A visionary can mean many things to different people. Some people define a visionary as an innovative person. Others may argue a visionary is an inspired and creative person. Some other people may say a visionary is an enterprising person. They are all right, of course, but the important commonality is that a visionary is forward-looking in planning what the future will or could look like.

Taking this idea a step further, what is visionary planning? Visionary planning is simply deciding what you want (idea), how to get it (plan), and finally, what you must do (action). A visionary is constantly designing their life by creating a plan for what they want. They are creating a recipe for success. What do I mean in simple terms? Take for instance cooking.

You find a recipe for Strawberry Delight on Pinterest and you can’t wait to get started making the recipe. In fact, your mouth nearly waters at the thought of taking your first bite. You scroll down the page to get the recipe list and it is missing! You click on the picture to go to the website and find the blog post anticipating what ingredients you will actually need. Strawberries…cream cheese, perhaps, whip cream… Much to your dismay, the post doesn’t include the recipe! You are totally let down. Here was this beautiful picture and it is missing the recipe.

Is your life like a missing Strawberry Delight recipe? This is where visionary planning helps you achieve the life you want. First, you have to decide what you want! Be a possibiltarian! What I mean is dream big and think about the possibilities if you did not have any barriers. Some barriers that extinguish dreams are lack of resources, lack of time, lack of education, lack of social support, and so on and so forth. So, imagine you don’t have barriers. Some people in direct sales call this exercise their “WHY”. This step, the idea, is just as important and sometimes the most important step in visionary planning.

I once heard this metaphor in relation to two types of people. In this metaphor, people are generally characterized in two groups: stick people and carrot people. Stick people have self talk that is fairly negative. My Mom is a stick person. She is always waiting for the bottom to drop out, or something disastrous to happen. Here are some examples of what I mean…

“I don’t want to be poor anymore.”

“I don’t want to worry about where x-y-z is coming from.”

“I am so tired of always being in credit card debt.”

“I know I’ll never earn a trip, so what is the point.”

Now, look at a carrot person. A carrot person has fairly positive self talk. A Presidential Director from Florida, Tina Sutton, is a carrot person. She is always anticipating the next big thing and positioning herself to reach her goals. Here are some examples of what I mean…

“I want to earn enough money to buy a pool.”

“I will find a way to get x-y-z.”

“I want to pay off my credit card debt.”

“I want to earn a trip.”

Do you kind of see the difference in the self talk of these two types of people? Now, my Mom knows she is a “Negative Nelly”, and she has to work extra hard to look at the brighter side of things. I can’t help but wonder what her life would be like if she practiced some carrot people self talk! Now, this is not to say that carrot people got it going on. Sometimes they can loose money following their dreams, or spend too much time dreaming. The point is to examine your self talk and try to keep a positive, possiblitarian attitude.