I have many tools to help clients get a strong sense of the season they are in, and to discern where they are at in relation to moving into fullness of their calling.
Being coached through these models helps you get confidence and clarity as to what your priorities are for now, and what are for later. It helps you tune into God’s priorities too.
Destiny Coaching’s Vision Progression Timeline
Working through the different stages of the Destiny Coaching Vision Timeline, which I developed, outlines four simple stages. These are ‘Dream’, ‘Vision’, ‘Plan’, ‘Activation’.
The first step is to understand the difference between each stages’ characteristics. The differences between these stages are not normally thought about. It’s also confusing as we all carry a different interpretation of what the words ‘dream’, ‘vision’, ‘plan’ or ‘activation’ mean. Also everyone has different ideas and opinions of which each of these should look like. All of this can be very unhelpful when you simply want to know what to do when and how to progress.
The truth is everyone will have a different way of progressing through these four stages. For each of us there will be a different timeline. God will direct each of us differently and prepare each of us differently. Understanding yourself, your journey and what God is guiding you in personally is key!
So let’s unpack a useful way of understanding each stage and what is could look like for you. This will give you confidence of where you are at and what’s next!
The ‘Dream’ and ‘Vision’ Stages
Think about when you have an idea, a concept, a dream of something for the future. It has ‘resonance’. You will feel some level of passion towards it. You will have excitement about it. By the way, if you don’t have any of these, then it’s not a good idea, for you. This initial dream is not necessarily a vision yet. Chances are it lacks ‘arms’ and ‘legs’ which turn it into a vision. Turning an idea or a dream into a vision, is building a detailed picture of what it would look like in, year 1, year 5, year 10. You would imagine where it would be and who with. A vision has character and colour, and a level of detail rather like that of a film, something that others can see and connect to and understand.
The journey from having the initial dream to a vision could be instantaneous or it could take years! Either way your vision will evolve over years. Getting coaching to develop your vision helps you think about it in more detail. It builds and develops it beautifully.
The ‘Plan’ and ‘Activation’ Stages
The final stages of this model, those of ‘plan’ and ‘activation’ are really helpful to discern. Having a plan means having clear goals and actions. It looks like having a strategy both for now and a few years into the future. Remember a vision without a plan, remains simply a pipe dream. With clients I notice that as soon as we get to the plan stage, things start to feel real. Others start to take what you have and you seriously where they may not have before. A momentum is about to start and you can feel it all lining up to happen. Many feel fear at this point as big decisions will be made and some risks will be taken. Conversely this point could be where some people lose fear as the plan itself gives a confidence that wasn’t there before.
An important secret is to have a plan that feels clear, and very achievable. If you have a plan which is over ambitious, motivation soon wanes, and discouragement sets in. We all need to experience quick wins, so we have a sense of moving forward well and progressing towards our bigger goals and vision. Planning is often done well with a coach. But it needs to be a coach who can balance stretching and challenging you, with being strategic. You need someone who understands the need to create plans that feel easy and not too stretching and most importantly who has the skill of being able to co-create plans with you.
The ‘Activation’ stage is when it all starts to happen. I find it amusing to see some people who are still in the dream or vision stage but in some ways are believing that they are already activating their vision. The reality is that until you actually start you have not gone into what we call ‘Activation’. Some people are too quick to start doing things before the full vision has been formed and before a plan has been created. For me, in starting Destiny Coaching Ministries, running workshops, all kinds of them, happened long before the ministry had a strategic plan. But doing things in a ‘laboratory style’ mindset, simply trying ideas out, is sometimes an important part of developing a strategic plan and the strategic mission of an organisation.
You don’t know fully what the long-term vision looks like necessarily without trying various ideas and content out. You don’t also know what people will want and what will be successful without piloting ideas in some way.
Another point to make here is that some people try some things out and based on results not being as positive as they hoped for, they give up on their idea and they don’t develop it. In their minds they had activated their idea, but really, they were still in the ‘developing the vision’ stage. There may never have been a full vision and plan.
The ‘Activation’ stage of this model when entered in after doing the pre-work of dreaming, developing vision and a plan, looks healthy, organised, and is part of a bigger wider plan. There is confidence, there are carefully worked out stages to the activation. There are less surprises as time has been spent already on developing a strong vision and plan.
Those that give the time and focus to the 3 stages before Activation in this model, succeed!
So,
Where are you at with your dream?
What does thinking about these 4 stages show you?
What could it look like to talk to God at each stage and allow Him to guide your thinking and your creation?
Co-Creative Transformational Coaching, will take you on this journey.
Contact me for more information on either being coached 1 to 1 or running a workshop at your small group or church. I am passionate at activating people into all that they are!