Life is tough enough without any other self-imposed obstacles to make it even harder for yourself. You will agree with me that as you grow older and hopefully mature that life places more demands on you to become the best version of yourself. A life vision comes into play which is meant to be a picture of what you want your tomorrow to look like.
The life you are living today is based on the decisions and choices that you made yesterday. While you cannot change the past you can make new decisions and choices today to have a better tomorrow. A clear vision should lead to goal setting with a plan of the steps you need to take to make the vision a reality.
Maybe you never taught how to come up with a vision but it is about asking yourself where you want to be 5, 10 or 15 years from now as a starting point. That vision should then guide you in the process of effective goal setting, a broken down step by step plan to help you see the vision come to pass.
An important principle to remember is that if the vision is not written down it does not exist.
Having said that this is why it is critical to come up with your life vision:
1. To set your direction
What I have learned and discovered is that when you are just drifting through life you get nowhere and that place is devastating. If you do not know where you are going you are sure to get somewhere that will not be pleasant and may be heart breaking.
“Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint; but happy is he who keeps the law.” ~ Proverbs 29:18
I have seen people and their families suffer because there was no guiding vision about where they were going. This can easily be you if you go down the same road. In the area of personal finance having no vision can be devastating because you can easily waste money without knowing it and only realize later on. Perhaps you could have used that money to secure your family’s financial security.
However, even if you have gone down that road all is not lost. Create your vision today.
2. Confidence for the future
A clear road map of where you are going with your life breeds confidence and therefore helps you embrace the future more readily. Without a solid plan you constantly worry about what tomorrow holds and that can lead to stress and depression in the present.
I have gone through such a season and I can testify that it is not a nice place to be. There are some things I only realized later in life that I wish I could have known when I was younger but I chose to start again where I am with what I have.
If you are planning to have a family, a life vision is that much more critical because you are taking other people with you on the journey. They need to be confident about what you are doing and where you are going in life.
3. It guides your values
If your vision for example is to become financially free then your values will include managing your money well, cutting out unnecessary expenses, increasing your income through multiple streams of income, etc.
These values will guide your behaviors and discipline you to avoid doing things that will jeopardize your life vision. Discipline is more important the older you grow. Your vision should never be at the mercy of temporary or seemingly urgent things in the present. Discipline yourself today so that your vision for tomorrow will materialize and bring you closer to what God planned for your life.
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The Bible tells us that where there is no vision the people perish and it has resonated with me for years. You’d think that people perish only because of a food shortage but lacking vision is a much deeper hunger. We’re primarily spirit beings that live in bodies that have a purpose to serve here on earth. When you get born again and allow God to direct your steps, you’ll get a good idea of your life purpose.
While I was born again in my early teens, I first seriously thought about my life purpose in my late teens. God won’t show you the entire picture from the get-go but he’ll give you many assignments along the way. These assignments tend to line up with that purpose and the vision you have around it. Being faithful with those assignments opens doors for bigger assignments.
I had a deep interest in inspiring other people with the word of God and sharing motivational messages. These would be short messages like quotes and related Bible verses that I’d send to my friends via SMS. Amazingly enough, they loved the messages as they’d respond with messages of thanks for the encouragement they received. That feedback motivated me as well to keep sharing them and for the season I did that it was fulfilling for me.
I had dreams of becoming a motivational speaker one day so that was a sort of testing ground for me. My inspiration came from a local motivational I had developed a relationship with in those days after high school. His book was inspiring and my interest in writing also was ignited as a result. I also started to read personal development books to inspire me.
Being faithful with those assignments opens doors for bigger assignments.
When I went to college, I was moved to apply the lessons I was learning from the books I was reading. I had developed an interest in learning about leadership, entrepreneurship and financial freedom. I found opportunities to grow in those areas in my first year which would be pivotal in my time there. This was another assignment God had given me in fulfilling the vision God had given me. I took up the challenge with confidence and anticipation.
In the first couple of classes of my first year, a class representative was required to lead the class. When I noticed that there was no one was forthcoming, I decided to volunteer myself and take up the responsibility. Throughout the four years of college, I believe I did a good job as I had good relationships with people. My classmates had great respect for me as I sought to serve their interests more than I did my own.
Another opportunity I had to grow my leadership and entrepreneurship abilities was through a student organization called SIFE. Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) allowed me to be involved in community projects to help make a difference and lead initiatives within those projects. I had learned about it the year before I went to college and was determined to get involved.
I learned some valuable skills and developed friendships and business relationships along the way. The most exciting for me was the entrepreneurial and financial freedom journey of the business projects I did personally. I partnered with friends in some of them which turned out to be strategic and led to more success. My best venture was with a good friend of mine where we made 23 times our capital in three months.
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I grew in terms of ministry by leading a campus cell group for a local church that I attended. It was my way of building upon my experiences of leading ministry in high school. I was stretched in my development nonetheless as I met with new dynamics and personalities. The experience was fulfilling and I felt that I gave my best to minister to other people through my faith in Christ. That love for God rubbed off on others.
In my first year, I had to learn to understand the older people who were part of our cell group. Fortunately, I had a brother in Christ who also guided me to lead and be sensitive to their needs. With time, it became a lot easier to gel with them and grow as a leader in ministry. I had to keep growing in my understanding of the Word of God to remain effective as a leader.
Over the years we became a real family with the people that were in our cell group. We learned to do life together – sharing our experiences, eating out, watching sports together and more. At the end of each semester, we would have ‘bring and share’ parties to celebrate our achievements. Those were some of the best experiences in college just doing life together with other believers.
Doing life together helped us to minister to other people in the way we conducted ourselves. The grace that was upon our lives, studies and other endeavors would attract other people. It was a way of being salt and light to the people around us. That is our mandate as believers after all in this world. The best experiences were in my final year with the community of believers I associated with in Scripture Union.
I had to keep growing in my understanding of the Word of God to remain effective as a leader.
After graduating college and completing my studies, I looked forward to having a great career. This turned out to be one of the most challenging areas of my life. I sought opportunities that lined up with my skills and interests and I landed a job a few months after college. During my time there I gained a lot of work experience and skills that would help me develop further. The company was still young and had a lot of room for growth.
That job didn’t last long as I spent only one year there and went jobless for about six months. However, I got to use my skills to enhance my career prospects and position myself for other job opportunities. I had the opportunity with a project which turned out to be a big event. We developed a website for a top school and they decided to do an official website launch event. It was quite massive.
In my next job, which was more stable, I built on my skills and even influenced some positive changes. I led a project to rebuild the company website which became key in getting repeat business. The unfortunate thing was not being able to accomplish this due to a lot of red tape in certain areas. It became frustrating though I kept trying to make things happen.
For the first time in my life, I encountered resistance to my ambitions at a level I hadn’t experienced before. Did that mean that my vision wasn’t from God? Not at all. Things aren’t always smooth sailing as I learned and began to understand more about how the enemy resists our good works. I eventually left that job having given my best to work towards my vision.
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Years before that around the time I left my first job, I had a revelation about starting this blog. I had gained much experience in developing and managing websites and combined with my passion for writing, something stirred in my spirit. I visualized having a blog to motivate and inspire people with the word of God. At the time, I had never seen one of that nature but with time I came across websites following similar paths.
Writing was mainly a hobby of mine and I had set up a free blog before to post my thoughts. When I learned that there were ways to monetize content, I was excited and did further research. I soon realized that I could make money online from having a blog and it inspired me a lot more. I didn’t start the blog immediately as I had left my job and needed a new source of income.
It was about a year and a half later that the idea came to fruition after I was more stable. I was quite excited about it and felt like I was a step closer to my dreams. So many ideas came to my mind about what to write about and I wrote a couple of posts and published them. I didn’t realize how much I needed to learn to get it to the level I dreamed about.
In the more than ten years since launching, I’ve gone through many highs and lows. Ordinarily, one would have quit on the idea after a few years but I didn’t because I had a vision. I saw the invisible that most people didn’t see and today it has grown and has room for more growth. I keep growing it and learning more every day.
The level of opposition you may experience in life may be a good indicator of how powerful your destiny is.
The more resistance you face, the bigger the breakthrough that lies ahead. Unreal adversity doesn’t always mean that your vision isn’t from God. He opens doors for us but they come with adversaries and this has been the case in my business and career endeavors. What enables me to keep going despite numerous failures is the vision that I carry. If I didn’t have a compelling vision, I would have given up ages ago.
My vision of having financial freedom has helped me endure failed business ventures and investment opportunities along the way. I tried many things like network marketing, selling products online, stock market investments, etc. with little to no success. After many years of failure, only now are things starting to look better. I started to get traction with my online freelancing business which came as a breath of fresh air. Brighter and better days lie ahead for me.
Without a vision people perish and I’m grateful that with God I’ve been able to get this far. The enemy has tried many times to take me out and God came through for me and preserved my life. The level of opposition you may experience in life may be a good indicator of how powerful your destiny is. Seek guidance when you feel discouraged so you can get back on track.
Your vision is not something you’ll accomplish on your own so you’ll need the right support structure along the way. Whatever it is you’re pursuing with your life, I pray that you seek God for your life purpose and vision. You should desire what He wants for you and you can be assured He’ll see you through. May He order and direct your steps so that you see His goodness in the land of the living.
