Live Your Vision

If you’ve ever been on an airplane, you probably knew

exactly where you were going. You didn’t just hop on
board
and say, “Let’s see where we wind up.” In life the
mission is
more ambiguous. We don’t always know which
direction
to head, and occasionally we may question whether or
not
we’re on the right course. Without a clear destination
in
mind, life is tough to navigate.
That was the way my wife and I felt when our fi rst
child was born. We were so excited to become parents,
but
we had no idea how to make everything work in terms
of
maintaining our careers, taking care of our newborn,
and
still having quality time together. My wife put her
fulltime
job on hold to stay home with our daughter while I
continued traveling for business and basically living
out of
a suitcase most of the week. When I got back from a
trip,
I just wanted to decompress and have quality family
time
before jetting off again. My wife, on the other hand,
was
totally exhausted from being up every night with the
baby
and just wanted to sleep or have a minute to herself.
She
loved being a mom but felt like she was doing it all
alone
and in the process losing her husband and professional
identity. I loved being a dad and enjoyed my job but
felt
like I had become an absentee father. This was not the
life
we had envisioned.
One weekend my parents stayed with the baby while
my wife joined me on a work trip to Toronto. On the
plane ride we talked at length about how we wished
life
could be different. In our vision of the future, I was
spending
less time on the road and we were parenting more
collaboratively.
In addition to being a mother, my wife was
working part-time. We were traveling together as a
family
and living life on our own terms. While this was a
wonderful
vision, it seemed far too idealistic and out of reach.
Midway through the fl ight, my wife unexpectedly
asked, “What do you think about moving to Europe for
a
year? We could live our vision over there and have an
in -
credible adventure as a family.”
I thought she was kidding. “We have a new baby, a
dog, a mortgage, two car payments, and limited fi
nances,”
I reminded her.
“Those are indeed challenges,” she replied. “But what
if
we could fi nd a way to work it all out—would you do
it?”
I knew she was serious, and as crazy as the idea
sounded,
I was excited to go if we could somehow work out the
logistics and a way to afford it.
It took us less than a month to get our game plan to -
gether. By focusing on how to make our vision happen
as
opposed to why it couldn’t happen, we were able to
come
up with creative solutions. For instance, we rented out
our
house and subleased our cars. My sister-in-law, who at
the
time was studying abroad in London, offered to help us
with taking care of the baby. I worked out an
arrangement
with my clients so that I had to come back to the
United States only a couple of days each month. Then
we
bought the cheapest one-way tickets to London we
could
fi nd and set off with an infant for the most incredible
year
of our lives. We made the impossible possible by
turning
our vision into a reality.
During that time we traveled to almost two dozen
countries in Europe and the Middle East. My daughter
ate her fi rst cookie in Venice, napped next to the
Coliseum
in Rome, learned to walk in Norway, chipped her tooth
in Greece, went to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem,
visited
the Great Pyramids in Egypt, and had a bite of the
biggest
pretzel ever at Oktoberfest in Munich. My wife got
in spired and started planning her next career move.
We
truly lived our vision as a family and had no regrets. It
was
invigorating and unforgettable.
You don’t have to move to a foreign country or travel
abroad to start living your vision, but you do have to
get
clear on where you’re headed. What do you want
tomorrow
to look like? What will it take to make that happen?
Instead of focusing on the barriers to making your
vision
a reality, consider what success looks like in the
absence of
those barriers. Find innovative ways to change your
current
circumstances. Live your vision and leave your regrets
behind. Don’t just dream it; do it.