I’ve watched board rooms break down into chaos the minute that I asked them, “So, what are you really about?”  I’ve had clients get angry when the first question I asked was “What do you want?” when they were expecting to hear, “Here’s what I think you should do.”  It’s okay. We’re wired for answers and actions. We like the coziness of being nestled up to our to-do list.  At some point though, we lose the ability to bullshit and decide we’re here for something more.

I believe that planning is a spiritual act.

As Bernadette Jiwa says in this lovely post, “You can’t Google your unique vision and mission.”  You have to uncover it yourself.  It’s the moment when we take our soul-level yearning and biggest, unfulfilled dreams and put them into action.  It’s a declaration that we are strong, gifted, whole, and capable of being who we truly are.  It’s being able to look yourself straight in the eye and say, “Trust me.”

Checking your soul and spirit at the door of a planning meeting is the quickest way to failure. {tweet this}  

Here’s my guess.  One-third of you are avoiding high-level strategy and planning because it feels boring, unimportant.  Another third of you are trying to nail down the next 100 years day-by-day.  And the last third of you are meandering somewhere in between trying decide if it’s right for you or not.  Wherever you are: meaningful work starts with getting raw and naked with who you are, what you’re about and the thing you’re willing to risk it all for.

Three spiritual questions you need to be asking

Powerful visions are 1 part ideology : 1 part imagination : 1 part impact.  And each one of these elements has a central guiding question.  If you’ve lost your ability to bullshit, then it’s time to answer these questions.  Skip these questions and you’ll be a busy girl who never quite feels satisfied by what she’s doing.

• On ideology: what do you stand for?  If the world ended tomorrow, what would you go down fighting for?  And what would your legacy be?
• On imagination: what do you dare to create?  What bold future do you imagine?  And who do you have to become in order to make it real?
• On impact: what mark will you make?  What do you do?  Who do you do it for?  And what impact will it have?

Today I’m launching Power Up Your Vision: 30 days to work that will change the world.

It’s a free e-course to help you answer these questions quickly.  I believe that you can put yourself in spiritual planning bootcamp and come out the other end feeling massaged with purpose, pointed in the right direction.  30 days.  15 lessons.  15 action challenges.  1 powered-up vision.  Yours.  I’m giving this to you because I want you to know that planning – and visioning – can be easy, fulfilling, meaningful, lasting.  

Let’s stop bullshitting and get to the heart of what matters. Will you join me?