While the mission of your business centers on what you are called to achieve, your vision is the result of all you desire to accomplish.  It is your ideal — your future. The vision you create for your business is the sustaining force that stimulates innovation, communicates passion, and inspires the masses to action. It is the vacuum that pulls you, and others, forward.

During a recent conversation with one of my clients, I asked about their long-term vision. I wanted to understand where this energetic and optimistic entrepreneur was going with their business. To this straightforward inquiry, they enthusiastically responded, “No, but I do have a 3-year lease”. Don’t you love it?!

Any entrepreneur who has ever launched a business can relate to this pragmatic vision. If it’s not a lease driving our future, it’s reaching an age milestone, starting a family, retirement, purchasing a first home, or a loan coming due that marks the future of our business.

In our rush to launch, it’s not uncommon to focus on the tactical aspects of growing and developing our business with hopes to return to crystallizing our vision when time allows. Somehow, that time doesn’t seem to present itself – until we find ourselves traveling along a road we never intended.

Although a few previously undefined twists and turns can prove to be a good learning curve for your business, they can also cause us to lose valuable time and opportunities. Consider your responses to the following questions to shed some light on the vision of your business and get yourself on the best track for your future:

1. What do you care about most?

2. What are you working on that is making a profound difference for you and others?

3. What gifts and talents are you currently using? What gifts and talents would are currently not be utilized that you would like to put into operation?

4. What does creating your vision mean for you?

5. Where would you like to be in 3 years? 5 years? 10 or 20 years?

6. What would you achieve if you were ten times bolder?

7. What do you want more (less) of?

8. If you had only one year to live, how would you want to live it?

9. What ‘theme’ consistently runs through your life?

10. What do you want to leave for others?

Remember: To live without a clear image of your own vision is to live someone else’s vision.