Ditch New Year’s Resolutions: Create A Vision For 2022

Make Time to Dream

Ready to ditch stereotypical New Year’s Resolutions? Create a Vision for your year instead.

Holding a vision meeting quarterly has been crucial for our family.  I had a few people that inspired me to start this rhythm, so I want to show you how we approach it and give you some resources for making it your own.  

Whether it’s for your career, friendships, marriage, health, or otherwise, we all need a vision that we can chase after. 

My single friends can apply these same principles and utilize most of the ideas I’ll be talking about here to create their own vision for the year.  If you’re single, grab another friend or trusted mentor to go over your vision with you. 

In fact, I’d recommend it for all of my couples and families as well.  When we allow trusted people into our hopes, dreams, and plans, we create a network of support that can keep us on task as we work towards our goals. 

The best part is at the end of this post is a FREE YEARLY VISION TEMPLATE that you can use for yourself and your family.  

This isn’t just another boring New Year’s Resolution resource. That’s the last thing I want to do! I hope it inspires you to take ownership of your time, relationships, work, and activities so they can move you in the direction you want to go.

Get excited to lay out your year! I don’t know about you, but when I have something to look forward to, I am filled with energy and anticipation for what’s ahead.

Special Note:

If this is your first time developing a plan for the year, take it slow. Start with one goal for each category, then build on it each year. We typically re-visit this document quarterly to see how we’re doing with our goals and see if anything needs added or revised. My aim isn’t to overwhelm you, but to inspire you! 

Pro Tip:

This will require you to set aside time to think, pray, and plan for your year. If you have kids, you may need to get a sitter or plan for at-home date nights to discuss your plans for the year. You may want to take a day off work to set aside time for this. Trust me, it’s worth it! Let’s get started.

Step 1: Pray For God’s Vision

If you’re a follower of Jesus,  invite God into your vision for the year. We want our plans to be saturated with the wisdom and discernment of the Holy Spirit, not just our own ambitions. Pray individually and with others as you prepare to lay out your vision for the year. Make sure you can get alone and get quiet, that’s the best way to allow our hearts and minds to be open to God.

What could a vision for your prayer life look like?  Here are a few ideas:

1. Get Quiet

Sounds easy enough, right? This may be tougher than you think. Does anyone else start thinking of their grocery list during prayer time? See what the Lord impresses on your heart. Write what thoughts come to mind as you simply listen.

2. Get Moving

Next, try walking while you pray. There’s something about movement that helps keep my mind from straying.

3. Give Up Your Plans

Lay down your year with an open heart and mind before God. Say it out loud, “Lord my life is yours, my family is yours, my time is yours, and my finances are yours. Show me how you would have me steward everything that you’ve given me this year.”

4. Ask God For Wisdom and Guidance

Pray through specific areas. “Lord, what do you want me to work on in my marriage this year? What relationships do you want me to invest in? What do my children need me to focus on as I parent and disciple them this year? How would you have me be more generous this year?”  Those are just a few examples.  If you take some time to think, I bet you’ll come up with a few more.

5. Share Your Hopes and Dreams

Tell God what’s on your heart. Lay out how you’d like to see Him do big things in your workplace, relationships, home, neighborhood, church, etc. Invite Him into the vision you have and trust Him with whatever happens this year.

Step 2: Choose a theme word, verse, or quote to help cast a vision for the year

One of my favorite things is to look back on a year and see how the theme I chose was woven into the events of the year. You or your family may have a verse that stays the same each year and is simply part of your family culture.

Step 3: Name Your Family Values

Every decision you make will flow from these principles. Here are ours:

1. Love And Follow Jesus
2. Health
3. Community: Bring People From The Outside To The Inside
4. Generosity
5. Respect
6. Advocate For Others

Step 4: Build your Categories to Support Your Vision

Here’s what we came up with:

1. Create a Spiritual Life Vision

Think through spiritual disciplines first:

1. Bible Reading
2. Prayer
3. Fasting
4. Silence & Solitude
5. Sabbath

Be realistic.  If these haven’t been part of the rhythm of your life already, start with one and go from there. Keep it short and simple if you need to. 

What will be your daily, weekly, and monthly rhythms? Put an action plan in place. 

Acknowledge your stage of life.  You may need to pray and practice silence and solitude in the car as you’re driving to work. If you’ve got little ones, you may have to do your Bible reading with them at the breakfast table.  If you want my best advice, get up early and do your Bible reading in the morning. For prayer, roll out of bed and talk to God right away. 

A Special Note On Sabbath

If the idea of taking a Sabbath is foreign to you, it’s basically a day that looks different from every other day of the week. For our family, the emphasis is on rest and worship (note, worship doesn’t just mean going to church). It includes fun, prayer, Bible reading, spending time with friends, and anything that directs our hearts towards Jesus. You can read my blog post on how to Sabbath with young kids here.

Spiritual Retreats

Think through how you could get away by yourself and with other friends a few times a year to dedicate time to focus on the Lord. Spend extra time in prayer and utilize the time to recalibrate your heart with His.  We want to start doing an annual spiritual retreat with friends. (I’ll keep you posted as we organize and plan it!) 

2. Create a Vision for Relationships and Friendships

What are the relationships that you want to prioritize this year? Individually and as a family. Think about which people you’d like to connect with at least weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly.  This may look like getting together in person, or on busier weeks, utilizing phone calls, MarcoPolo, Voxer, voice text, ect. (Notice I didn’t put texting in there, on purpose.  It’s just not as effective in my opinion for maintaining relationships).

Want some guidance for how to build relationships that matter? Check out my other blog post for tips to cultivate deep and meaningful friendships HERE.

3. Create a Vision for Your Finances

Assess your financial status. Take an honest look at your spending habits.  Create a budget if you don’t already have one. Make financial goals for the year (paying off debt, investing, etc.) Carve out space in your budget for generosity so you have the financial flexibility to be generous this year.

4. Create a Vision for Your Household

Think through any repairs, updates, upgrades, projects, etc. that you would like to do with your home this year. Divide it up by room and prioritize it by need. If you’ve owned a home for any bit of time, you know there’s always something to be done, but not everything can be done at the same time.

Be creative. What projects are you able to tackle on your own or with friends? What projects might you need a professional for? Consider doing a household project exchange with friends to cut costs.

5. Create a Vision for Your Marriage

Create a vision for your marriage for the year. Here are a few things you may want to discuss:

1. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses you’ve observed in your relationship.

2. Prayer: How will you plan to pray together this year?

3. Time together: It may be weekly date nights (in or out, depending on if you’ve got kiddos and childcare is available).  Put it on the calendar. If you’re like us, our weeks fill up fast. This should be the highest priority of your week if you’re married. Some date nights may look like being at home and chatting with a snack and cozy beverage before bed, and that’s great! What matters is building meaningful connection with each other into each week. How you implement this will look different as you walk through different stages of life.  

4. Check on how you’re doing in the intimacy department

5. Plan for time away: We try for a few nights away at least 1x/year (we’d love to do it more often, but we’ve had 3 babies in 4 years). It doesn’t have to be fancy. If you can only get away for the day, that’s great too. Get creative. Swap kids with friends, coordinate with family, etc. You’ve got this!

Weekly Family Vision Meetings

If you’re our real life friends, you’ve probably heard us talk about our weekly family meetings (aka discussing and reviewing our plans for the week). We also are trying to do a few check-in questions during this time.

Here are a few examples that you can borrow from: 

1. What is one victory that happened this week?
2. What’s something difficult that happened this week?
3. How can I be praying for you this week? 

6. Create a Vision for Your Parenting

One on One Time

This is something that we just started, so we’re aiming for 1x/month and we’ll build up from there. We believe this time is important to keep in tune with what’s going on with each kiddo. We have three children, so it’s easy for certain personalities to get lost in the shuffle. This gives us a chance for bonding and intentional time with each of them.  It could be as simple as a dessert date, trip to the playground, watching a sporting event, or anything else that your child would enjoy. 

Identify Areas That Need Cultivated

Odds are, each child may have something that is an area of difficulty for them (much like adults) that could benefit from extra practice, attention, or help.  This may have to do with school, sports, friendships/relationships, faith, etc.

“Prayer Circle” Time

Praying together every night as a family is something that we value. We pray throughout the day, but we want nighttime prayer to be a cornerstone of each day.  We usually ask the kids questions like: “What are you thankful for today?” “Was anything hard today?” “Is there anything you want to ask God for?” “Can you think of anyone we can pray for tonight?” Kids are sponges, if you pray out loud and show them how to talk to God, they’ll get the hang of it before you know it.

Daily Bible Reading With Our Kids

This usually happens around a meal or snack time.  We want God’s Word to be a daily rhythm for us, as well as our kiddos. We typically read one story from their children’s Bible,  then we’ll pray through scripture together. Verse memorization gets incorporated into this time, too.

Feeling ready and excited to create your own vision plan for the year? Click here to download your FREE YEARLY VISION TEMPLATE.

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