On Articulating Your Vision (Part I)
O, Young’uns
Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75 — Benjamin Franklin
Age is a privilege (no! I’m not talking about ageism) in a sense that someone who’s younger will always have more time. And by definition, it is a privilege for young’uns to fail a lot and to take as many chances to explore possibilities.
One of the reasons why — and this resonates with Jobs’ speech — failure and possibilities that you took are dots in which you will connect when you look back and it will make sense. It will.
But that doesn’t mean one should blindly take all their chances and embrace failure like there’s no tomorrow. There are two specific questions one should ask:
- What am I going to do in the next 5, 10, 25 years from now?
- And, why do I'm so inclined to do so? Is it because I am angered by something or I just love it?
What am I going to do in the next X years?
Let’s start with self-understanding. Each one of us must be able to objectively list our skills ranging from soft to hard skills.
Hard skills are teachable abilities or skills sets that are easy to quantify such as typing speed, machine operation, proficiency in a foreign language. While soft skills are the exact opposite such as leadership, motivation, and problem-solving abilities.
Right after, we start with visualizing our ideal life in the distant future. What would you really like to do in your life? What is your routine in that life? How will you react? What’s your notion? These are the questions you have to answer (and least try to) and write it down.
Visualizing and having a certain degree of self-understanding is an internal exercise to articulate your inner state before moving forward to understand VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity).
VUCA is a concept to expand our awareness regarding external issues as the world is changing so fast to the point of being termed as “The age of disruption.” Old, conventional companies are getting replaced with new and unorthodox companies made possible by tech. For example taxi companies that are forced to either integrate with ride-sharing apps or die.
Articulating a Vision
You got your self-understanding right.
You got your visualization right.
You got your VUCA right and everything is written down. Now the very fuel — the very basic tenets of your draft — is it because of love or hate? And both are fine. One can live life in that way because of love and hate.
Love simply because of, yeah well, love. Hate simply because you found your pet peeves in something and you want to fix it.
Tidar co-founded SabangMerauke because he wants to fix intolerance in Indonesia which he articulated based from his past experience.
I build Widya — media company — also because I hate the current standards of discourse in Indonesia.
Thus, there’s no problem if you articulate your vision based on love or hate. As the point is: You have to be honest with yourself.
Simplifying
- Being young is a privilege as one can stock more failure and connect the dots from each failure.
- Write down your skills — hard and soft skills, visualize your life in the next X years, understand VUCA and draft these elements.
- When you are done drafting try to debunk your concept. Are your basic tenets based on love or hate? Either way, it’s fine as it’s a fuel for you.
- Finally, announce it to the world.
