Hello All!
In today’s day and age we are surrounded by overachievers; the tech moguls, the entrepreneurial giants, the creative geniuses. In light of all that, I have often asked myself, what is it that all of these people have in common? What is it that allows them to achieve the great and spectacular that many would deem near impossible?
It became clear that vision played a crucial role in all of these people’s lives as they had a goal and never wavered in doing so. If you are someone who is interested in owning your own business one day or achieving any goal in the future, vision is the number one tool that you and anyone who is on this journey with you will need to cling on to tightly.
In an effort to help you gain a more accurate representation of vision, I wanted to give a personal experience in my own life that might aid you in finding that same example of vision in your own.
It All Starts With a Dream
The perfect catalyst for any clear cut vision is a dream. A hope from within that wants to become a reality. For me, it was to achieve enrollment in my dream school Texas A&M University.
Since I was little, I have been surrounded by the Texas A&M way. I have witnessed the countless times my family members spoke about it around me, as if it was this mystical place that made them who they were today, and with no doubt it did.
Because of the fact that I had grown up hearing these amazing stories, I started to create my own fictional realities. I could vision myself in College Station eating at a bar with my friends. I could vividly see myself at an Aggie football game, whooping and hollering at the players. It became evident, I had an overwhelming desire that needed to be fulfilled.
The birth of these dreams definitely helped create my clear cut vision. It allowed me to accurately picture myself in their position and almost feel what the end goal was like. For 11 years I have viewed enrollment at Texas A&M as being one of the pinnacle moments in my life’s story.
As I moved on throughout school, I began to be known as the kid who wanted to go to A&M. Not only did I have this vision, but I had no doubt created a vision in other people’s minds as well.
I was obsessed. There would be no other way that I could go to school except there.
Once I graduated high school, I had applied to get in. Months went by with nail biting anticipation that I had in hopes of getting in.
I didn’t.
A Quick Detour
I decided I would go to community college for the next two years and hopefully grind my butt off to be able to achieve this dream. As I said, I mentally could not vision myself going to any other school. If I had to go to one it would be Texas A&M.
Unfortunately, I didn’t do the best that I could while I was in California. I was distracted, and I felt that if I wasn’t in Texas trying to enroll at my dream school, then why even try at all? I had other things in my life that I had deemed more important.
Big mistake.
My grades obviously felt the impact of my carelessness and I was in no doubt, falling short of my vision.
Then I had a breaking point.
There come’s a point in time when you no longer are in control of rational decision making. When a dream is involved, you will be willing to run through a brick wall, even take a bullet to achieve it, at least I felt this way.
My dream came knocking at the door again. Like a pesky salesman, it would sit in the back of my mind constantly edging me to act upon it. I knew that if I wanted to achieve my dream I needed to recreate myself. I had to ditch every moral and belief that I had attached to and completely reinvent who “Andrew Martinez” was. So that’s exactly what I did.
I left everything in California behind, my friends, my job and half of my family. It was a complete leap of faith but a necessary one. I knew that I needed to add this to the story of my life to make sure I didn’t have any regrets, or at least give it my all trying.
Vision Takes the Wheel
The first couple of months in Texas were hard. I had completely melted down every part of what made “me”, “me”. I was going through the fire, but it was all in an effort to mold me into someone completely different.
I am happy to say that this reinvention of myself was definitely a success, but no great achievement comes without great hardship. My first semester at Austin Community College I put everything that I had into my schooling, and walked with a 3.8. I applied to Texas A&M for the fall semester.
Denied.
Again, I took more classes that summer putting every bit of my time and effort into this crazy dream. I finished the semester with a 4.0. This had to be it. This had to be the amount that I needed to get in.
It wasn’t.
I applied again and was denied. Three times in my life so far I had been denied of my dream school and was starting to lose hope. I had carried this dream with me since I was 10 and am now 21. I had to really start weighing my odds as to if this dream was going to be fulfilled. I concluded, it was.
Last fall I grinded even harder than I ever had before. I studied twice as much and was visioning getting my acceptance letter. So much so that I dreamt of it and my reaction multiple times.
Finally, I had finished with another 4.0 semester and sent in another application.
Guess what happened.
I Got Accepted.
Overwhelmed with excitement and joy, I ultimately achieved the very goal that I had visioned for most of my life. The very thing that I had constantly thought of happening so clearly had finally caught up with me.
This whole experience taught me a very valuable lesson. One that had come to me once before in a book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
Vision paired with determination that doesn’t recognize failure is the perfect formula for achieving your goals.
My determination to achieve this goal paired with the vision that had been painted in my head by my family since for over a decade, had become the driving force of everything that I did. I believe that because I had these components with me while I went throughout my application process, it helped motivate me enough to work harder than ever before.
Because I was putting in more time, it reflected into my grades, giving me a better chance to achieve my dream.
If you have something in your life that you have wanted for a long time, I encourage you to create that same vision within your head and hold on to that tightly. The clear cut future that you determine in your own head is the defined end goal that you are striving for.
If you would like to learn more about this concept and how effective it is, I highly encourage you to look into Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich which you can purchase HERE on Amazon.
As always if you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out to me as any feedback or communication with you the reader is much appreciated!
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Andrew Martinez, owner and writer of Minerva Money
Instagram: @andrew.martinez__
Twitter: @andrewmartine_z
YouTube: @andrewmartinez