Our lives should be moving toward something.  That “something” should be the life we envision for ourselves that consists of using our talents and skills applied in service to others, doing something we’re excited about.

Although this sounds good, what if you’re currently not living this life?  What if there’s discouragement caused by the gap between your envisioned life and the reality of your life today?  If that’s the case for you, I have encouraging news.

Here come some obvious truths about achieving our desired life that often get lost:

1. We need to apply specific and consistent action that incrementally moves us toward our objectives.
2. It takes time.

I heard the process of creating your desired life described recently as seeing a Polaroid picture coming into focus.  Remember those?  You take a photograph and wait several minutes as the picture comes into focus, revealing the image you just took a picture of.

It’s like that with achieving your desired life.  Most likely, the change from your current situation to where you want to be isn’t going to occur over night.  However, if you’re persistent, your life, like the Polaroid photo, will begin to come into focus and take shape, until it matches the vision you have been persistently pursing.

If you feel like you’re not where you want to be in life at this point take the following steps to cause progress:

1. Have a vision in your mind of what you want your life to look like.
2. Take action every day, no matter how small, which moves your life closer toward how you envision it.
3. Remember that it takes time, so be persistent and stick with it.

Following these steps will not only cause the picture of your desired life to come into greater focus, it will cause the picture to become a reality as well.