Where do you want to take your business? Ultimately, we want a better life. We want a business that feeds our souls and our wallets and that helps us accomplish the things we want to in life. We tell ourselves that’s why we’re entrepreneurs, why we work for ourselves. But that’s quite a generic vision and we need to make it a very specific business dream.

What I want you to think about is, can you really see the end game?

The end game is your business dream in full colour and made real. It’s an important question because it makes you focus on the actions you need to take to bring your business dream to life.

If you don’t know what the end game is, you won’t know what you need to do to achieve it. Click To Tweet

Which type of entrepreneur are you?

All entrepreneurs are essentially doers, because they want to make things happen, and they often make that very tangible and commercial. However, there are two kinds of entrepreneurs: Visionary Entrepreneurs and Everyday Entrepreneurs.

Visionary Entrepreneurs have their purpose upfront and personal. They dream of the impossible and map the path to get there. They realise that they need people around them to get things done and often attract operationally focused people to partner with them in order to accomplish their business dream.

Everyday Entrepreneurs can see the weeks and months ahead but often not much further than one or two years ahead. Everyday Entrepreneurs get things done, however, they rarely drive their business to achieve anything greater than what lies just ahead. 

If you are an Everyday Entrepreneur, you can expand your skillset to include those of the Visionary Entrepreneur and flex that muscle of seeing the impossible made possible. It’s simply a change of mindset and can make your business dream come true.

In this article, I am sharing 8 steps you can take to see and achieve the impossible. The aim is to articulate your dream and your end game in such a way that you make it happen.

Start these actions today!

Step 1 – Remember Your Purpose

We start everything with purpose. Why are you here? What do you want to achieve? Your purpose needs to ground every decision you make in your business. Click To Tweet

If it doesn’t, then change your purpose or change your decisions. 

Step 2 – Imagine Yourself Achieving Your Purpose

You need to make this vision real. You know what your purpose is but that’s not enough, you’ve got to see that future as having been realised. The next action you need to take is to describe what that future is going to be like.

For example, you might want to create products that help people get fitter, faster. Or you might want to help sales teams be more effective by being more human. Whatever your business dream is, imagine having achieved it and then write down what you see. 

For example, what would it be like to be unencumbered by limits? Where would you be standing? Who would be buying from you? If you were interviewed by your business hero how would they introduce you to celebrate what you’ve accomplished? What would that feel like? There are no boundaries here. There are no limits.

We must become unencumbered by limits for our dreams to be made real.

If you don’t really see and feel what that purpose looks like, having been achieved, then it will always be out there somewhere in the ether; unrealised until you can make it tangible. 

• At the top of a sheet of paper write,
• ‘Imagine what it would be like to…’
• and finish the sentences.
• Get used to the impossible and really play with that.
• Write unencumbered for 10 minutes.  

Step 3 – Use All Your Senses To Call It To Mind

Now you’ve written down your vision of the future, next you’re going to make it even more real by using all your senses to call it to mind. We need to do more than just write intellectually about it. Capture what each of your senses see, hear, taste, smell and touch with that vision in mind. 

• So, what does it look like?
  Are you living in your dream home? Do you have a new manufacturing facility in your preferred location? Are you surrounded by family? Is your business filled with an amazing team all dedicated to the same goals? Has your groundbreaking new medical device been adopted by every hospital in the country? 
• What does it sound like?
  Is it the sound of you ringing the bell on the New York Stock Exchange? Or the sound of laughter from all the people you’ve helped? Maybe the sound of your production line running at full speed? Is it the sound of applause for your Ted Talk?
• What does it taste like?
  Does it taste like fine wine at your launch? Is it the taste of a certain spice that you always use when you cook your favourite dinner ? Is it the taste of salt water in your mouth having swum the furthest you ever have? 
• What would it feel like?
  Are you wearing a particular scarf? Is it the feel of your new fashion line or yoga clothing that you’ve dreamed of creating for so long? Is it the feel of sand under your feet because you get to swim every day in a beautiful location? 
• What would it smell like?
  Does it smell like your recipe for a chicken marinade that you wanted to launch into the marketplace for so long? Is it the perfume you wear when you celebrate each success?

When you imagine the future you are dedicating yourself to creating, what can you use to call it into your presence? Can you use each of your senses to anchor this vision of the future? You can use physical props to help you with this. For example, it could be that you are going to be wearing a beautiful, soft red scarf during your interview with your hero. Could it be a circular red dot you place at your feet so you can practice your Ted Talk before you’ve ever delivered it?

Find one for each sense and use it to bring that vision to your mind.

This is a great NLP technique. It means that whenever you experience doubt, you can use these things you collect to bring your vision front and centre again and keep you focused. 

I recently bought a beautiful box so I could collect things to help me feel, taste, and smell all these anchors that will take me to this place where I realise my vision. This is a vision box. Some people call it a manifestation box.

I have many, many boxes inside my vision box. It’s a big vision! One that takes in the many aspects of my life and yet still be one life.  I have a box that’s dedicated

• to the business part of my life,
• one for my relationship with my partner,
• another for my relationship with my son,
• yet another for my own health and wellbeing.
• And more… I’ll add to it as I need to. 

Step 4 – Write Your Death Notice

Now I’m going to challenge you in a different way. We have done a lot with our imagination and now I want you to approach it from a different perspective. 

I want you to write a death notice for your business.

Think of it as a celebration of everything you’ve accomplished. 

For example, your death notice could say:

“Today we say goodbye to … and we want to celebrate how much good this business has brought to the world. They have helped over 50,000 entrepreneurs achieve their potential and achieve success, unencumbered by the traditional challenges and obstacles because they had a map to find their way.”

Write a short paragraph to tell the story of your business life and all you accomplished.

What would it say?

Step 5 – Date It 

State the day you started your business and the date when you said goodbye to it.

You are going to give yourself an end point and say very clearly when you will have achieved your purpose.

You will have done all you had to do and you will have fulfilled your purpose.

Dating things has that funny effect of bringing it firmly to your mind.

It’s inescapable.

When you commit to achieving something by a certain date, you are faced with having to deliver on it. 

Step 6 – Measure With Money

Too often we shy away from the money piece. Many entrepreneurs who stay in aspirational mode don’t attach a monetary figure to their purpose and as a result, that purpose tends to stay unrealised. Yes, there’s more to life than money but quantifying something financially means you’re drawing a line in the sand that is also inescapable.

This is a business dream so you need to know how profitable this business is. How much money have you made?  We’ve got to measure some part of our success in money. So put a figure on it.

If you struggle with this, there’s a great book called

You Are A Badass At Making Money by Jen Sincero.

Read that and move past old conditioning around money.

You need to wrap your arms around the money piece and use it as another measure of your business success. It is the thing that will free you to do your work without limits. 

Step 7 – Ask For The Impossible 

I want you to think of something that you think is completely outside of the realms of possibility. What feels far-fetched as a measure of success? Is it an interview with Oprah, or being on stage at a certain event, securing a certain licence, or maybe a certain client?

What stretches you? Dream beyond the usual.

My experience in 25+ years of working with entrepreneurs is that; it’s the seemingly impossible that happens first. We have the power to make the seemingly impossible so specific and tangible in our minds that it becomes just a small step to make it happen in real life.  

Imagine that.

We have the power to harness our own future first by bringing our attention to it.

And second; by putting the necessary work in.

The greatest challenge is to free our minds to imagine it first.

Step 8 – Commit To A Monthly Check-In

We talk a lot about purpose, mission, and vision in businesses.  We write it down, we put it in a drawer, and then we  forget about it.

As a result; the business dream often fades into the background.

I’m advocating and encouraging you to have a mechanism by which you check in weekly, fortnightly, or monthly with someone you trust.

This will be someone who will cheer you on and support you.

Someone who will celebrate every single step you take to achieving your purpose.

It’ll be someone who will remind you of your dream.

If you haven’t got someone like this in your life, I invite you to join the free community for How Great Marketing Works on Facebook.

Join us. Introduce yourself and your dream.

We will cheer you on as you go about the necessary steps it takes to achieve your business dream.

Come on. Let’s do this together!