Earlier in this series, I’ve shared about the need to re-align life, the concept of casting a vision, and using that vision to create small, measureable goals. Now on to what happens next – creating an action plan.

Now, I have to confess, most of the time I’m not doing some big ole process here. This is usually done in my journal or in my planner. This year I’m using an organizer, and I’ve found that I have the need to add new sections for goals that I’ve set that I keep coming back to, to refine the action plan. But last year, this was just done in my journal book.

I don’t do this on the computer usually. Mostly because I think differently on the computer than I do in writing. I’m not a linear thinker and I really just like to map things out visually and write in the margins.  And I like being able to tweak and plan anywhere I happen to be.

Basically what I do is focus on one goal at a time (and remember, I limit the number of goals I have at any one time so I can really get them done), and map out what it takes to achieve the goal.

Sometimes it’s really simple. For example, during a rough patch in my marriage I was dealing with a lot of negative self-talk about my husband. Not productive. And definitely not helping me reach my vision as a wife.

With prayer and reminders that I need to work on myself instead of being critical of my husband, I set a goal to make sure I came up with at least one positive thing that my hubby did each day and thank him for it.

As an action plan, all I needed was to make a conscious effort to every day 1) recognize one positive thing that he did or said and 2) make a conscious effort to thank him for it (either via email or in person), and 3) when something negative comes into my head, to make a conscious decision to replace it with a positive.

That’s it. that’s all I needed to do to meet my goal. It was actionable, measureable, and it worked.

Sometimes my action plans are bigger. For example, we have a really big goal to pay off all of our debt by the end of 2010. To get to this goal, I’ve had to map out a much, much larger action plan.

I need small, measureable action steps, with points for victory. It’s just too overwhelming to look at that debt number. But when I mapped out the action plan, and saw how once certain small points were met things would move so much faster, it was much easier to wrap my mind around the fact that we could really achieve the goal.

It’s easier for me to claim victory at the small points, knowing that each small step achieved is helping achieve the larger, greater goal, and ultimately moving me closer to that vision.

So, the point of casting a vision for me is to understand where I want to be, for if I know where I want to be, I can work with God’s help to get there.  But if I don’t know where I’m going, then I can’t complain that I’m not where I want to be.

Hope this series resonates with you in some way. If you are up to the task, I encourage you to cast your own vision, on paper (that’s key), for the different roles you have in your life. You don’t have to share them with anyone (this is the first time I’ve ever shared mine). 

By the very nature of thinking through, praying about, and writing down who you want to be in these different roles you have, setting goals, creating actions plans, and working those plans, you have much better chance of growing into that person.

…Shannon

In this series, I’ve been sharing this concept of casting a vision. This isn’t a new concept, in fact you may have already done this for aspects of your life, I know I had, especially in the professional areas. Even the bible specially gives instruction to write down a vision (Habakkuk 2:2).

But the difference here is to cast your vision for all the different roles you have in your life, not just one aspect. If you haven’t already read how I’ve done this, here are the previous articles in the series:

Part 1 – Re-aligning Life

Part 2 – Who Do You Want Be?

Part 3 – An Example

Previously, I shared, as an example, my vision for myself. In some of the roles, I’m further along than in others. My house is still cluttered and often messy. But it’s improved over four years ago. As a professional, I’ve been blessed to be continually working, and my clients keep coming back.  As a person I’m still working on being healthy, but I’m making progress. As a wife, I’m doing a much better job now than I was four years ago.

I’m still growing and I still need to look at this vision every year and pray asking for guidance. I pick out areas that I need to work on and make them my focus.

For me, I have to choose small, manageable, measureable goals. I can’t just say I want to be healthy or I want a clean, presentable house. I have to create measurable, achievable goals, and work toward them.

For example, last year, my health goals were to move every day and to eat breakfast every day.  Did I do that? Not every day, but those goals were constantly in my mind. I measured myself against them.

What I’ve learned is that I need to break things up into small pieces, to allow for celebration of small victories, at achievable milestones. If I don’t, it’s too easy to let the goal slip away, to give up, or have to spend more energy filtering self-talk junk. None of which is productive.

I’ve also learned that I’m not super-human, super-mom, or super-anything. I just can’t do all things. I have to say “no” to things that I might really want to do, but don’t fall into the scope of my reality at this time. I also have to only choose one or two areas where I am going to focus my attention, and set goals there. Too many goals in too many areas is, for me, a recipe for failure.

Tomorrow I’ll share how I take the vision and goals and turn them into action plans.

Until then, if you haven’t already done so, cast your vision. Then I encourage you to take a look at your existing goals and see how they map against your vision. If you haven’t set goals for the new year yet, I encourage you to do so. Keep them simple, specific, and measurable. And write them down!! You’ll improve your chances of achieving your goals and your vision if you do so.

…Shannon

Earlier in this series, I shared the concept of writing down a Vision for yourself, in relation to each of the roles that you have in your life. If you missed the previous posts, please read part one and part two.

The goal with Casting a Vision is not to say this is where we are currently, but where we want to go, who we want to be. By casting your vision of who you want to be, of where you want to go, you then give yourself a tool in which to focus your growth. It gives you a destination to work towards.

So, here’s an example of what this might look like.

As a Child of God, I want to be a person known to seek Him, to be knowledgeable in his Word. To grow in him and to follow His purpose for my life.

As a Wife, I want to be someone my husband wants to spend time with. I want to be his helpmate, to edify and build him up. I want to be a blessing to my husband, and not just financially.

As a Mom, I want to be a blessing to my children. To have them remember their childhood as a time of love, laughter, and learning. I want to provide love, instruction, and as needed, correction, so that they may grow up to be productive, ever-growing people who are using their unique gifts to follow whatever path God has for them.

As a Homemaker, I want my home to be inviting and a place where people feel welcome, and that my husband wants to come home to. I want it to be a place that my kids feel comfortable bringing their friends and their friends feel comfortable hanging out.

As a Professional, I want to be someone people want to work with. I want to be sought out as someone who does excellent work, is good to work with, and who gets the job done, whatever that maybe. I want to be able to choose my projects and do them well.

As a Person, I want to be healthy, productive, and ever-growing and learning. I want to follow my interests, travel, and encourage others. I want to be an enabler, a person who inspires, encourages, and improves the lives of those around her.

Remember these are for you, so they don’t have to be in this format or be worded like this, but it’s an example. These were mine from four years ago. And, they help me keep what’s important to me in front of me, help me prioritize.

Tomorrow I’ll share how I use this vision to move forward and to create actionable goals. Until then, I hope you pick up pen or pencil, or even crayon if that’s what’s available, and start writing down your vision for you.

For the next few weeks I’m sharing some about some of the techniques that have worked for me in seeking God’s will for my life, for planning and organizing, and basically juggling all the different roles and tasks that I have to accomplish as a work-at-home, homeschooling mom.

In part one, I shared a little about my need four years ago to re-align my life, and how, during that journey, I picked up Elizabeth’s George’s book: A Wife After God’s Own Heart.

One of the most instrumental things that came out of reading that book was the Casting a Vision sessions that I did.  I lent my copy of the book to a friend, so I can’t point you exactly to what in the book prompted this and it’s been a few years, but basically, what I did was to write down at all the different roles that I had, including:

• Child of God
• Wife
• Mother
• Homeschool teacher
• Homemaker
• Professional
• Individual/Personal (including health)

And then I wrote down – this is important so I’m going to repeat it – I wrote down what, in an ideal world, I would like each of those areas to be, look like, etc. What did I want to be known for in those areas, what did I want to accomplish. Now this required some introspection and prayer. (Remember God puts those dreams in our hearts for a reason, He has a plan.  Jeremiah 29:11)

So, on paper, in my case in one of my journal books, I wrote out what my vision was for my life, in an ideal world, in each of these areas.

For as a working, homeschooling mom, and a wife, and a person, there are so many different facets of our lives. If we only focus and cast our visions for ourselves in one area, what are we missing in the other areas? God intends for us to have a rich, full, blessed life. We can’t have that if we only focus on casting vision in the area of work, or homeschooling; we have to do this across all areas of our life.

Tomorrow, to give you some food for thought, I’ll share what this looked like for me. In the meantime, I encourage you to write down your list of roles, and start thinking about how you can cast a vision for yourself.

The last two weeks of the year are always busy for me. Not only do we have the holidays, and the shorter work weeks, but also the work always seems to be abundant during this period. The year is ending, there are projects that need to be finished. This year it was the editing of a technical magazine I work with and the continued management of an affiliate program I’m working with. But more than that, the latter two weeks of the year are busy for me personally. 

This is the time where I start thinking about what I’ve accomplished personally and professionally during the year, and re-assessing where I want to be going for the new year.  I spend time revisiting my life and where I am at in it, and where I want to be in it.

I’ve struggled a lot with keeping things balanced and in proper alignment. And so I often use this time to pray, read, and really focus on where I am going and where I really should be going.

Four years ago, I resigned from my (more than) full-time, telecommuting job, and started working freelance again, solely on a project basis. It was a big change for me, because at the time, I was completely out of alignment. Work came first, then the kids, then if he was lucky, my husband. God got sprinkled in as I rely on him for strength, because much of what I do cannot be done without him. But me, myself, and I was well, not healthy.

I needed to re-align my life.  Some of that journey can be found on my Realigning Life blog, written when I was really re-evaluating myself and getting a grip on what I wanted out of my life as a working, homeschooling mom and more importantly as a wife and child of God.

During this process, I picked up two Elizabeth George books: A Wife After God’s Own Heart and A Woman After God’s Own Heart.  And because my marriage had suffered from the years of putting work first – being tied to computer, phone, and deadlines –  I started with A Wife After God’s Own Heart. I wish I could find the notes I took from that time to share with you. The blog is only a small bit of what I had written about.  Next, I’ll share one of the most instrumental things I did as a result of this process – Casting A Vision.