The Art Of Being A Visionary: 8 Simple Habits Of People Who Are Natural Visionaries
pocstock | Canva People who can read the writing on the wall, mark the trail, and conceptualize the unimaginable have a unique skill set. Visionaries observe and process information differently. They perceive possibilities where others may only see obstacles.
Being immersed in the same environment day-to-day makes some people overfamiliar, so they might miss the connections a visionary will find. Often, a visionary is someone who has left the conditioning of their upbringing to enter a vastly different environment and culture. Everything becomes fresh and new from their perspective of a true visionary.
Here are 8 simple habits of people who are natural visionaries:
1. They let their mind wander
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Psychologist Sharon Saline has found that natural visionaries periodically let their minds drift, and it is actually good for you. It allows for creativity, exploration, and rest that the brain doesn’t otherwise engage in. It’s a way of perceiving your surroundings without getting caught up in the details — allowing your thoughts to wander freely and spontaneously. This wandering attention is how you can come up with new ideas, find inspiration, and problem-solve creatively, which is not only useful but also quite productive.
2. They ask, 'What if?'
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A visionary person cultivates two essential mental habits, says therapist Dr. Gloria Brame, Ph.D. They regularly ask themselves, "What if?" By thinking outside the box and venturing into territory no one else has even considered exploring. They don't limit themselves to boundaries others accept as fixed. They 100% believe their dreams can become realities.
3. They see potential where others don't
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Dr. Brame says that visionaries can perceive almost invisible potentials in previous discoveries or ideas. They don't necessarily invent something utterly original from scratch. Instead, they take existing work forward to an entirely new peak.
Think of how Alexander Graham Bell didn't invent the concept of transmitting sound, but he reimagined what was possible and created the telephone, transforming human communication forever. This combination of fearless imagination and the ability to recognize hidden potential in what already exists is what separates visionaries from dreamers. True visionaries don't just imagine the future. They build it by seeing possibilities others can't even perceive.
4. They don't accept things at face value
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A defining habit of a visionary person is to question the assumptions behind a problem, not the problem itself, explains life and career coach Lisa Petsinis. Most people focus on fixing what’s in front of them or finding a workaround. But that can lead to band-aids. Visionaries dig deeper and ask why the problem exists in the first place. How did we get here, and why are we doing it this way?
Once visionaries get to the root cause, they can imagine what’s possible, and that might mean something fundamentally different. This approach can lead to breakthroughs in everyday situations as well as big innovations. It’s how we went from landlines to smartphones, and rigid office-only jobs to flexible hybrid work models. The habitual questions they ask don’t just solve problems; they open the doors to entirely new ways of thinking.
5. They trust their gut
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Visionaries have to trust themselves deeply. Career coach Jean Walters says your intuition is always honest with the message that comes through for you. Strengthening and trusting your intuition makes you better at decision-making. Your decisions come faster and are congruent with what is best for your life journey. You reduce the stress and anxiety associated with decision-making because you eliminate the agony of pondering every option.
Instead, you have developed a method that provides near-instant feedback about what is best for you. Your mind can make things up and try to convince you of something, but your body cannot. What sensations do you feel: relaxed, relieved, or peaceful? Then that answer is probably a yes. Or does your body feel tense, anxious, or stressed? In that case, your intuition is telling you that the solution under consideration is not a good one.
6. They harness the power of collaboration
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Co-founder of ChangeOS Greg Satell suggests that when we look back to the great innovations of the past, it's hard not to wonder how things could’ve gone differently. What if chemists had picked up on Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in weeks rather than years? How many lives could have been saved? Was there really no one who could have helped develop Engelbart’s vision of the personal computer outside of Northern California?
And now, the problems we seek to solve are significantly more complex than in earlier generations. That’s one reason why the journal Nature recently noted that the average scientific paper today has four times as many authors as one did in 1950. At the same time, knowledge has been democratized. A teenager with a smartphone today has more access to information than a highly trained specialist a generation ago. That’s why collaboration itself is now becoming a competitive advantage for true visionaries.
7. They choose people over money
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Visionary people are often found in leadership roles where making a profit is one of the most important drivers of success in any business, points out leadership coach Brent Roy. But when money trumps all else, that’s when it becomes a problem. True visionaries prefer to favor people, aware that success has a lot to do with the way you treat people. This people-first approach is associated with servant leadership and transformational leadership, and is crucial for building a resilient, ethical, and high-performing organization.
8. They toss the box to keep it fresh
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Truly visionary people have grown to understand their original box of perception so well that they know they have to leave it. They understand how never departing from what they know causes people to stop noticing the details, whereas seeking an outside perspective from someone from a vastly different background can help quickly find the solution to a problem one group may have failed repeatedly to resolve.
Will Curtis is YourTango's expert editor. Will has over 14 years of experience as an editor covering relationships, spirituality, and human interest topics.
