A Vision for Your Life
Thursday, August 27th 2009 @ 7:12 PM
An Unmoveable Piece
Just had a conversation with a woman with ADD about how to make decisions about her future, her work and her life. She describes a brain and a personality driven by a natural tendency to see problems and a need to make things better, to solve problems.
She is contemplating a big change in her career and is in the process of evaluating different situations. She is looking at considerations such as salary, work schedule, travel opportunities, -all of which are important factors.
What was missing from the picture, however, was an overall vision for her life and for her career, a larger framework upon which to make decisions.
For adults with ADD, it is often difficult to make choices or decisions- whether its trying to decide on vacations plans, a new job, or where or if to move.
Often adults with ADD can see all the choices, all the possibilities and they follow each one to its natural conclusion. It can be like pulling threads from a worn sweater. Pretty soon there is nothing left. Some may gather so much information that they aren’t able to organize it or process it and instead become overloaded, overwhelmed and paralyzed. They wind up not acting at all; their energy is spent on gathering all the information.
How can we make good decisions, then?
What I encouraged this woman to do, and what I would suggest to all of you, is to develop a vision for your life based on who you are, what you need, what you want, what you value, and what is meaningful to you. There are infinite numbers of right answers, millions of good ideas, jobs or vacations plans, but only one unique you. You don’t need all the information, all the possible good choices- just the ones that may suit you and move you closer to your ideal vision. Developing this kind of vision or framework allows you to cut down on the choices, to help filter, sift through options to a workable level.
Begin to develop, to imagine, a five year vision. Begin to form a clear, constant, unchanging, unmoveable picture inside of you to check in with, to guide you, to measure possible options and choices against.
This ideal vision won’t always or magically come true, but it will provide something unwavering to help you consider if you are moving in the desired direction.
No, you probably can’t quit your job tomorrow, but you can ask yourself, when considering your options, does a particular course of action contain even a kernel of what your vision is about, what you want your life to be about. You can ask yourself whether a particular choice moves you toward that.
The more detailed you can make your vision, the better. Imagine waking up in the morning, five years from now, and opening your eyes. What do you see? What does the landscape outside your window look like? Who do you see? What aromas do you smell ? What is the temperature like? Who do you see when you go into work? What pictures are on the walls? What does your desk look like.
Make your vision as detailed as possible. We folks with ADD may be good at grand ideas, global thinking, impressions, but may not have enough detail to serve as a guide.
The point is to work on developing one clear unmoving core vision that expresses you or envisions a way of life that lets you express yourself, your strengths, your talents.
Keep filling in the details as if you are painting a picture or developing a clear photo.
Remember you can change it, you will revise it as time goes on. Don’t get bogged down by reality or doubts at this point like “oh, I need to earn such and such” or “oh, that will never happen." Don’t over edit.
If all you can come up with is a fantasy that most likely won’t happen, like “I want to be the Queen or a famous rock star and you are 50 years old and not in line for either of those, then figure out the element in that fantasy that might be expressing a core desire or need. If the queen fantasy, for instance, is one you resonate with, then maybe it means you want to be more in charge, to be respected, or be in command of your house or a corporation. Maybe your rock star fantasy means you want to be visible to more people, to be seen and heard, to express your talents.
Please send me your vision for where you want to be five years from now to sari@sarisolden.com. I’d love to read them.
With so much changing in the world constantly, where you may be overwhelmed by information and choices as well as by the ideas generated by your own ADD minds and creativity, you need a way to chip things down to size, something to count on-some “unmoveable piece” that you can count on to steer you toward the life you want to live.