Welcome to part 2 of our goal-planning series! If you haven’t already read part 1 and answered the questions within, check it out here. If you’ve already answered the questions from part 1, you may want to get them out and have them handy to look at as we work through part 2. In this post, we’re going to take your passions, talents, and interests and use them to work on casting a vision for your life.

Casting a vision

With your passions, interests, and talents in mind, we now need to cast a vision for how you are going to use those in your life. What is your vision? It’s important to have a big-picture vision for what you want your life to look like down the road. However, don’t expect to accomplish all of these goals in a month or even a year. We’re going to present some more questions to help you establish your vision, so pull your pen and paper back out!

Short- and long-term vision

With pen and paper in hand, take your time answering the following questions.

• What would you like people to say about you at the end of your life?
• What is your picture of a fulfilled life? Who were you created to be? This encompasses much more than your job.

Picture yourself standing at your own funeral. What would you want to be said of you? Write it down. Now, let’s work backward. 

• What are your goals for the next 1, 5, and 10 years?

Start thinking short-term and longer-term. These goals can include anything from employment to family to living situation to the number of books you’d like to read. Your shorter-term goals might be a little more specific than your long-term goals.

Next, let’s do a bit of problem-solving.

• What’s holding you back?
• What are your next steps?

In order to accomplish your goals, you don’t need to have a clear path to your end goal with every question answered. You just need to do the next thing.

For example, if you want to be a published author in five years but have no idea where to start, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write it down as one of your goals. All you have to do is take the next step. That might mean doing some research on publishers, chatting with a friend in the industry, or just sitting down at your computer to write.

If you want to own a small farm and grow your own food but have never kept a flower alive, don’t worry! Write it down on your five-year or ten-year goal list. Then, start small by checking out a gardening book from the library or learning how to grow some herbs in your apartment kitchen window.

In part 4, we’ll talk more about how to set checkpoints for each goal.

Join us again next time!

We hope that these questions helped you dig into your interests and passions to cast a vision for your future. We’re not done yet, though! Keep an eye out for part 3 of our series, where we’ll dig in even more and chat about your sweet spot. Then, come back for part 4, which may be the most important part of our series. In part 4, we’ll get into the nitty gritty of HOW to actually accomplish your goals. You won’t want to miss it! 

If you had trouble casting a vision by answering the questions in this post, don’t fret! Mull these questions over in your mind for a few days. Then, sit down in a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted and answer the questions again.