Does Your Vision Include Financial Rewards?
Even when they’ve found their passion and purpose, many people cannot imagine making a living doing what they love to do. But really, why is this? Simply because you have a liming belief which tells you it’s not possible? (We’ve examined the connection between limiting beliefs, lack of achievement, and ways to deal with injunctions and shadow belief systems elsewhere.)
For example, you love to go sailing but you don’t think this could provide you with a living? Is this real, or a limitation due to a lack of vision and imagination on your part? Or is it the product of some deep shadow belief you hold in your subconscious mind?
Truth is, my friend Colin Masterson loves to go sailing, and he’s made a very good living for many years skippering mega-yachts for the rich men and women who love a life on the ocean wave.
My friend Alan Jackson is passionate about photography. He’s now making a very good living selling beautiful landscape prints and greeting cards. He also is commissioned by publishers to take spectacular photographs of the most dramatic and inspiring beauty spots throughout the world. Not only does he get to enjoy his passion of photography, but he also gets to travel around the world doing it! And his bank balance reflects the skill and esteem he’s achieved in his particular profession.
Sir Ian McKellen always loved to act. After developing his skills in the theatre, at the age of 50 he turned to movies. Then, in his 70s, he was offered defining parts in some of the biggest movies of all time. (Gandalf, in The Hobbit Trilogy, in particular.)
These people definitely have passion and purpose. You may say they have outstanding skills too. Sure, but they learned those skills somewhere, just like you can.
Jesse Heiman is a portly redhead with a degree in English who loves acting. He’s made around 60 appearances in mainstream movies and big-hit television shows. In his short acting career, he’s appeared alongside stars such as Leonardo Di Caprio and Kisten Dunst. You’d never take Jesse for a star but casting directors seem to have many roles which suit him. And if he can fulfil his aspirations in this way, so can you.
My friend Jan Day is a woman who loves to help people build better relationships. She’s making a decent living because she has passion and purpose about running workshops in which she shows people exactly how they can establish greater intimacy and enjoy truly rewarding emotional and sexual relationships.
And my colleague Marianne Hill loves to help people explore their shadow and achieve their full potential. She has developed her skills to the point where she is now running a highly respected training course for shadow work facilitators. She is making a very good living doing exactly what she loves: running run workshops in which people can find their deepest truths, heal their deepest wounds, and explore how they can bring all of themselves into the world for everybody’s benefit.
If these people can do it, so can you!
Your Vision Doesn’t Need A Road Map To Go With It
A lot of people working on their vision start getting wrapped up in concerns about how they are going to make it into a reality. But at this stage you don’t need to worry about how this is going to happen. Once you’ve formed a clear vision and you’ve “programmed” that into your mind, a mysterious energy will take over.
This is the energy of the universe, which wants to support you. Soon you will soon find yourself enjoying all kinds of unexpected coincidences, synchronicities. There will be many moments of good luck, good fortune and opportunities that will speed you on your way. This is The Law Of Attraction at work.
We’ll talk more about The Law of Attraction later. For the moment all you have to do is work on creating a vision of your future.
One good way to form your vision is to create a detailed picture, image, visualisation or description of how your ideal life would look like you’ve achieved it. This is what you’re going to do now.
Of course your vision can change as time goes by, so a great idea is to revisit your vision every few months. This is your starting point, and you have seven major areas to think about.
1 A Healthy Approach To Wealth and Material Goods
The first area to focus on is your financial vision. Here you can determine exactly what annual income you require, how much you wish to have in savings and investments, how you’re making provision for your retirement, and other financial safeguards such as ensuring you have insurance for your family.
This might be the first test of your ability to believe in your vision. Suppose you want a multi-million dollar investment fund for your retirement. You could easily sabotage yourself by choosing to decide that this just isn’t possible.
Remember, though, at this stage you’re not concerned with how your wealth is going to come to you, or whether you’re making enough money to build such a fund. For now, all you do is simply create your vision of what you want, imagining your ideal picture of your life as it is in the future. This is the time to create a detailed GPS destination for your brain to work on.
If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there.
But if you do know where you want to go, you can start the journey right here, right now.
Another important aspect of your vision around wealth is what you do with your money. Do you support charitable enterprises or good causes, do you support your friends or family? Is your money being used to support a particular interest of yours such as health promotion, helping people develop greater vitality and well-being, promoting sustainability – or something else which benefits humanity?
2 Home & Material Possessions
You need a vision of your future home, including its size, its location and the type of furnishings you are enjoying. You might also want to visualise the type of car you’re driving, the kind of possessions you enjoy owning, and anything else which seems relevant to the physical structure of your ideal life.
3 Purpose and Mission
The second area to focus on is your life’s work. We’ve already talked in this book about soul purpose – aka life mission – and right livelihood – aka your ideal occupation.
Now it’s time for you to crystallise the vision of your ideal job or occupation. Where are you working and what are you doing? Do you have a clear image of your co-workers, clients and business associates? Are you running your own business or are you working as an employee in a company? If so, what kind of company is it, and what position do you occupy?
Let your imagination run free here, because as we saw in Chapter 1, your job needs to be something which feeds your soul.
In short, what do you do which serves both yourself and the world?