How's Your Vision for 2023?
Happy New Year to you! I love the opportunity a new year provides to reflect and also look ahead…perhaps to cast a new vision for how you’d like your life to look.
Did you know I have a “formula for hope”? Yep, I do. I came up with it because hope can feel very intangible at times. I wanted to find a way to make hope really practical so you and I can keep tabs on our hope—how to strengthen it, or give it a tune up when needed. This is what it looks like:
A hope-filled person has their life grounded in faith, fueled by love, and guided by vision. You might have noticed that everything I write about falls into one of those three categories.
Today I choose vision as our topic, to hopefully guide you into the blank slate of this fresh year. And here are some of my simple thoughts that you can converse or journal about, or perhaps you’d like to leave a comment here on this post, or in the chat feature on the Substack app. Check out these thoughts…
This Year…
You get to decide how loving you’re going to be
What does it mean to you to be a loving person? Does that differ from how other people define loving? Is it more important for you to feel loving or that the other person feels loved?
How at peace you’re going to be
I’m learning that I can control how much at peace I’m feeling. I used to think it was all about having peaceful circumstances, but it’s actually an inside job. What helps you to feel at peace?
You get to decide what kind of relationship you’re going to have with God
Most of my life I just did what I was told, especially in regard to my beliefs. Not that they were bad or wrong, they just weren’t my own. Making my relationship with God my own makes it so much more intimate and valuable. Let me know if I can help you in any way as you seek to answer this one.
How happy you’re going to be
Finding my happiness has been a very difficult journey for me, especially since most of my life was lived trying to make everyone else happy. My therapist even says that “striving for happiness actually makes it harder to obtain.” I’m finding joy in the choices I make about how to live my life, and taking responsibility for my own happiness. How happy would you like to be?
How much you’re going to help ease other people’s burdens
If you can find something to do that brings you joy AND helps ease the burdens of other people, your life will feel magical. As we help others, we are bringing hope and healing to the broken places, and light to the dark places—like Jesus.
You get to decide who you are
If I can offer one final tip it’s this: don’t let anybody else tell you who you are supposed to be. This life is yours, and every small step you take to take ownership of your life, your circumstances, and your emotions, the more alive you’ll feel, and more able you’ll be to give life to those around you.
What are you waiting for?
This is gonna be your year!
Happy New Year, friends! ❤️
Your writing "How's Your Vision for 2023?" is inspiring and challenging! I have been thinking through the bullet points you put at the end, that I can be in control of how much I can help, who I am going to be, how much peace I will receive, how I will respond to God, etc.
I understand that now, in my head I think... so the question is how am I going to do that.
I hope I can put down realistic/specific goals for this year. One somewhat specific new year's resolution for me is to not speak out who is to blame when things go south. I am quick to blame and accuse others (and myself too, for being so stupid), so I want to change that. I want to be extra careful with my tongue, to not speak words of blame.
You hit the nail called WISDOM on its head. Thanks!