision statement is "I put myself first," and it's as simple as that, and that one simple sentence opens something up for you like permission to make decisions in an entirely new way, which changes how you treat yourself and what experiences you embrace and what boundaries you set, which changes the very course of the entire next six months to the point that you are a different person in July than you would be if you hadn't been guided by this one boring sentence, it's fine. Let it be boring. All that matters is that it's powerful for you.
And I really wanna validate that like 9 out of 10 vision statements I help people create are super boring. They're just like, “I put myself first.” It's not impressive, but it can change everything, cuz you in July can be a different person. You can end up a different person if this one teeny sentence is informing your decisions just the teensiest weensiest bit, every single day between now and July, don't you think? So I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
If you've got a vision statement for 2023, first you're gonna write it down. You have to write it somewhere you will see it automatically every day. This means not putting it in a note in your phone, cuz you're not gonna scroll through your notes every single day. It doesn't mean putting it in a folder in your computer somewhere. It means writing it somewhere and putting it on your wall, putting it on your desktop, putting it on your phone background, making it a popup that automatically grabs your attention.
I warn you, you might feel a little cheesy, and I don't care. It's worth it. It's worth feeling a little cheesy if it helps you become a person on purpose, by July, that you want to be. Who treats themselves well, who prioritizes themselves, who does the scary, inspired, creative thing that you wanna do. It's worth it to feel a little cheesy and write this down somewhere you can see it. Other people don't have to see it, but I'm just telling you, it's okay if they do, and it's okay if they think you're cheesy. You will also be inspiring to them, and then they'll probably copy you, so, they're welcome.
So first I want you to write it down and then I want you to email it to me. Let me know if you do this and let me know what you think it's going to mean for you for the next six months. Email me at [email protected] cuz I wanna celebrate you. And I'm obviously here to help, too, if this is really intimidating. This is what I help people with all day long.
So if you're nearly there, or if you're intrigued but you want some help, or you're like, “I have no idea where to start, this is a really intimidating idea,” I wanna invite you to the Clarity Workshop. This is normally a self-paced workshop you can get instant access to on my website, but I'm hosting it live in January. Because, new year, why not start it out with some clarity about who you wanna be, where you wanna go, what you wanna get done, how you wanna feel? I can help you, in real time, unlock the perfect vision statement that is going to set you on the course you wanna follow for the next six months. And we'll organize your goals, we'll identify your core values, it's gonna be so much fun.
So you can sign up for the Clarity Workshop right now at kirstenparker.com/clarityworkshop. And let's work out your vision statement and everything else you want for 2023 together, so you feel really strong and clear and authentic and intentional about what's ahead. In the meantime, I hope you have so much fun thinking about who you wanna be in the next six months, and I really do wanna hear your thoughts on this, so email me if you've come up with a vision statement that you feel super solid about. And if you need help, kirstenparker.com/clarityworkshop. I got you. Happy new year. I'll see you soon.
OUTRO: Hey, wanna know the number one thing you need to kickstart your momentum right now? (Obviously.) I know! That's why I created the Momentum Quiz. Head to kirstenparker.com/quiz to find out your number one momentum killer and get your personalized action plan to boost your momentum and get back on track. That’s kirstenparker.com/quiz. Have fun!
