Our family went on a brief trip last week–our final trip before having two college students and an empty nest.
Significant life transitions force the gift of reflection into our lives. You remember the past. You ponder the future. You get a bit nostalgic, and you think long-term.
So, recently, I have been thinking about how poorly I process time.
For example, last week, we visited the Notre-Dame-des-Victoires Church. It’s a beautiful building on Place Royal in Quebec City. It is one of the oldest church buildings in North America. (It was also the “French” backdrop for the arrest scene in Catch Me If You Can.) Construction began on this small church building in 1687 and was completed in 1732. 45 years for one small church building.
I live in the Capital Region of New York. (That’s Albany, not NYC.) The New York State Capitol Building is magnificent. It was built between 1867 and 1899, and three teams of architects worked on the design during the 32 years of its construction.
A week from today, both of my kids will be in college. That day feels like it came out of nowhere. In reality, it was 20 years in the making.
So as I am forced into this season of reflection, I invite you to come with me.
Tomorrow, spend more time thinking long-term. Think about how you want your life, leadership, relationships, health, and finances to look in 20, 32, or 45 years. Imagine it in vivid detail.
Think about it like an architect’s rendering of a future building.
Then get to work on acquiring the resources you need to build the plan.
Then do it again the next day.
And the day after that. . .
And if your vision is compelling enough, there is a good chance that one day it will be realized and it will feel like it came out of nowhere, but in reality, it will be 20 years in the making.
Oh, and one more thing.
One reason that we get sucked into the social media trap because we don’t have a compelling enough vision to distract us from Facebook, TicToc, X, and LinkedIn’s attention-grabbing algorithms.
In other words, a vivid vision is needed to ignore the allure of our distraction devices.
