I was speaking at a girl’s conference recently, and I asked every girl in the audience this question: “If you had ten seconds to describe your personal life vision, what would you say?”
My question was met by dozens of foggy-eyed looks.
“Okay,” I said, deciding to switch gears.
“If you had an entire day to write down your life vision on a full piece of paper what would you write?”
The girls looked back at me with blank stares.
“What about this?” I continued, hoping they would have a light-bulb-moment soon. “What are your goals and plans for this next year? This next month?”
Still nothing.
“Okay, what about your goals and plans for today?”
I finally saw the light bulbs illuminate above their heads.
Most of us know what our schedule holds for the next few hours or days ahead. We set goals for the next few days and plan out stuff like exercising, schoolwork, diet plan, work schedule, and church activities. It’s easy to plan out our day and week, but have you taken time to set goals for the long haul?
Where There Is No Vision . . .
I’ve found that very few girls (or guys) have long-term goals for their lives. They float through their teen and young adult years with nothing more on their schedule than school, work, entertainment, romance, and maybe a little bit of God on Sundays. God wants you to have a much bigger, more exciting, and long-term plan for your life. He wants your life to be centered around a passion for serving and honoring Him. If you don’t have a long-term goal of making that a priority, it simply won’t happen.
As the Bible says so clearly, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18).
Having a personal vision for your life is one of the best places to start. I’m not talking about creating a life vision and goals similar to a bucket list. This isn’t necessarily something you can pin on your Pinterest board. I’m talking about having spiritual, relational, character-growing, and kingdom-advancing goals. A life vision is bigger than your schedule for the following week. I’m asking you to set goals that are more valuable and more eternally focused than an exercise program.
Let’s go back to my original question. If you had ten seconds to tell me your personal life vision, what would you say?
If you’re looking at your computer screen with that same foggy-eyed face as the girls I was speaking to, maybe an example will help.
My Personal Vision In a Nutshell
Here is a summary of my personal life vision.
- To live my entire life with eternity in mind.
- To invest in the people God has placed around me.
- To spend the best hours of my day getting to know my Savior even better.
- To learn to love God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength.
That is my dream vision for my life. It’s obviously a big one and requires a constant focus to make sure I am living in light of that vision. Even though it’s big, it’s helped me stay focused on the most important things in life, as well as helped me to prioritize my time.
My lifelong vision has given me a target to focus on and a bull’s-eye for me to aim towards.
I want to encourage you to do the very same thing. Take some time to write down your lifelong vision. Give yourself a target and a bull’s-eye to aim towards.
Written by Bethany Baird
