Who do you get to be in order to stay committed to your vision?

 

This is the question I’m asking myself in the mirror (yes, out loud) as I mull over putting an offer on a home. My husband and I saw the home days ago and it seemed to be right for us. Of course, this all comes after we were majorly disappointed when the house we really wanted ended up falling through. Since then, we’ve been like a newly single person getting over a bad breakup navigating a sea of first dates that all begin and end the same way: high hopes and awkward disappointments.

This one isn’t perfect by any means, but I’m experiencing déjà vu and re-learning that akin to dating, the perfect person does not exist. The home I have in my mind and am hopelessly trying to recreate every time we see a new property is actually a unicorn. 

I was transported back to the days of my mid-twenties and I recall learning this exact lesson, only then I had the perfect vision of what my potential boyfriend/husband looked like (and acted like and did for a living). I would go on a tiresome number of dates, sometimes several nights a week in my peak dedicated phase, only to discover that every suitor did not live up to the well-crafted dude that lived in my mind.

Eventually, I gave up in a sense. Feeling fatigued, I decided to stop focusing on the mechanics of my desire (what it looked like) and I got grounded in my vision of how I wanted to feel in partnership. The vision involved only me, not anything having to do with the specifics of my future partner. Once I had a very clear sense of how this person would support me, I then let go of all my previous expectations on what he had to be like and when he had to find me. At the time, I had no idea that I was onto a highly effective insight on achieving your desires.

I heard over and over again the importance of getting specific on my vision, even going as far as picking out colors and features of what it would literally look like. But then I thought about my vision in the same terms I do for my job as a creative professional… and something didn’t line up.

 

Creativity thrives most with breathing room and flexibility.

 

It’s essential to know where you’re going but also to be open to how it can unfold naturally. Often times we assume our expectations are the best case scenario. We assume we know everything and that assumption makes no sense because, obviously, we don’t. None of us can possibly foresee future options that have yet to become available. So basically, having a highly specific picture is by default setting us up for failure.

Relentless positivity, tenacity and flexibility are the defining characteristics to achieving any goal. They were the ones that led me to my husband. I did grow tired of the endless game of chasing, but it wasn’t enough to drop that. Success came when I let go of what it all had to look like and when he needed to find me. And then, he found me!

I couldn’t see that he’d been there all along. He was already introduced to me years before, during the same time I was painstakingly looking for him. I couldn’t see him because of my expectations. And, so, could it be… I wonder looking at myself in the mirror feeling hella defeated in my search for the perfect home… is this the same lesson showing up?

Could I be putting the vision of that perfect house onto all these viable options missing their potential to be “the one”? Yep.

 

Do you struggle with this lesson? Does an overemphasis on mechanics (“the how”) get in the way of your vision? Tell me in the comments below. I’d love to talk about it.