EP.11: Crafting Visions vs. Setting Goals Part 2

Goals are great. But they don’t always move the needle fast enough for me. They can also feel like ONE MORE THING TO DO on my ever crowded list. That’s why I often lean into the practice of crafting VISIONS in my life instead. When you vision (or ENvision) how your life could be different, it incites a heightened level of emotion. Visions can be frightening (in a good way); pushing you just far enough out of your comfort zone to make you feel more alive. Listen in to Part 2 of this two-part series, as I dive back into the joy and adventure that naturally come along with exploring visions for your future, rather than logically setting goals.

Hi, friends, welcome back. I’m so glad you’re here.

For today’s episode, I’m diving back into the topic of crafting visions versus setting goals. And if you missed the first part of this topic, scroll back to Episode 11 and start there.

In that episode, I talked about the difference between a vision and a goal, with visions being a little bit trickier to navigate because they’re created out of our imagination and they don’t always feel like they’re attainable, or that the outcome is in our control. Whereas goals are born out of logic, and they have very clear steps to get you from point A to point B.

I know for me, when I feel stuck or restless, I tend to have this habit of looking externally for inspiration. When I find something that’s inspiring, I think to myself, “Oh, I just need to set a goal.” As in, I just need to set a goal that I’m going to walk this many steps every day or that I’m going to make only organic dinner from here on out.

It’s the way we’ve all been taught, right? If something isn’t working in your life, look externally for what you need to do to fix or change it, and then create a plan or reverse engineer your way to the results.

Goals are great. I personally don’t have anything against goals, they absolutely have their place in our lives. They’re specific and measurable and somewhat predictable as long as you follow through.

Sometimes though, what you really need is not a goal, but a vision.

Visions make you feel something – excited, scared, or timid. They make you wonder if what you just envisioned is even possible. But with those feelings come a different level of hope and excitement.
Because the vision might come true. The unknown of crafting visions is that we don’t actually have any idea how to make our visions materialize. There’s no straight line between point A and point B. That’s what we’re diving into today.

When you set a goal, it’s up to you to make it happen.

When you craft a vision, when you envision something that maybe hasn’t ever happened in your life before, you’re simultaneously very aware of the fact that you can’t possibly make it happen on your own. If you could, it often would have already happened.

Back in Episode 11, I talked about a vision that came to me one day when I was crying on my bed.
And when I visualized that house with the front porch, and the floor to ceiling windows across the back, it instantly felt like home in my soul. I couldn’t explain it.

The only problem was it wasn’t the house that we were currently residing in. And I was almost positive it wasn’t even in the same state that we were living in. All I had to hang onto was the vision. All I knew was that I wanted a house, a home, a place that feels like that.

And so the visual of that house and the way I felt stepping through the front door (in my mind). That was my target.

Backing up for a second … A long time ago, I decided I wanted to stop living in such a way that made me feel like I was simply existing to go through the motions. I wanted my life to make me feel something. I wanted to wake up in the morning and think to myself, “I can’t believe I get to live this life.”

And if I was being really honest with myself at the time, I had never felt that way about my life. I felt like I did the right things in the right order – things I was “supposed” to do to be an adult. I grew up, got a job, I was responsible, I paid my rent. I had a boyfriend, I went to church, I paid my bills on time, I had a group of friends, and I was social, but I wasn’t feeling anything. I was just existing on autopilot.

I longed to feel more than anything.

It was around that time that I sought out the help of my first counselor, Glenn.

And, in talking to him, I discovered that the life I wanted was not only available to me, but it was totally possible if I was willing to do two things:

Number one, ignite my imagination.

Number two, I had to be willing to leave the details up to God.

In those early days, I really solidified this concept that if I could dream it, God could do it. But it had to be a partnership. One where I had to get really vulnerable. I had to get really honest and tell God all about My hopes and dreams, no matter how far fetched they seemed.

And then I had to step back and let God build out the road ahead of me one stepping stone at a time. The hardest part of letting go and letting God was knowing that he wasn’t going to show me the big picture or the exact end result until it was time … not my time, His time.

And because it’s life, and life isn’t perfect, I still ran into problems, and there were still still circumstances out of my control. But along the way, I learned that I could always stop and check in and ask God, if we were still on the right path. Knowing that if we weren’t, he would redirect me.

I promised you back in Episode 11, that I would finish the story about the house. So here’s what happened. I mentioned that at the time, I got really brave and sat my then-husband down after work one day, and told him all about the visual I’d had of the house. And when I told him that I thought we were supposed to move as a result of me having this vision, he thought I was nuts. I mean, rightfully so, who moves their family to a new state only to pick up and move again six months later, right?

But I was so sure that that vision of the house I had seen that day, was a clear directional sign. And I just couldn’t ignore it. So we’d had long conversations over several days about it. We talked about the, pros and cons of staying versus leaving. We talked about where in the world we thought we would go if we were going to move on.

Even though we knew for sure we didn’t want to move back to where we came from, we instead had to strategically go through this list of options to figure out what “good” looked like so we didn’t end up in the same position as we found ourselves then. Where did we want to go if where we were wasn’t satisfactory? What did we want to feel or see or do differently going forward?

We decided that we were just going to start fresh, we literally took out a map and a sheet of paper and we crossed off all the states we’d never considered moving. Then we listed out the top three states that we would each consider. And eventually, after a lot of conversation, we condensed that list down to our mutual top three.

Then we committed to simply doing research. We didn’t make a plan. We didn’t have a roadmap from step one to step 25. We just decided we would explore what it might look like to live in one of these three other states.

Here’s the really cool part about visions. When you actually sink in and let the visions that come to you or the visions you imagine take root, they start to have a life of their own. And things can happen really quickly if you agree to at least explore the idea that the vision might be exactly what you need or want in your life.

So for us, for instance, that initial conversation where I came to him and said, “Hey, I know we’ve only lived here six months, but I think we need to explore being someplace else.” That conversation took place, I believe in November of that year and out of the blue two months later, we were back home, staying with family for the holidays. And I got this phone call from a realtor who wanted to know if we’d ever consider selling our house.

We lived in a highly sought after area and the person who was the buyer couldn’t find exactly what they were looking for. So the realtor just called us on the off chance that we might want to sell, having no idea that we were exploring moving to another state. Our house was nowhere near being on the market – I hadn’t even fully unpacked yet!

We allowed that realtor to come in and show the house anyway. It wound up not being “the” buyer. What that “random” phone call did, however, was open the door for us to actually see that somebody might want to buy it. It prompted us to go ahead and put the house on the market.

Within six months, we had basically sold our house, my husband had gotten a job, and we had researched all three states and wound up choosing Tennessee. From November to May everything fell into place, one little puzzle piece at a time. And we moved!

It’s always amazing to me how when we are willing to dream a dream that might be bigger than we could accomplish on our own – i.e. through goal setting, magic happens.

God brings about circumstances and “coincidences” that we never could have made happen.

It’s all Him.

I think that part of God is actually inviting us into an adventure. He wants us to live really big, full lives full of life, and joy, and unexpected gifts. Because when we do that for ourselves, we actually then live out something that gives other people permission to do the same for themselves.

When you sit still, and you talk to God about those tiny Inklings in your heart, about what might be possible, and they grow into something that you have suddenly no control over – God is just inviting you into a better story. You clearly see that there’s so much more to life than living into your busy schedule or setting goals that make sense to everyone around you.

So if you’ve ever felt like something was missing, or just off, or if you’ve lost yourself in whatever season of life you find yourself in, I want you to know that you’re only one vision away from reigniting the spark that makes you feel more alive.

And the really cool part is even if you’re not sure what that new vision is, or might be, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt restless, knowing something needs to change. And I’ve simply sat in the stillness and asked God to give me something to get excited about.

And every single time He has shown up.

So that’s your homework.

If you’re over there, developing your own stillness practice, please take this question into your next quiet time. And make sure you have your journal so you can record whatever bubbles up to the surface.

One last thing just to circle back and finish up the story about the house. We did eventually build that house on a cul de sac with the front porch and the windows across the back. But what I know now that it couldn’t possibly have known then is that the house was never the point.

The vision that invoked the feeling it is what mattered. And the feeling from the vision is what made me come alive and step out of my comfort zone so that we can do life differently.

The vision isn’t there to serve as the end-all-be-all. That’s why it’s not a goal. The vision is just there to get you moving. And it’s far enough out of your reach that you just have to trust God has a reason for the vision. And He also has a way there.

If we’re learning to lean into our hearts and listen to the adventure that God is inviting us into, the visions we have merely serve as milestones within the bigger picture. Because it’s the living we’re doing in the process. That’s the point of living fully alive on purpose and with great intention. And watching the amazing things that God has the ability to bring to life in our midst.

As always, you can email me at bobbi@bobbigregory.com. I want to hear how this exercise goes for you. Whether you have a vision already on your heart that you just need to let breathe and come to life or whether you have no idea what it is that you want, and you need some help in the creativity and imagination department, (which is God’s specialty, by the way). I can’t wait to hear what comes up for you.

Until next time, thank you so much for listening.

Bye for now.