the bigger picture

Most people begin life with a sense of destiny. Some are blessed with visions, others a sense of purpose or calling. For others it’s just a feeling. A divine lead if you like. Very often this inner sense gives us reassurance that we are going somewhere. That our life or career or company has meaning and a future.

But something happens when we start to move forward. And get older. That sense that gives us drive and hope gets challenged. What we had expected to happen, like an unfolding of a dream, gets foggy in the fray. This is a dangerous place to be. A no man's land for the spirit. Doubts creep in.

Our pathway is always clearer when we look back. But in the valleys, in the grind of the everyday and the inevitable seasons of life, as we trudge forward, we face the frontline of that divine feeling -that future we seek- in the dark. Always a little lost.

A crucial power when we are there is to remind ourselves of the bigger picture. To see it, speak it and hear it spoken back to us. So, even if it’s just a feeling, get it down and bring it out. That destination and departure point for the adventure of your life.

Vision. It’s such a powerful concept. That we can see and speak something into being. To pull it out of our mind, spirit and senses and into life. Something which may contain the answers for us - and our world.

Where does it come from? I can’t begin to explore this. Where does it go to? This is what I want to muse on.

When I was younger I had a vision to create an innovation company for brands. A place where people would come from around the world to invent the future. I called it The Big White Building on the Hill by the Sea. (Perhaps an asylum, as I was to discover in the GFC!).

The problem I faced with the clarity of this vision is that it was static. And as the world changed around me, I was fixated on the place, not the principle.

The thing that I have grown to understand, and what has been revealed to me through visioning the future with scores of clients, is that vision unfolds.

Meaning, as you approach that which you’ve seen and pursued, something greater reveals itself. It’s like we are allowed to only see so far. But as we get closer, a bigger picture is revealed again. So, allow yourself the freedom to pursue your idea and dream knowing that it’s OK to let it grow and change as you go. Even setbacks serve great purposes in the bigger picture.