Do you have a clear vision for the future of your practice? 

It’s all too easy to get trapped in an avalanche of to-do lists and time-consuming tasks. Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and suddenly you realize you’ve spent years working in your business instead of working on your business. 

This is why visionary strategies are so critical to achieving growth and scalability in your business. I’m here to uncover my own secrets to success so that you can apply them to pursuing success in your own practice.

What Stops Practice Owners From Thinking Ahead?

What roadblocks are preventing you from strategically thinking ahead? It’s not enough to plan tomorrow, next week, or even next month. True growth occurs when you focus on long-term opportunities.

If you’re like most practice owners, you can’t think ahead because you’re over-committed! You don’t have the time or headspace to engineer the trajectory of your business. Instead, you find yourself toiling away at the smaller tasks that others should do on your behalf. 

Other practice owners aren’t quite sold on the importance of thinking ahead—a term we call visioneering. Although the results of visioneering aren’t always concrete and immediately obvious, the process of thinking about your thinking is actually what creates ongoing success. The fact that your thinking occurs invisibly doesn’t lessen the profound impact of visioneering. 

Consider the dramatic differences you could make in your business life (and beyond!) if you took the time to answer a few key questions: 

• Should I start investing in personal growth myself? 
• How can I surround myself with people who are forward thinkers? 
• Do my business practices need to change? 

You might also be among the many practice owners who can’t achieve forward-thinking because they’re not surrounded by the right team. You need A+ players. A staff of C and D players will only drag you down. So the question is: What habits and practices will attract the A-players you want and need to build upward momentum? 

What’s the Goal of Thinking Ahead?

It may seem obvious, but don’t underestimate the underlying goals of thinking ahead. 

Thinking ahead creates space to imagine what’s possible and implement the steps necessary to turn maybe into reality. 

Every practice owner needs that opportunity to brainstorm for the future, become excited about potential opportunities, and begin to pursue their ideas. In this way, thinking ahead gives you permission to dream. 

The people who do this build not only amazing businesses, but amazing lives. They are thriving spiritually, emotionally, financially. So give yourself permission to create space in your heart, mind, and daily schedule for forward-thinking. 

The Benefits of Forwarding Thinking

It doesn’t take long to witness the benefits of forward-thinking in your own practice:

• Build excitement, motivation, and inspiration for the future.
• Unite your team together
• Create alignment to rally around one vision
• Build a common mission for your practice or your community. 

When you become mission-centered and see the things you want to create in the world, you’ll become unstoppable. 

3 Practice Tips for Developing Your Vision

Before you can develop your vision, you must know the true definition of that idea. The definition of a vision is a clear mental picture of what could be, fueled by a conviction that it should be. 

Document Your Vision

Don’t think in generalities. Your vision should exist in 4K HD quality until it feels so real you’d swear you can touch it. 

What does your vision feel like, smell like, sound like? Your mind doesn’t know the difference between what is real and what is vividly imagined… so document your vision with every bit of precision possible. 

One tip I always recommend is to close your eyes and envision your future as you fall asleep each night. Those few minutes of quiet time help your mind separate from day-to-day stressors and embrace the possibilities of the future. 

Take an hour to do something other than work- tennis, gym, walk, etc. Get out of your norm and into a “flow state”.

Do something for yourself and create time to focus solely on vision-casting for your business and even possibly other areas of your life. 

Follow These Two Rules

If you’re struggling to disconnect from your daily routine and create space for visioneering, take an hour to do something other than work. Go for a walk, head to the gym, play tennis with a friend, read a novel… Whatever activity helps you get into your flow state.

Once your mind is ready to “flow” through forward-thinking, follow these two rules:

Two rules for this type of session:

1. Contemplate your vision by thinking big
2. Don’t compromise your lifestyle

Record your vision as if it’s already happening. Write in the present tense as the future-pace version of yourself. 

Share Your Vision With Your Team!

After your vision starts to take shape, share your thoughts with your team. This creates buy-in among the people who matter most. Don’t dictate the vision, but ask for input and co-create a vision that’s even bigger or and clearer than before.

I always recommend that practice owners select one or two major initiatives to achieve in the next 90 days. Take measured, purposeful steps to achieve those goals.

As one 90-day period turns into another and another, you’ll find yourself actively and successfully pursuing the future you had once only dreamed of achieving.