Holding Onto Your Vision No Matter What

Rosabeth Moss Kanter said, “A vision is not just a picture of what could be. It is an appeal to our better selves. A call to become something more.”

Bonjour, and welcome to The French Kiss Life Podcast, where personal development meets style. I’m Tonya Leigh, certified master life coach and the hostess of this party, where we explore how to live artfully and well. Each week, I’ll be sharing inspiring stories, practical tips, and timeless wisdom on how to elevate the quality of your everyday and celebrate along the way. Let’s dive into today’s episode.

What’s happening, my beautiful friends? Today, I want to talk about holding your vision, no matter what. I was talking with a good friend of mine who has been working so hard this past year to build her business. And she was really frustrated because some of her Facebook ads weren’t performing well. She was having some problems with her team. And she was just really discouraged.

And I assured her, I’m like, “You do realize this is the life of an entrepreneur?” Sometimes, I think we can just look at other people’s lives and think, “Oh, nobody else has these problems. It’s just me. And therefore, something is wrong with me.” But I assured her, I’m like, this is the path of being an entrepreneur. And I’m going to take it one step further. This is the path of being a human.

And I gave her some questions to think about, some concepts to consider that she just sent me a message today and she was like, “Oh my god, this helped me out so much.” And I wanted to share it with you because I know so many of you, you have dreams, you have goals, you have a vision for the future that you want to create for yourself and yet it may seem like it’s impossible to get there.

I used to feel this way around weight loss. I would lose weight and then my mind would go crazy and I would put the weight back on. And to me, that was such a major setback. And so, what I would do is I would start to build stories around the facts of gaining some weight.

I would tell myself things like, “This is never going to work. I’m never going to be able to lose the weight and keep it off. This is just the way it’s going to be.” And so then, I would follow that energy and would end up proving myself true.

When it comes to holding onto your vision, what that means is to practice believing in it no matter what. And this is very hard for the mind because we want to look around at what is and base our thinking on what we can see right now. But what you’re creating in the future, you can’t yet see. So, you’re going to have to hold onto the vision in your mind and practice believing in it so that you can feel your future now. And if you can hang onto that long enough, eventually, it will manifest in reality. It’s just the way the world works.

But let’s look at what happens. So, I think about my friend. When I was talking to her, she was just very discouraged. Her Facebook ads weren’t performing well. She was having some problems with her team. And she had a difficult client. So, all of these things are happening at the same time.

And from that, I could watch what her brain was doing. It was like she left her future and she came back to the present, looking around at what was during that moment, and started to build a story around it.

She was telling herself things like, “I’m never going to get there. This is too hard. I don’t know how to deal with this. Maybe I’m just not meant to be an entrepreneur.” And you think about the energy of those kinds of thoughts. Because that’s’ what the world is responding it. It’s responding to your energy.

I talk about it all the time on this podcast. We have to be our future now. And listen, that is so easy to do when everything is going the way you want it to go. But what about when it isn’t? What about when you do have that failure? What about when you make the big mistake? What about when you have an upset client or you receive the unexpected bill, or maybe you get sick? Can you still hold onto your vision even when the current reality is hard?

I am telling y’all, that is what separates the people that end up creating their visions from those that don’t. I feel like some of you think that the road or the path to your best life and to your vision is supposed to be easy. So, when it gets hard, you start to make that mean something that doesn’t serve you.

When it becomes hard, you make it mean that you’re not doing it right or you make it mean that you’re not good enough or you make it mean something that doesn’t serve you. But what if that is the process? What if those obstacles are there to grow you?

Sometimes, I see them as a test. I see them as a test of, like, how committed am I really to my vision? And when I look at it that way, it ignites such a fire deep within me to overcome it. All of a sudden, I see it very differently. I don’t see it as an obstacle that’s there to stop me. I see it as something that is there to grow me. And it makes all of the difference in the world.

I hold onto my vision, even when I’m feeling a little unsteady in the present moment. I hold onto that vision to pull me, to draw me, to grow me. And in the course of my life, by doing that, I’ve created unimaginable things for myself. And I’ve seen my clients do it as well.

If you knew how powerful you were, if you really, really knew it, an obstacle would be nothing to you. Really think about that. If you really knew how powerful you are, an obstacle would mean nothing to you. You would use it. It would become your fuel.

But some of you don’t understand your own power. You doubt it. And in the doubting, you end up creating the very things that you don’t want. Another thing that I see many of you do is you give up way too soon. I was talking to a client years ago – I’ll never forget this conversation.

And she was an entrepreneur, just starting her business. And she was telling me how nothing was working. She was being such a drama queen. She was like, “Nothing is working. I can’t get clients.”

So, I said, “So, tell me what you’ve done.” And she’s like, “Well, I sent out a couple of emails.” And I was like, “What? Oh, now nothing is working…” And she was going to give up. I’m like, do you realize you are just getting started and that that is part of the process

But had she not had me to come in and wake her up, I still wonder about her. Like, where would she be right now? Because right now, she has a very successful business. But the version of her back then, she was taking not getting a response with a couple of emails and making it mean that something was going terribly wrong.

And I told her this back then. I’m like, “You have to hold onto your vision, no matter what. Even if you send out 100 emails and you don’t get one client, what if you refuse to stop?” What if you used everything for you? What if you told the story of what you want to make something mean instead of letting your mind go crazy, like our minds want to do?

And let me tell you all, my mind does this too. I have setbacks all of the time. I make mistakes all of the time. And my brain always wants to go to the worst-case scenario, “You’re such a failure. You’re never going to get there. You’ve disappointed so many people. No one’s going to like you.” You know what I’m talking about. And I’m like, “Oh no, but listen, where we’re going, none of that exists. So, let me just go there now.”

What is the vision that you have for your life? That is step number one; figuring out what your vision is. Who do you want to be? What do you want to create? What do you want to experience? And then you have to birth that woman now.

Ad so, I want to give you some questions to think about. Because I know, this is just part of life. I know that many of you listening right now maybe are going through a setback of some sort. And you’re probably making it mean something that confirms that you’ve been set back. So then, guess what you do. You create a setback for yourself. Do you see how this works?

But when you hold onto your vision no matter what, the analogy that I love to use with clients is, when my daughter flies in to see me, which now she doesn’t have to do because we live in the same city. But when she would fly home to see me and I would get in the car to go to the airport and pick her up, I don’t care how many detours, I don’t care how many stop signs, stop lights I have to go through to get to her, I am going to get to her no matter what. Because I’m holding onto the vision of seeing her face and hugging her and kissing her and just being with her. I’m holding onto that.

So, I may be having setbacks in the journey to get to the airport, to get to her. The journey may not look the way I thought it was going to look. But I know deep down, I’m going to get to her no matter what. It might take me a little bit longer, right? I may have to sit in some traffic, but I’m getting to my daughter. And that’s the way I want us to feel about our visions for ourselves. We’re going to get there no matter what and we’re going to do whatever it takes. To me, that is commitment.

So, let me give you some questions to think about if you’re in the middle of a setback and things aren’t going the way you want them to go or the way you think they should go. Here’s some of the questions that I love to ask myself and I love to ask my clients.

The first one is, how is this happening for me? A lot of times, you think it’s happening to you and against you. And so, if you think that way, you’re going to be the victim of your circumstance. And we’re not victims around here. Do you hear me?

So, I want you to ask yourself, like, how is this happening for me? Now all of a sudden, your brain is going to have to look for reasons that change your energy. You may find that this is happening for me because maybe my way of getting to my vision isn’t the best way. Maybe there’s another way that’s more fun, more enjoyable. Maybe my way that I thought was going to get there is not effective and it’s trying to gear me towards a more effective route.

So, ask yourself that. How is this happening for me? The other question – and I asked my friend this. and this is what she sent me a message today saying, like, it just changed my whole energy. I told her, we have to embody the energy that we think we’re going to have over there here.

And so, I asked her, I said, “How do you think you’ll feel on the other side of this? On the other side of Facebook ads not performing, things not going well with your team. Having a client that’s upset, how do you think you’re going to feel on the other side of this?”

And she said to me, “I’ll feel proud.” And I said to her, “Do you realize that you can feel that now?” In fact, I highly suggest it. You can feel proud now. In fact, the more proud you feel now, the more you’re going to be able to move to the other side of this with so much more grace and so much more ease.

So, with whatever you’re experiencing right now, maybe it’s something that you don’t want to be experiencing, I want you to ask yourself that question, how will you feel on the other side? Of this?

I do this work all of the time. In fact, a lot of my journaling is with this question. And sometimes, it’s not, “How do I want to feel on the other side of this?” Sometimes it’s, “How do I think I will feel when I’ve reached my goal? And then how can I feel that now?”

You know, we just opened the School of Self-Image not too long ag and I am holding onto the vision of what the school is going to become. And I’m building it. and I’m so excited for it. And I imagine what I see in my head and how I’m going to feel when that is the creation of my work. And I’m so excited and so proud and just so passionate about it. Guess what, that is my work now. To bring that pride and that excitement and that passion into my business now.

And guess what’s going to happen if I do that. I will create the very thing that I’m holding I my head. Because that’s the thing, you all. When it comes to your vision, you have to understand that your future exists as energy first. A creation starts in your mind and then in your energy and then in reality. A lot of you are trying to create it in reality before you feel it. Which is why it’s so hard for you to create it.

You have to feel it first. So, if you’re in a setback, if you’re having a hard time holding onto your vision no matter what, I want you to go to the other side of the setback and imagine how you’re going to feel and you’re going to have to practice bringing that energy into dealing with the setback now. It changes everything, I promise you.

The other question I love to ask is, how is this growing me as a human, as a woman? Everything is our teacher, and yet, so often, we want to resist certain teachers. You know what I’m talking about. I see this a lot in relationships. We don’t want people who we call toxic in our lives. We don’t want negativity in our lives.

And yet, sometimes, just because we’re all human beings in a human world, we’re going to have to deal with these people on some level. But when you look at everything and everyone as your teachers, you don’t resist them. You know everyone and every situation can grow you.

So, if you’re in a setback right now and you’re having such a hard time holding onto your vision, I want you just to ask yourself, how is this growing me? How is this going to make me a stronger human? How is this going to benefit me? And you might find that there’s so much gold in the setback that you’re dealing with.

The other question that I love to ask myself is, “Who do I want to be in this?” This is where self-image comes into play. How do you want to see yourself navigating this challenge? How do you want to see yourself on the path to your vision when an obstacle occurs? Because it’s going to occur. I promise you. So, go ahead and expect that.

Although some people would say, “Oh, you shouldn’t expect that because if you expect it, you’ll create it.” But I don’t know of any successful person that has not experienced obstacles. If you know of one, please let me know who they are. They’re a unicorn.

So, I want you to ask yourself if you’re experiencing a setback. Maybe you stepped on the scale this morning and it ready four pounds higher than the last time you stepped on it. Who do you want to be in that situation? Do you want to be someone who’s negative, a victim? Do you want to be someone who is pessimistic? Or do you want to be a strong woman? Do you want to be a woman that loves herself no matter what? What do you want to make that number mean?

Whatever you decide to make that mean is going to depict the energy that you have in this moment, which is creating your entire life. It’s creating what you attract, it’s creating how you show up, and it’s creating the results in your life. So, who do you want to be in this situation?

The final question that I want you to ask yourself is, “What do I need to believe right now?” I recently had my own setback in my life. And I asked myself this question and I came up with a list of responses. I need to believe that this is happening for me. I need to believe that this is in my best interest. I need to believe that this is the path to my vision. I need to believe that I can handle this no matter what. I need to believe that this is happening for a reason. I need to believe that this was supposed to happen this way.

And as I started on this rampage of beliefs and practicing them and believing in them, I shifted my energy so quickly. And then from that place, I showed up to handle the situation. It changed everything. It was a complete game-changer.

So, I want you to ask yourself, what do I need to believe right now? Imagine you’re going to get to your vision, but right now you’re dealing with what is. What do you need to believe? What if you believe, “I’m going to get there no matter what?”

I want you to see the vision of your future as the love of your life landing at the airport and you’re so excited to pick him or her up. You cannot wait to hold them, to hug them, to kiss them, to be with them. Now you have to get in the car and you have to drive to the airport. And you may have some encounters along the way.

But what if you practice believing in, “I’m going to get there no matter what?” Why? Because my desire to see that person, to be with that person is so great, nothing will stop me. That my friend, is the energy of holding onto your vision, no matter what. Have a beautiful week, and I can’t wait to see you in the next episode. Cheers.

If you enjoyed this episode and you want to dive even deeper into the French Kiss Lifestyle, let’s start with a makeover; a mindset makeover. You can download my free training, The Three Mindset Makeovers Every Woman Needs, by visiting frenchkisslife.com/mindset. Because, after all, mindset is the new black.