Taking The Pressure Off of Vision Casting For 2024
This isn’t going to be a “How to find your word of the year” post. This isn’t a “how to set intentions for 2024” post either. There is a lot of rhetoric around new year’s affirmations, goals, dreams and hopes and the more I consume, the more exhausting it can feel. If you are like me, you probably want to set goals, you are vision minded, but if can feel tedious to figure out how to narrow down big ideas into actionable steps. Maybe you don’t even feel like taking any big bold steps right now. Maybe we are working on getting through grief or chaos. That was me last year too.
Either way, I want to make a gentle, no fuss case for vision casting as we enter the new year - and not in a “do this every day” or “discipline is the key to success” kind of way either.
Proverbs 29:18 says, “Without vision, the people perish.” This verse keeps coming to mind as I didn’t do a ton of goal setting in 2023. I was trying to get through a wedding, learning how to be married, moving my husband into our new place, and moving my roommate at the time out. In January 2023 I was thinking about water bills, and life insurance, and how to change my name, and how to stay a good employee while my mental health was not doing well. The last thing on my mind was how I was going to feel in November and December or what milestones I wanted to reach by then.
You should know that I am a goals gal. I love a benchmark, especially one I set for myself. I love setting creative goals or ones that seem different than the status quo. I also realize that not everyone is motivated like me. I need an external motivator because my internal monologue most of the time tells me to quit early, or to snuggle back into cozy covers. Maybe that is what you need too. Maybe you are naturally super driven and the fact that I am about to tell the gals reading this to chill out on crazy intense goals will bother you. Either way, I’m so glad you’re reading. Hang in there with me.
This year I am asking the Lord for vision for the whole year and not just up to getting through the one thing I knew that 2023 would hold. What do you know is upcoming in 2024? Are you like me this last year and only looking towards that benchmark? What if we asked for broader strokes? I wonder if broader stroke vision would actually take the pressure off of striving. I plan to write more this year under the banner of “taking the pressure off” so let’s start at the beginning with goal setting/vision casting.
When we take the pressure off, I believe there is an expanse for more joy and celebration which truly are weapons of our spiritual warfare. The opposite also might be true… when pressure is applied, all the fun, frilly, things are the first to go. Let’s take pressure off and allow the maturity of joy to fight for us this year. I am asking the Lord for broad vision and I wonder if you did too, if it might lend itself towards more grace for your year ahead. There’s a lot of pressure to get super specific, and if that is what you need, by all means feel the freedom to narrow it down, but I think for the gals who have been conditioned for years to get crazy detailed with goals, our internal dialogue might be used to adding too much pressure around how we start the new year.
When I started to think more practically about what I needed to take the pressure off of it looked like getting short specific goals and broad overarching goals. For example if the overarching goal is to spend the year playing with creativity as a form of worship, the short specific goal might be not posting creative ventures on the internet as a form of keeping worship intimate and scared.
If you are a gal who needs a Bible in a year goal, or a daily steps goal, feel all the freedom from me! I know myself too well to know that I don’t want to set myself up for failure out of the gate. However you plan to enter the new year, I hope you take sometime to take the pressure off, seek the Lord for vision and remember that these are the days.
