From Dream to Vision
Today we are talking about turning your dream into a crystal clear vision for your life and for your business, taking it to the throne of God, and asking for what you want.
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Do you have a vision for your life and for your business?
We are very good at creating dreams for ourselves or even recognizing a God dream within us but it kind of stops there – as the dream.
I want to challenge you today to take that dream and create a crystal clear vision of what it looks like, not in the getting there, because the getting there will just kind of happen.
Things will begin to develop on their own once the vision is clear.
You achieve this by first writing it down – not just the dream that you have, but the vision that goes along with it. Include all of the emotions, all of the feelings, the activities that are involved in that dream.
I’ll give you an example.
I know that in 2015 God gave me a huge dream. That dream was to coach women business owners in life and in business. He almost confused me because he talked about life coaching and then he talked about business coaching when he was giving me this dream. I had to do some research to figure out what both of those were.
But once I did, I realized how powerful they could be in helping other women to realize their dreams.
Then, as I started to work with women in recovery and get into helping women in the ministry setting at my church, I realized that there are a lot of women who have forgotten how to dream. Or they have a dream, but it seems so far off and so impossible that it’s just kind of died.
Their dream is just there, lingering in the back of their minds, but they cannot see the possibility in it at all – that it could ever be true.
My role as a coach is to help pull that back out of you and help you dream again, help you make it clear, and then help you put steps in place to get there.
God doesn’t put a dream in us just to let it die!
He wants to see that dream fulfilled, but we do have a role in it.
We have a part in it and life can get in the way and circumstances can happen that make it seem like it’s just never going to happen.
I want to challenge you in a few ways to help you really get to that point where you can see just how possible it is.
Not because of your abilities.
Not because of where you are right now.
But because God is in it!
And when God is in it there is no stopping him from making that dream come true.
He planted it in you to begin with for a very specific reason. We may not even understand totally all the aspects all the reasons why He has given us this dream, but I challenge you to follow it.
When I think about the dream that God planted in me to coach women in business I had to make it clear for myself.
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Know what you want and what you don't!
This is an exercise that I do with my clients in my Lead group coaching program. It is the first lesson. Its purpose is to drive down deep into creating your vision.
First, outline the things that you want to remain in your life. The things you want more of in your life.
Then, list out the things you don’t want in your life. We all have things in our lives that we just kind of put up with or we just don’t want, but sometimes we’re not sure how to make it happen. We just accept it and we don’t acknowledge it. Maybe we say, “you know it’s not that bad” or “whatever.”
But there are always things in our lives that could improve or that we just need to eliminate. It’s okay to acknowledge that.
Something you may want more of could be more time with family, you want to keep your exercise routine, or you want to do more of it. Maybe you really do enjoy your job. You enjoy what you do and you want to be able to do more of it in a different way.
Things you want to get rid of or don’t want anymore could be that you spend a whole lot of time working overtime, major overtime just to get by. Maybe you want to get rid of the overtime, but still be able to meet and exceed your financial needs for the month.
To help you solidify the things you want or don’t you need to dig down into why.
I have my clients ask themselves “Why?” at least five, if not seven, times.
Working through the answers to “Why?” gets to the real root of why you want to do the thing that you want. You can do it in the negative as well when you’re looking at the things you don’t want in your life anymore.
Work your way through the “Why?” question at least five times and push yourself to seven because sometimes it takes that many times to really get to the root.
You may be asking, “Well, what does that have to do with the dream that God has given me?”
You need to recognize where you are in life today.
The next step is to put down on paper what you want your life to look like once that dream is achieved.
You need to create a vision for your entire life. Because while we like to compartmentalize and we like to separate work and family and church and ministry and outside activities and friends – you really can’t.
All of it affects the other.
They’re not totally separate blocks in a chain. They are connected, though they may have separate aspects to them.
When you take the time to look at each aspect and figure out what you want more of, what do you not want in those things, then you actually begin to see how they connect.
The next step is to define your ideal day.
This isn’t your biggest grandest “went on the most spectacular vacation and met a superstar” kind of day.
This is the day that you would love to put on repeat every single day.
Like if the movie Groundhog Day was real and you repeated this day every day you’d be okay with it. More than okay, it would be amazing to be able to repeat this day every day!
You will want to make sure that when you create that vision that you’re describing the day from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed.
Write it like a journal entry as if the day just happened – a dear diary kind of thing.
From the time you woke up to the time your head hits a pillow and you go back to sleep at night, what did you do that day?
Who was in the day?
How did it make you feel?
What did it look like, smell like, feel like to do the things that you did that day?
How did it make you feel?
How did it make others feel?
Now, most importantly, take your vision and present it to God.
You have his dream within you and what you’re trying to achieve. You’ve written out the dream and turned it into a vision.
Read this journal entry that you’ve created of your ideal day.
See it in your head so when you read the journal entry it is so crystal clear.
You can see this new vision in your head just like a movie playing.
The bible tells us to come boldly before the throne of God.
Take your vision to God.
Tell him, “This is what I want my life to look like. Partner with me in this. Your dream is included in this God. You planted this dream in me and I bring it to you with my ideas included and let’s partner together to make it happen.”
There is something beautiful when you submit your vision, your ideals to God and say, “Let’s do this together!” He will partner with you and he will help you achieve it.
A few warnings about creating this vision with such clarity.
First, don’t include how you’ve gotten there. And second, don’t get too attached to the detail because when you partner with God, sometimes he’s got better ideas.
The way it actually plays out may be different. It will be realizing the same vision but the method getting there may be different than what you thought, so make sure that you’re open to that.
Don’t be afraid to take your vision to God and ask to partner with him.
He wants to be part of your business.
He wants to be part of your life.
Every detail of both!
And when you invite him into it, miracles can happen!
Your next step is to pray over your vision.
You have written out this beautiful detailed vision of your ideal day.
I suggest you read over your ideal day journal entry daily or at least every few days. Keep it front of mind.
After you have read it – pray.
This is how I want you to pray. Don’t beg. Don’t plead your case.
We don’t need to beg God to come along with us.
When you come to God with a pure heart, a genuine heart, you’re partnering with him in his dream for you.
You’re presenting the vision of how you want it to be. It’s okay for us to want things.
When you present it to Him and you read that ideal day and you take the time to visualize it and then you say, “God, I present this to you and I thank you.”
This is the key. Pray, “I thank You for the things that you are doing, whether I can see them or not. I thank you for what you are doing to make this vision a reality to bring this about. I thank you, God.”
Be thankful for what he is doing, because there are so many things that he does behind the scenes. We don’t know it. We don’t know how he is going to be connecting us two months from now to the right person that’s going to be “the one” who catapults us into the next level of our business.
I mean we just have no idea. So you want to acknowledge that he can do things that we are not aware of.
The first thing is thanking him for everything that he is doing in the background; everything that he is doing to help realize your vision.
The second thing is to ask Him, “What do I need to do today? What is my role today in making this vision come true?”
Ask him, “What is my to-do list? What do I need to make sure I get done today in my business or in my life that it will get me one step closer to achieving this vision, to achieving this dream?”
When you partner those two things together: thanking God for what he’s doing and asking “What’s my part?” follow through with that.
Following through is obedience.
You need to be obedient to his instruction and be obedient to his guidance and when you allow yourself to do that, then the two of you together are unstoppable in your life and your business!!
There may be something in your life that you want. In the same way, visualize it. Ask God to partner with you in it. Tell him you’re all in and ask him. Thank him for what he’s doing. Ask him what you need to do.
There are some days that I’ll get a to-do list, three or four things that He tells me to do. Usually they are very practical things. Sometimes it’s entering my receipts into QuickBooks (because that’s one of the things that I like to avoid), but there are times when it’s record another video. Sometimes He’ll even give me the subject of the video that i’m supposed to record. And then sometimes it’s vacuum the house, because I’ll tell you, I can get so focused on business that my duties within the house will definitely fall to the wayside because they’re no fun and i’d rather work on things that are fun.
Sometimes God has to remind me that I need to go do the laundry, the dishes and things like that. It is part of life.
God is a god of order and he is a he has roles for us. But if God has told me to do it then I know I need to do it. Not ask my daughter to do it.
Partnering with him in every aspect of your life really is amazing!
It takes a lot of pressure off of you to make sure that you’re doing the right things because, when you’re asking God what to do, you know you’re doing the right things!
And having that crystal clear vision and taking the time to read over it, spend time praying over it, and then ask for your role, thanking him for what he’s doing, and asking him, “What do I do today to achieve that?” you will see amazing things happen in your business!
My mission is to encourage women to trust in themselves in life and in business. With love and faith I lead women business owners to find freedom in their God-given identity so they can live out their purpose with confidence. By helping you set expectations that lead to action, your dreams become a reality!
Stephanie Ferrara
Coach, Speaker, Freedom Fighter
