Last week I was talking to a client about her overall vision and she told me that she doesn’t feel like she has one big vision, but rather many smaller visions.
But as we explored that a bit more, it was clear that all these “baby” visions tied back to her big mama vision, so it in the end it all made sense. For her, each baby vision was essentially a baby step that would make the big mama vision years down the road actually possible.
Your big vision – whatever it may be – serves to guide your actions and decisions on an ongoing basis.
If you’ve not sat down and committed this to paper, it’s time for you to book a CEO date with yourself and get it nailed down. You can get some resources here on creating your vision statement.
Think of your vision statement as the roadmap for your business. Without the map or address to plug into the GPS your business gets a whole lot riskier. You may end up on an amazing adventure that you never imagined, or the equivalent of being stuck in the middle of the desert after running out of gas.
Breaking Down Your Vision
Whatever the big mama vision is, it serves a very important function in your business, because as you have all your baby visions – you can stop and run them back against the big mama.
Every product, service, marketing activity, launch or anything else you plan should have it’s own baby vision. As you get ideas you want to assess them in terms of the big mama and figure out is this just an idea, or is the one of my precious babies?
Here’s some ways to get really clear on if you have a baby vision, or it’s just another idea, and maybe not something you should be adding into the mix:
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What are the goals? Do they support the big vision?
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Write a project charter. Does this align with how you want to be doing business?
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What’s involved in this project? Are the resources needed going to serve me well?
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How will this move me one step closer to the big mama vision?
If you can’t create a cohesive baby vision, you may want to label that idea with red alert and slowly back away. It may simply be a distraction or something to look at in the future.
There may be times when all your baby visions together seem confusing – but when you really break them down, there’s logic and beauty to what you are doing because it supports big mama. In these cases, you may need to fine tune your story around things to ensure the make sense to the world around you – because if you are confused, odds are your customers, partners or other stakeholders will be too.
A good example of this would be if I decided to pull my boudoir photography sessions into NiceOps and suddenly offered them to all of my clients.
That would seem disjointed and possibly a bit creepy, as do you really want your business coach and strategist to see you in your lingerie?
On the flip side, one of my missions with NiceOps is to help CEOs really own the power they have, and I know firsthand how empowering boudoir photos are for most people. Suddenly in that context, that saucy photo shoot isn’t so weird, is it? It supports my overall vision and mission in a way that’s tangible.
No matter how small your baby vision is, take the time to make sure you’re truly doing the best possible thing in pursuit of that big mama vision. Know when to let things go, or when you may need to simplify or change up your story so it makes sense. Then you’ll be well on you way to a million baby steps to your success.
