What if you chose to start each day with reading the Bible?
What if you chose to jog for 30 minutes every day?
What if you chose to spend one hour every day to read something that could advance your career?
For best-selling author and empowerment specialist Cindy Trimm, life is not subject to chance. It’s subject to choice. In her book Hello, Tomorrow!, Trimm empowers her readers to change the direction of their lives for the better. She appeals to longings for a fulfilling ministry, marriage, relationship, business and every other area in life. It all starts with being intentional. Or, in other words, in choosing your future.
“Envision the next 12 months: What one choice could you make on a daily basis that would change the trajectory of your life?” Trimm challenges you.
From daily blogs to best-selling books, such as Commanding Your Morning, Trimm’s resources offer tools for activating change in your life.
Step 1: Crystallize Your Vision
Before chasing your dreams, you need to determine what that dream is. This requires a process of not just looking inward, but also observing your daily habits. Trimm encourages you to position yourself as the hero of your own story arc. In Hello, Tomorrow!, she asks:
- In your story, what is the object of desire?
- What does your character value?
- What is the cause your character is willing to fight for?
When you take stock of your narrative, you can envision how you want it to go from now on.
“By defining your core desire, your core value and your core cause, you will be able to articulate the controlling idea of your story,” Trimm says. “Like a personal mission statement.”
Trimm reminds readers that having a vision is not a self-help tool. It’s a spiritual discipline. You glorify God when you use your talent to serve and work hard.
“Whatever you do, do it heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Col. 3:23).
Step 2: Write Down Your Vision
It’s not enough to think about what you want. You need to write it down.
In her recent blog post “Upgrade Your Dreams,” Trimm lists seven areas to consider:
- Marriage—If you’re still looking for that special relationship, write down in detail what you dream of that person being like.
- Children—For the special young people in your life, who do you dream of them becoming? How do you dream of them progressing in the next six months?
- Health—Whether you dream of overcoming a health challenge, or improving your fitness, write down your dream for how you want to feel six months from now, as well as how you want to look.
- Legacy—Whose lives will you have positively influenced six months from now and in what ways?
- Inheritance—Begin to dream now about the philanthropic or charitable impact you hope to make.
- Education—How many books are you reading in a week or in a month? How many are loaded on your phone or device? Are you being strategic with the time and tools at your disposal?
- Calling—How will you have advanced by the end of this year? If you study your industry for just 30 minutes a day, you will become the go-to expert in your field!
Choose to spend 15 minutes every day to write about areas of your life that you aspire to improve. Putting words to your vision helps set it in motion.
“Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets, that he who reads it may run” (Hab. 2:2).
Step 3: Declare Your Vision
In Commanding Your Morning and Hello, Tomorrow!, Trimm draws on both scientific findings and her own findings in Scripture to emphasize the value in speaking into your future. In the same way that smiling can uplift your mood, saying what you plan to do can propel you to actually do it.
“The most efficient way to reprogram your subconscious is to expose it to the sound of your voice telling a new story,” Trimm says.
Hello, Tomorrow! includes an appendix of prayers and declarations to help you reshape your thinking.
“I have clearly written down a description of my vision—my purpose and mission in life—and I am developing my gifts, abilities, talents, resources, networks, relationships, partnerships and opportunities, as well as my confidence in whom and whose I am, and all I was meant to be, do, achieve and accomplish.” {eoa}
This article is based on Hello, Tomorrow!: The Transformational Power of Vision (Charisma House, 2018) by Cindy Trimm. Trimm has dedicated her life to serving God and humanity. A best-selling author, Trimm is a sought-after empowerment specialist, revolutionary thinker and transformational leader. Her best-selling books The Prayer Warrior’s Way, The Art of War for Spiritual Battle, and Commanding Your Morning have sold more than one million copies combined.
