Do You Include Your Family In Your Professional Vision?

If not - you should at least according to Glen our guest blogger.  #2 in Glen's 4 part series on enhancing your professional success is Vision-casting. What is it? Glen suggests it is engaging your family in your professional aspirations.  There is wisdom in this thought - read on...

Vision Casting at Home: What’s Work Got To Do With It?

Home might be where the heart is, but sometimes all of the rest of our faculties are at work. And if we aren’t careful, those close to us might believe that our heart is really at work, too.

Vision casting at its best compels and energizes others, builds morale, sets a tone, and informs strategic planning. This is most often in a business or organizational setting. But if we want to give our all at home, why not want to energize, compel, build up, set tone, and be strategic there as well? Our loved ones need a vision cast before them.

What should this vision entail?

¨     A heartfelt statement of the way you feel about the people you love, what you want to see for their lives, and your commitment to being there for them.

¨     A realistic projection of where you want your family to be in 5-10 years in measurable terms and a commitment on how to achieve it.

¨     A thorough explanation about how working hard in your field, business, or organization will contribute to the family or household needs and goals (a vision of increasing income always makes for a pleasant conversation with the spouse, and helps justify extra work and training that may bring in more bucks!)

¨     A genuine expression of what your work does for you- why you love what you do and what it is about your job that gets you up every day ready to make a difference.

I have not always been so organized and clear in the way I have cast vision for my family. But when my oldest son was 3 years old, and I was a mobile crisis counselor, my wife asked him how he would answer the question, “What does your daddy do?” He said, “My daddy helps kids.” I had a good idea that my wife had instilled respect in my son for what I did and why I worked so much. I had somehow communicated a vision to them about how much they mattered, and what work had to do with it.

Glen's Series - #1 - Emotions Matter
#3: Hold me accountable
Connect with Glen here: @glengaugh