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The Power of Having a Vision for Your Life

 

Imagine what it would mean if you had perfect clarity on your life’s purpose, the kind of clarity that propels you forward in life. Imagine the impact you could have on the lives of those around you, in your community and the world at large.

What I’m talking about involves more than just having an extraordinary marriage and being a great spouse and parent, which I’m not minimizing at all. But I’m talking about more than just raising your kids on a solid spiritual foundation, but being the kind of parent whose kids truly become your best friends as they develop into adulthood. As you’re raising your kids I want you to think about creating the kind of memories that last a lifetime. Spend time together building that bond and savoring every wonderful moment together because this is your life.

In creating those memories see if you can form a vision of what your true purpose is in this life. Having a vision about one’s life purpose is one of the most powerful things we can have. A vision gives us four critical things that can make all the difference in our lives and the lives of others.

A Vision gives us passion – When we know why we’re here, when we’re emotionally connected to what we’re doing, we come alive, we have a goal. We can see our destiny before us. It gives us the drive and energy to do everything it takes to achieve it. We live and dream about reaching our goal, and everything becomes part of the journey.

Living in anticipation of your future as you envision it and working constantly to achieve it causes everything else to vibrate with your energy as you move towards your future.

A Vision provides motivation – Every mundane task we do to fulfill our vision begins to take shape and we find meaning that spurs us on to the next step in the process. People with a vision are motivated and this is one of the true powers of having a clear vision, clarity as to your purpose in life.

Looking back on my own life, I was a pretty average student in college. But when I set my sights on flight school, when I formed this vision, this dream of pinning those golden wings on my uniform, and becoming a fighter pilot, flying off aircraft carriers, well this was the most exciting and most powerful feeling I’d ever had. This was my vision, the picture I played over and over again in my mind.

The following two years that it took me to get through my training was the hardest time in my life up ‘till then. But I was determined to do whatever it took. I hung onto my vision. I didn’t care what I had to do or to go through, it was all propelling me forward towards my vision of becoming a fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy. I had clarity of purpose and that motivation served me very well, to the point where I was able to finally achieve all my dreams.

If you take a minute to look at the trajectory of your life now, you’ll see that there are really three directions you are pointing toward:

• A place so exciting you can’t wait to get there and it defines everything you are doing in your life.
• An average place, or maybe you don’t even know the destination and you have no idea where your life is heading.
• The trajectory of your life is going sideways, or maybe in reverse. You are aware on some level that this is not the direction you want to be headed in right now.

A vision forms our priorities – You can now prioritize your values, understand your strengths, the gifts that God has given you so that you can pull all of them together and harness them in such a way that you can change the trajectory of your life towards something that totally excites you and gives you passion.

One of the observations I’ve had in working with people with a clear vision is that they are not easily distracted. When you know where you’re headed and you know why you’re doing what you’re doing then everything is important. Everything on your calendar, every meeting you have scheduled, every activity that you have planned is purposeful. Everything is essential and it all serves to move you forward.

Vision gives us purpose – Our vision becomes our purpose in life. Think back to a Monday morning when you couldn’t wait to get out of bed because there was so much going on in your life that was propelling you forward that you felt this purpose pulling you into your future, the one you had visualized.

When you marry your clarity of vision to your purpose you have the link between your current reality, where you are now, and this future that God has put in your heart to manifest for yourself. Your vision and your purpose are unique to you. God has placed them in your heart.

It will be different than everyone else’s around you. And it makes me think of the verse from Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them”. Now think about that! We are his workmanship!

If we could just shift our perceptions of ourselves and see ourselves from God’s perspective, that he created us with purpose. Before the world was even formed, before we were even on this Earth, God created us with gifts and talents and strengths so that we could lead lives that are significant and be effective in this world. We are meant to form extraordinary relationships, to have an impact on everyone and everything we touch.

 

Now I’d like to close with this, having a clear vision along with the courage to follow through on it dramatically increases your chances that when you come to the end of your life and look back, you will have a deep abiding satisfaction when thinking:

“I did it. I succeeded. I finished well. My life counted.”