Last week I was able to go on vacation with family. It was a long delayed milestone-birthday celebration for my dad (see: COVID), but mainly a chance for us to just hang out, play, and have uninterrupted conversations (see also: no kids).
In this way, it was a vacation in the truest sense of the word: I departed the role(s) I usually occupy in life - even finding it hard to read! - and spent a week on a boat looking at water.
Looking at water is captivating because it triggers “involuntary attention,” which is when your attention is naturally drawn to something rather than directed toward it with effort. Involuntary attention tends fuel creative thought because the stimulus (moving water in this case) holds enough of your awareness to be interesting, but not enough to prevent your mind from wandering.
And so in my blue mind state, not reading and instead just looking at the water and the horizon, I remembered something I read a few weeks ago by James Carse:
“One cannot look at the horizon; it is simply the point beyond which we cannot see. [...] What will undo any boundary is the awareness that it is our vision, and not what we are viewing, that is limited.”
It is our vision, and not what we are viewing, that is limited.
Vision is one of those words in the leadership/self development world that always makes me a bit wary.
Our imagination for how things might/could/should be is critical for understanding our motivation, setting goals, making sense of what we’re doing, and informing the complex leadership and work decisions we must make with imperfect information.
But developing vision is so often boiled down to the witless activity of simply writing a “vision statement.” And those are frequently so broad and abstract as to be of no use whatsoever.
Don’t tell me your vision statement. Tell me what it is you’re trying to accomplish in your life. Tell me how your daily decisions line up with that. Tell me the impact you’re trying to have on the people you encounter on a daily basis.
What I find interesting about Carse’s epigrammatic sentences is they hint at that place where the essential task shifts between knowing and believing.
Often when people feel stuck in their work or their role as a leader - that is, they don’t feel like they’re growing or developing - it’s because they are looking for solutions based on what they currently know. And yet, many of the outcomes that we’re after exist just beyond what is plainly visible. You can’t sell a company without first doing the daily tasks of building and running one. You can’t write a book without first doing the daily tasks of writing and editing.
What makes that hard is that you frequently won’t know what the outcome will be or whether you’re even making progress. All you have to go on is the belief that aligning your values with the way you spend your time will lead you to where you want to be.
Said another way, there is a point at which casting a vision about your work becomes a microscopic exercise. You simply have to look down and inward in order to continue; set your course beyond what you can see, but focus on your tack and managing your sails.