7 questions to distill your vision
🗺️ a continuation of writings on world-building.
🌸 this a new series on growing a vision.
in the earlier posts of this series, I wrote about why your vision is your power, how to nurture it over its changing life phases, and how to begin forming your vision, through journaling on your discontentment & desire.
in this post, I’ll assume that you’ve already excavated and found the beginning threads of your vision (even if it feels messy, unformed, and raw), and I’ll share some tools and questions to ask — as you’re working on clarifying and distilling it down further.
*a note before diving in:
some visions — and creative projects — don’t require or want this kind of inner excavation. some prefer to emerge organically, intuitively, spontaneously. so listen to your own wisdom; don’t push yourself to reflect, if what you really need to do is just BEGIN. it’s easy to use contemplation as a tool for procrastination. ask yourself if you’re just creating another mental hoop to jump through, when you really just need to sit down, and do the work.
also: your vision can be as big or small in scale — though it might be easier to start with a specific area of your life, rather than “life” as a whole — (ie, a vision for your creative practice, a specific creative project, for your business, your fitness, your relationships).
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1) Where am I feeling discontentment?
Your discontentment is a repelling force that can move you forwards. often, people don’t make the big transformation they need in their lives until the status quo is too uncomfortable to bear. what if you took a magnifying lens, and examined that discomfort? what if you held it up and looked at it, carefully?
Questions:
what about this situation, exactly, am I discontent or uncomfortable with?
what am I feeling? How can I name the feeling?
what emotions or thoughts does it trigger in me?
how is this out of alignment with how I want to be, in the world, or how I wish to feel?
how is it out of alignment with what I believe in?
2) What do I most deeply desire?
Once you’ve identified your discontentment, you need a force to pull you towards a life that you want, and can imagine for yourself. sometimes, this is really hard — and takes time to emerge, naturally. When you do feel around the edges of your desire, it will feel like finding your own north star. (Then you forget, and remember, and forget again — reminding yourself of what you desire is an ongoing practice)
Questions:
What does my heart, mind, body, soul — deeply desire?
What would I do if I owned this desire?
Where do I feel resistance against this desire?
Where does this desire come from?
What does this desire ask of me?
3) How would I transform, if I were to follow this desire?
I write about visions as fire — because fire is an alchemizing force that destroys, solidifies, and renews. Carrying and committing to your vision is something which will radically alter you. I think the vision is often times the means through which you embark on an inner transformation.
Questions:
Who am I now, in context of this area of my life?
Who would I need to become — in order to bring forth this vision?
How would I need to shift — now — in order to commit 100% to this vision?
4) What beliefs and values am I willing to stand for?
What makes a vision different than a dream, or a mere collection of creative ideas — is that it’s grounded in a sense of purpose, and mission. Values represent that which we hold as sacred priorities — as in: this is what’s important to me; this is how I want to be (even if it’s really hard, even if it’s an ongoing struggle of swimming upstream) in relation to ourselves, and to the world around us.
Questions:
What values are at the heart-center of your vision? What are you prioritizing as important and essential to your work; what is it that you can’t live without?
What do you believe in?
What does this vision believe in?
In which ways will this vision be an agent/vehicle to share your values?
5) What does my creative impulse long to create?
If your vision is that which provides the fuel and power as the source of raw energy, it’s the creative impulse that then dances with your inspiration in order to birth new things into the world. As I wrote about in writings about the artist-entrepreneur, your creative spirit, combined with a clear vision and purpose — is an electric combination. creative expression (through art, or other wise) cuts through jargon and blandness — and has the power to grip the mind-heart in ways that nothing else can.
Questions:
What does my creative impulse long to create for this vision? What forms, mediums, and modes of expression does it crave? If I were to build a world for it, what would it hold?
How can I make space for it in my life?
Where do I feel resistance against it?
What would happen if I allowed it full permission to take up space?
What would happen if I took it seriously?
6) Where am I resourced, in this journey?
I ask this question because focusing on where you’re resourced is a way to feel abundant, before you even begin. It shifts the mind from the tension of the un-manifested or un-created — to the fertile possibility, readiness, and perhaps, even a sense of creative inevitability. It’s working with what you already have, and trusting that everything else will come along the way, when you need it, as you need it.
Questions:
As I begin this vision, what am I most grateful for having received, in my life?
In what ways am I abundantly resourced and supported (by life, by myself, by my community) — such that I’m more than ready to manifest my vision?
When I’m feeling a lack of resources, what are some practices or reminders that can guide and recenter me?
7) How would fulfilling this vision impact my community?
Whereas I’m all for the practice of personal pleasure and deep, inner fulfillment, I believe that a vision magnifies in power when we’re connected to how it can transform not only our own lives — but the lives of people around us.
perhaps this is only our immediate circle of family and friends, or perhaps it extends to strangers, or to an entire culture, or way of being. perhaps the end result of our vision is material nourishment for the people and causes we care for, or, perhaps it feeds into “the atmosphere” of thought and beliefs around a given topic.
I think this is another way of asking that question they used to ask in high school, “how can you be the change you want to see in the world?” but the difference in framing is that your vision must come from a deep, inner core first — before it can manifest itself externally.
Questions:
How can your vision transform the lives of others? (How could it, perhaps, create a sense of space, safety, nourishment, or possibility?)
How would being the agent/alchemist of this change — feel to you, in your bones?
Who are the people you’d feel most fulfilled in serving?
In sharing your vision with them, what do you long to create, share, or give?
*
In an ending meta-note, I do this work because part of my vision is to guide creative people in birthing, trusting, and manifesting their own visions in the world, starting with creating space for it on the internet. because I believe in the power of the creative force — in having tangible psychic and material power, even in a world that tries to contain it, commodify it, or diminish it.
I’m wishing you ever-evolving clarity and potency in your visions.
💌 I write a weekly newsletter on world-building & digital ecosystems called guide.notes. I also have a weekly podcast, botanical studies.
see related:
why your vision is your power
build a world, not an audience
the guiding question to build wealth as an artist
how to grow a vision: a cyclical path of unfolding