“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” —Aristotle
Emergence is a pattern of evolution in complex systems that has been written and talked about in philosophy, science, economics, art, and religion—basically anywhere complexity is observed, so, too, are emergent patterns.
Emergence describes how order materializes out of seeming chaos. For example, an array of car parts strewn about is somewhat choatic and not useful; but if they are arranged in a certain way suddenly you’re dealing with something more: a mode of transportation. The orchestration of the parts together in a certain way produces something that is simply greater than the sum of the individual parts without that orchestration.
Who we our—our authenticity or character—is also an emergent property. It is something like a desription that emerges based on all of the actions we take—actions which emerge from our throughts and dreams.
It is freeing to remember that each of us is a dynamic, complex system—always in flux—with emergent expressions and characteristics that simply make us who we are. The bonus is that we are largely in control of our own systems. We’ll be influenced by our environments, yes, but we are the operators of our system; which means we can dream up new ways of operating and take action on those dreams. Through cycles of dreaming and taking action, we become.
Becoming
When was the last time you took a few minutes to dream about what you want for yourself next year, or within the next five years? How far forward have you envisioned your life?
Visualization exercises like this are always recommended by personal, professional and / or lifestyle coaches because they know that by visualizing what you want, you will be more inclined to take actions that lead you to that vision you have for yourself.
The reason visualization works is because you are a dynamic system, you are in control of your system, and if you continuously feed your system a blueprint and operating manual for who you want to be in the future, then slowly but surely you will begin acting your way to that future.
Dreaming and visualization is an act of orchestration. It’s literally like writing a piece of music and then bringing it to life with an orchestra.
Pretend you are the composer, you write a piece of music—and sure it takes you some time to work through it, but you write the music. Then, you work with an orchestra and note by note everyone learns to play the music. It’s rough at first, the piece is complex, but each section—from the clarinets to the violins to the drummers—practice the piece repetitively until they can play it like they’ve known it their whole lives. They practice, they rehearse, and then they perform the piece to an audience—and the audience loves it. What started as a dream and a few notes scattered on a page became a performance that sold out a concert hall.
Building yourself—becoming yourself—is just like this. You are the musician and you’ve got a blank sheet of paper in front of you and just a couple of melodies ringing around in your head. You have a feeling of what you want for yourself and your future; but what are you doing to get there?
Have you written the operating manual? Have you fed your machinery a new blueprint to get to the place you want to be?
I want to encourage you to spend some time dreaming and composing. Like any creative work, the first things that come out might not be the right thing for you long term; but simply committing to the act of composing means that you’re getting one step closer to a sell-out performance.
You don’t need any special skills for this either, but to help you get going I’ll recommend different methods you can use for creating your own visionary compositions. The exercises below enable you to craft a one year vision, but you could also do longer time spans or create multiple visions to capture where you want to be one, three, five, ten or even more years from now.
Write: write a press release that celebrates you achieving your vision, here is a great article that goes deeper on how to write a personal press release—just be sure to write not only the what, but the why and what impact it’s had. Think of it as if someone interviewed you about your success and write it.
Write: write a journal entry where you are privately celebrating having accomplished your vision, but write as if you have already achieved what you want—write in the present tense, for example: “Today was amazing, I finally opened my own gallery and the crowd was so big that we had to turn people away…”
Mind-map: Draw a mind-map that includes all of the elements of your dream state. To take it a step further, you could create multiple maps for your current state and a few future states to realize how you need to link your actions together. Think “now, next, later.” Here is an example I found on Pinterest, you can find loads of examples there.
Collage: Clip images from magazines or print images from the internet that represent your vision. You can do this manually by clipping and glueing paper together, or digitally by using an app like Photoshop or Procreate to clip images digitally and combine them.
Draw: Draw symbols or some sketches of what you want to achieve. You might add some captions or notate some things too.
The key is that whatever you create, make sure it’s something that is simple enough to keep to hand and look at every day—and I mean really look at every day. It might be easy to save it in a folder on your computer, but it won’t be effective unless you can see it every day.
Also, give yourself permission to update or change your vision. The point of having a vision is to create a guidepost, and as the architect of your life you are most certainly allowed to most those guideposts! But don’t think that this flexibilty lessens or nullifies the benefit of having a vision in the first place—if anything it will help you gain clarity on what you truly desire. Because often when we create a vision for ourselves, we are clouded by our current mood—but as we reflect each day on the thing we claim we want, we can quietly vote on whether or not that resonates with us. Maybe some parts of your vision resonate more than others. Give yourself permission to edit. It’s what our composer was doing while he was writing and conducting the piece he created for the orchestra!
How I use vision compositions
My vision compositions take multiple forms and are applicable to multiple timespans. I first got into visioning about five years ago when I was working at a job that really wasn’t serving me. I made a plan to not only find better work but to multiply my salary. I got really clear about what I wanted and then found myself achieving my goals at break-neck speed. Honestly, vision work is a game-changer. Typically I combine the methods I mentioned above, so:
To create a structure for my future plans, I use mind-maps to zoom out and capture what I want to achieve this year and next at a high-level. Mind-maps are useful for this because you don’t have to go into too much detail, just call out key areas and high-level activities that will drive you to your goal.
Then I typically write a present-tense journal entry that is a celebration of a day in time when I’ve achieved the state I’m dreaming of—I touch on multiple things like my career, my home, the people around me, the things I’m grateful for…
Another piece of writing I’ve done is to write my ‘good-bye’ letter to my job; this was recommended to me by a professional coach who suggested I think forward to all the successes I want to confidently report as and when I leave my current role, and to write in present-tense. This activity really helped me hone in on the type of impact I want to have, and helps me to prioritize where I spend my energy.
I create a collage to represent the state I want to be in within three years. This is the main artifact I keep out so I see it every day. It’s on my dresser in my bedroom so that I can look at it while I’m getting dressed. While I use the other methods, I don’t keep those front and center since the collage itself acts as a reminder to the things I’ve mind-mapped and written; but I do often reflect on those maps and the journal entry when I need a little boost.
I also draw simple, abstract symbols that I can keep out and about, like on my work desk or in areas of my house where I don’t mind if visitors see. The symbols are abstract enough that no one can really read into them, but provide a simple reminder to me about the things I need to focus on. For example, I currently have a post-it note with a simple illustration of a ladder on it to help me remember how to approach coaching conversations with my reports at work—it’s related to a communication trait I need to improve on in order to achieve the impact I stated in my “good-bye” letter :)
Remember that to emerge as the person who is the star of your vision, you have to first write the script and then perform actions that will enable every part of you and your environment to merge into that future state.
I began this article talking about emergence as a property of complex systems. Emergence is something that happens organically and naturally in many cases, but in others it’s something that happens through conscious orchestration; and I believe we all have the capacity to compose and orchestrate our futures—our best selves.
I wish you all the best in your pursuits, and hope you will give yourself some time to reflect and start composing the future that you want. I hope you write the music for your soul to play.
Thank you for joining me here. It means so much to me ❤️
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I love vision work and collages, so this post was like manna from heaven to me! With a lot of new angles and ideas to check out.