My Reality Check Bounced! - Jason Ryan Dorsey [8]
Why? Because when you know where you want to go, and why, you can identify and then take the actions necessary to get there. Painting a clear picture of the future you want is a critical step in breaking free of your restlessness because it tells you and the world that you have a future,—and the power to create it! You also make it much easier to find a path toward that future when you know where you are going.
Think about it: How do you stop spinning your wheels if you don’t know where you’re going? How do you know if you’ve reached your goals if you don’t know what your goals look and feel like? How do you get the right people to help you if you can’t tell them the kind of help you need? You can answer all these questions and free yourself to do what you’ve always wanted by creating and then locking on to a personally meaningful picture of the future you demand to live. This picture of where you want to go should be so motivating that you will push yourself to do whatever it takes to see it through.
Okay, okay, I can just hear you saying, “But I don’t know where I see myself in the future.” Or “I feel stuck because I don’t know what will make me happy.” Or “There are just too many choices and what if I make the wrong one: Should I get a real job now or backpack across Europe? Should I settle down in a serious relationship or play the field? Should I move back home until I figure this out or share a one-bedroom apartment with four roommates? Do I have to go in a direction that is already well traveled or can I make a new path that better fits who I am?”
To begin solving the riddle of where to go with your life, you must be willing to look inside for the answers. You must be honest about what inspires, delights, and excites you. When you look inside yourself, you will see that you have all the ingredients for creating a picture of your ideal adult life. My goal is to help you construct this picture and make it so vivid that it becomes your life. Once you have this mental picture, you will be able to make tough decisions faster, learn lessons you didn’t see before, and brave the risks inherent in any new venture. This picture will burn so strong inside you that you will see it through, even if the entire world seems to be against you. You will persist because you have within yourself a clear reason to live.
GET YOUR FUTURE IN FOCUS
I call this tantalizing image of where you want to be and what you want to experience your Future Picture. It’s an emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual molding of what your life would be like if you could wave a magic wand and make it just the way you want it. You’ve already seen in Chapter 1 what taking responsibility for your future can do for freeing your spirit and independence. Creating this Future Picture funnels all your talent, creativity, resilience, and energy down one meaningful path so you can put everything you’ve got into getting where you most want to be.
Davis, twenty-eight, has experienced the personal reward that comes from focusing all his efforts toward one clear vision. When he was in college, he dreamed about opening his own movie theater. He saw his movie theater as an entire entertainment experience. He imagined serving food like they do at regular restaurants, offering adult beverages of every flavor, and showcasing movies that were not just big-budget, mainstream productions. Davis saw this vision so clearly he could tell you how the seats were going to look, what the staff was going to wear, and what type of nostalgic posters would hang on the walls.
Opening a movie theater, especially with no experience, is a long shot at best. But Davis saw it in his mind, and he knew what he had to do. He worked long hours seven days a week to turn his vision into a reality. Four years after leaving college, Davis cut the red ribbon that officially opened his movie theater. The seats, uniforms, and posters looked exactly like he had