Visionary or Dreamer?

Thinking back over your life you’ve met and worked with countless personality types. You have been a part of teams that struggled to complete simple tasks and the work felt meaningless. Perhaps your goal in these times was to just trudge through the mud hoping the assignment would end and you could move onto something different.
Other times you have been a part of a team that regardless of what you were working on you felt energized. You couldn’t wait to continue working and found yourself thinking about the tasks not as some meaningless widget that would be part of a larger cog but rather the work held an importance. Your team was on the threshold of greatness and you were an important part of making a difference.
Given the choice, we would probably all like to see our careers filled with the latter moments rather than the former. But to most, those moments remain as elusive as finding a unicorn while hiking through the forest.
Looking back at my own experiences, those times where I was most fulfilled were when I engaged with someone who had vision. Visionaries are different than the majority of people. It is as though they have travelled to the future and have seen what it looks like. They can describe it in such detail that you begin to see it as well.
At the core of every human being there is a desire to create. To take nothing and somehow see the foundational building blocks to achieve something great. We all want to be a part of that. We want to be part of changing the world. We want to leave things better than when we started if even just incrementally better.
Visionaries are dreamers but dreamers are not always visionaries. We need to understand those two aspects are distinct. A dreamer is filled with ideas of changes that could be made to the world. In some cases, those dreams are vocalized, and those messages hope to find others who have similar aspirations. But the dreamer’s ideas are not realized they are just given a voice.
A visionary takes those dreams and defines actions. They form the pathway from the “You are here” sign to where the dream becomes reality. Visionaries don’t speak in generalities they describe the pathway it takes to implement. They describe the roadblocks not as impassable barricades but as temporary obstacles that help to identify additional opportunities.
Dreamers are like hummingbirds bouncing from flower to flower describing their ideas for a moment then flying off to the next flower. Visionaries step back and describe the value of the hummingbird and the steps necessary for a flower to pollinate and more importantly establish the goals and steps to make the pollination a reality.
The qualities of visionaries are locked within each of us. But like any skill we have to continue to work and hone it to have it become a part of us. It’s ok to dream, we all need to think about “what if” and “if only”. We all should challenge the status quo and understand how we got where we are. But if we truly want to change the world we need to act on those dreams. See them in our minds and commit to making that changed world a reality.
To begin developing your visionary skill write down your dream in as much detail as possible. See it as though you are standing in the midst of it. Look around you. See the challenges and obstacles in front of you and write them down. Look at the result you are trying to achieve and then identify the mile markers along the path. These mile markers are the goals to achieving your vision. Identify others who would benefit from your journey and describe to them the dream and the goal. A difficult path is easier when it is not traveled alone.
That’s the thing about a visionary. They do not see these ideas or dreams as personal to be kept and hidden from the world. They are to be openly shared so that others can join the path towards completion. Each traveler you bring may have their own vision, skills, and experiences that will build upon the journey so far. The fulfillment is like a relay race each person travels a path that is built on the work before them and enables the work ahead of them. Completing a task alone is rewarding, completing a task with friends exponentially builds on the joy.
I challenge each of you to step back in reflection and seek out a visionary. Live vicariously through them as you understand and gain confidence in your own vision skill set. Once you have confidence and have found success, look around and see who you can help along the path to becoming more visionary. Become the change agent that is inside of you, work with others and make a difference. The impact of your life can be monumental you just have to see it and live it.