79. Get Clear in 2026 (Part 2): Vision That Simplifies Your Yes and No

In part 2 of our 3-part series on goal setting and vision, we’re talking about clarity and how clear, God-given direction can simplify your life in a way that feels like peace. When you don’t know where you’re headed, everything gets heavier: indecision, overthinking, people-pleasing, and yeses that don’t align with what truly matters.

Today, I share a powerful conversation with my husband that changed how I make decisions. We talk about a “clarity test”, a simple filter you can run every opportunity, request, goal, or commitment through: Does this align with the mission of our home and the direction we believe God is leading our family… or not?

I also read parts of my personal 10-year vision (2036), a detailed “movie script” of the life we’re prayerfully working toward: a marriage that stays prioritized, a home marked by hospitality, children and grandchildren who are loved and strengthened, health that supports a vibrant future, a business built with integrity, and generosity that stays joyful. And I’m very clear about this: this isn’t “manifesting.” This is stewardship, planning with faith while holding everything with open hands before God.

We’ll walk through the four pillars that keep me anchored (the responsibilities only you can carry), and I’ll share practical examples of how clarity shapes everyday life: how I show up in my kitchen, how I protect time with my husband, how I parent adult kids with grace, how I communicate when things get heated, and how I set goals that match the legacy I want to live.

If you’ve been overwhelmed by goal-setting or you’ve felt scattered, pressured, or distracted… this episode will help you step back, get honest, and get clear so your yes can be yes, your no can be no, and your days can finally match what you say you value.

Next week in Part 3, we’ll talk about finishing your race strong—how to stay engaged when motivation fades and the year gets heavy.

 “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.”  Proverbs 16:9

Questions That Keep Your Direction Clear (True North):

If I fast-forward ten years, what kind of person do I most want to be?
What do I want people to experience when they are in my presence?
If my life produced fruit I could see only in eternity, what would I hope that fruit is?
At the end of my life, what would I most regret having neglected?
What do I believe God is inviting me to build, cultivate, or steward in this season?
What does faithfulness look like for me right now — not success, not speed, just faithfulness?

Questions That Align Your Daily Life With Your Long-Term Vision:

Did my choices today move me 1% closer to the life I believe God is calling me to?
Where did I say “yes” to something that pulled me off course — and why?
What small, ordinary obedience did I practice today?
Did I prioritize what matters most — or what was most urgent?
Did my schedule reflect my stated values?
What went well today?
Where did I drift?
Where did I align with my vision?
What will I do differently tomorrow?

Questions That Hold Your Plans Loosely Before God:

Am I clinging to my plan — or holding it with open hands?
If God changed this tomorrow, could I still say “He is good”?
What am I most afraid of losing — and what does that reveal?
Am I building my identity on outcomes or on obedience?
If my circumstances shifted, would my purpose still stand?
“Lord, I make plans in faith — but I trust Your leading more than my blueprint.
Shape my steps, even when they differ from my strategy.

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Transcript

Welcome Back And Series Context

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey friends, I'm Nikki Smith, your host here at A Heart That Beats for Home, the podcast where we're ditching filters and diving headfirst into the raw beauty of all things home. Now, I am no expert when it comes to this whole parenting and marriage dance. I'm simply a gal who's been riding the mom roller coaster for 22 years and a wife still untangling the mystery of it all 25 years after saying I do. My goal is to bring you unapologetically messy and boldly genuine conversations about cultivating strong families. We're gonna laugh, possibly cry, and straight talk about the joy and chaos that comes within the four walls that we call home. No judgment and certainly no perfection. Just real talk from my heart, a heart that beats for home. Let's dive in. Hello, friends, welcome back. Great to have you here for week two in our series on goal setting and vision. Last week in part one, if you haven't listened, I encourage you to go back and get caught up on that before coming here for part two. Last week we talked all about the race that you are running, coming into a new year, why we always want to set new goals, why some people thrive in that, why some feel totally overwhelmed by it. We also talked about Quitter's Day, the famous second Friday of every January, where most people who have set out for huge change have fallen off of the bandwagon, not all, but many, and why that happens. And this week we're gonna talk about clarity and how getting clear on where you're heading makes life so much easier for a lot of reasons. For me, I believe that clarity in my life and in the direction that I'm going so often in the places where I don't have clear vision, where I'm not really honed in and haven't sat and talked with my husband or processed myself, where I don't have clear direction, stress very often comes from lack of clarity. Indecision can be emotionally and physically draining. When we're in this position of indecision, it can be super taxing on your brain. You can way overthink things. Things can take a lot longer to make decisions on because you just don't have that clarity. And I really believe that direction, clarity, vision, whatever you want to call it, and we'll talk a little bit that in a minute. I really believe that it simplifies life. And for me, has been so pivotal in being able to clearly define where my time, energy, and resources should be going. It's taken out a lot of the guesswork, the overthinking, the contemplating, and really just made it easy for my yeses to be yes and my no's to be no's. And I am by nature a people pleaser. And so a lot of times I have found myself saying yes to things or creating out in the beginning of a year with huge goals and plans and ambitions that a lot of times I came to because I felt like it was what I was supposed to be doing, maybe not what I felt called to be doing, or maybe not working in purpose, but more of a checklist. And I really believe that vision is more important to create for your life than goals for a year. Vision is for life, it's for what's ahead, and goals are kind of a checklist. I think there's a place for both of them, but I think when we're setting out to really get disciplined and trying to decide where we should spend our time, where we should make changes, longer term vision is super important. And I think there's a place for long-term vision. And when I say long-term vision, I'm talking about 10, 15, 20 years out. And then I think there's a place for short-term vision, 12 month, 36 month, things that are closer in, where maybe that becomes more of the working plan that you're working in, those 12 months, 36 months towards the longer vision, which is the decade, two decades, three decades out. And we're gonna dig in today a lot about the long-term vision that comes from sitting and processing and praying and thinking through what could be happening decades away from now. And I think so many of us have gotten so busy in the today. We've gotten so entranced in what happens and the overscheduling and the run, run, run, this chase after so much stuff that we're just anxiously running around trying to check things off a list or just trying to survive, just trying to get by. That I bet if you took a room of a hundred people, I would be shocked if more than five to 10 had ever really stopped to think about what do I want my life to look like? And have I spent time sitting down and writing about and praying and thinking through things that would have to happen now to be there in 10, 20, 30 years? I bet not more than five to seven have actually done that. And I bet of those five to seven, maybe only two or three have actually sat and with great detail and attention written that out. And I really do believe that's a really important piece of being able to then break that down to what are the things that I need to do in 2026? Where are the priorities going to be in my life, the goals that we talked about last week, running your own weight race? What are the things that are gonna happen in 2026 that are gonna have to be a priority to get me to, for us right now, being in 2026, what I want my life to look like in 2036? And again, it feels like, oh my gosh, that's so far away. But when you think about major milestones that have happened, when you think that COVID-19 was already almost six years ago, it's a reminder for some that probably feels like it was 10 lifetimes ago. And for others, it feels like, man, I feel like that just happened. Time passes very quickly. I am a firm believer that the older we get, the faster time goes. And I don't know why that is. I was convinced that the young ages of my kids is when time was gonna fly. But I feel like the high school years feel so much quicker than the elementary years, the college years. Literally, I feel like we had just dropped our daughter off at college. And now she's almost a year postgraduate and going on to the next thing. Time absolutely flies. And that reminds us that time is going to pass no matter what. And when we get intentional, when we get honed in on long-term vision, purpose, calling, whatever you want to use as the terminology there, it is amazing how that can help dictate our day-to-day. And I think a great example of that, if you are in a corporate job, perhaps, there's the option when you sign up all the paperwork for a new job of direct deposit into different accounts, 401k. And there are things when we do them because they just automatically happen. I'm gonna contribute to my 401k or I'm gonna automatically deposit a certain percentage. And it just happens over time. You look back and you say, man, I am so grateful for that compound of doing the right thing years and years and years over and over and over to get to this place decades later, where a lot of good happened because I set up parameters, I had things structured. And we do that in something like a 401k or a savings account. But I feel like in so many other areas of our life, we are living a little bit in this mindset of I've got so long before I retire. I've got so long before my kids are going to be graduating. All think about those things or those habits or those plans in the next decade or five years from now. And I just think that so much good can come from early on in life. I wish my husband and I had started doing this long before we did. I also will totally admit that there are some seasons of life that it feels like you're barely hanging on and it would feel almost foolish, maybe to think about all these big, audacious things that you're dreaming for your life and for your future. But I think that so much power and clarity comes when we sit down and take time to do that. The story I want to share with you, I know I hinted to this last week, was a conversation that I had with my husband, who is a very, very wise man. We are very different in how we approach life. He is calm and steady and methodical and a processor and a thinker. And I am everything opposite of that. If you're an Enneagram fan, we are a three and a nine. So I'm an achiever. He's a peacemaker. Honestly, he's the reason that our marriage has been so successful because he's just such a chill guy and he puts up with so much of my crazy. But we were having a conversation a couple, probably three, four years ago, and I was just really struggling. And I just kept coming back to him, feeling stuck in a couple of areas in my life where I just couldn't make decisions on stuff. I didn't have any kind of clarity. And I was frustrated in some of these circumstances where I didn't feel like people were aligning with me or seeing things through the same lens that I was seeing it through. I felt like I was constantly trying to prove myself or apologizing for not seeing it the same way. And one night he sat me down, I'm sure a little bit out of exhaustion because he'd probably heard me say the same thing over and over. He just said, Nikki, it makes me sad that you're chasing so much that feels like you just want either people to be on the same page as you, or you're trying to do stuff because you think it's what somebody else wants you to do, or it's what somebody else expects for you. And he said, I just wish that you had enough confidence in what we have set out for our family, what our goals and our desires and our dreams are for our children, for our marriage, for our finances, for our spiritual well-being. He's like, I wish that was enough for you just to be so steady and so clear in where you say yes, where you say no, and where you just continue to move forward without apology if it doesn't align with everybody else that you're working with or around or in community with. And I had to ask him, explain to me a little bit more what you mean. And he said, we talk about on a regular basis what our goals and our plans and what we believe is the purpose and the path that God has us on. And he said, when you know what those things are, when you know what our goals and our dreams are for how we raise our children in our home, when you know what our goals and our dreams and our prayers are for how we operate in our marriage and how we prioritize that, when you know how we structure finances and we're on the same page about how we give and how we save and how we allocate money to different things, when all of these different things that he went through, where we stand on those things. And when you and I have come together to agree, yes, that's what we believe God has us on this path for this reason, then every decision that comes your way, when you are so secure in me and my husband are a solid unit and we've had these conversations and these are our goals and our dreams. And we believe that we've brought them before the Lord and that they're good, solid plans. They're not self-seeking, they're not materialistic. They're the plans that we believe God has for our family. When people come to you, whether it's to ask you to do something, to change something, to do things a different way, to be involved in something, he said, My prayer is that you would be able to take that thing, to look at it, lay it down on the platter of what we know we're working for, that we believe is our purpose, and do a very quick examination, a clarity test, if you will, on does this align with the goal and the mission of our home and our family and our purpose, or does it not? And how does that look when you see it so clearly? It all of a sudden makes your yeses really easy to say yes to because you can look at something and I'll give you some examples. I'm gonna be very transparent and share some tools and some of my own processing in this on this podcast. Cause I think one thing that I committed to when I said yes to doing this podcast was that I was gonna be real and honest and authentic. I could give you a very generic layout and kind of a concept of what I'm talking about, or I could take you along and let you inside on some of the things that I have as tools before me that I go back and I reference on the regular that help me stay so clearly focused on where we're going. Now it doesn't mean that there's not times where I feel confused. We have to take things additionally to have conversation about the two of us or with the counsel of somebody else, or that we have to just bring before the Lord with prayer to get more clarity around, but it makes so much of the day to day and the year-to-year yeses and no's so much easier. And I just want to set out to say that when I say vision, what I really feel for us is a God-given direction or a calling. It's not about manifesting what we want, it's about prayerfully discerning and listening to what we believe is the life that right now God has invited us into. It's letting that shape our decisions for today. It's not about prosperity gospel that says if I dream it, God will automatically allow me to achieve it, or that if I just believe that this is what God has for me, then this is what's going to happen. No, I know full well that I am making plans in faith, but I am trusting God's leading above my own understanding. I'm asking him to direct my steps even when they differ from my dreams. I'm asking him to refine my heart and my desires, even when it feels uncomfortable. And ultimately, me and my husband are asking God to change our vision to align with his will for our lives. So everything that I'm gonna share with you, everything that I'm gonna read for you, verbatim, we know full well. One of the verses that I go back to often is Proverbs 16, 9 that says, the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. And I think this is an important verse because it does tell us full well that the heart of man is to plan his ways. That is not a bad thing, but that ultimately the Lord establishes his steps. And so I can get crystal clear in what I believe today is God's vision for my future, the calling that we're supposed to be walking in, the dreams and the hopes that we have for our children, and that life and the Bible is very clear on that becoming a believer and having this God calling or this purpose and vision doesn't always mean it's gonna go that way. And that hardship is talked about in the Bible. And we see it over and over that people who had the most beautiful, well-laid plans and who were following Jesus and who were living uprightly were wrecked with hard times, that they were destroyed by adversity and pain and suffering. And so we also know that we hold this very loosely, knowing that at any moment, God could change any of it. But that verse, Proverbs 16, 9, that says, the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. I think first of all, it says, get prayerful and clear on where you believe God is leading you. That's the planning part. The planning part isn't just showing up with a piece of paper and saying, and this is what I want. For me, it's getting prayerful and asking God to show you what are the plans that you want me to make. The second part is then let's get clarity, which helps us shape our daily choices, our habits, and our priorities. And I think that is wise stewardship. To me, stewardship is caring for and wisely using what God has entrusted to us for his purpose and his glory, not for my elevation, not for my success, not for my enjoyment. Of course, a lot of those things are a natural outflow of that, but it's ultimately for good stewardship of what he has entrusted to us to use for his purpose and his glory. And then third, it's holding all of that with open hands before God, the surrender part that says, this is where I feel you taking me, but I am fully surrendered to that. If the best laid plans that I have in two years or three years, we feel strongly that we hear God saying, Nikki and Jed, you're supposed to go into the mission field, or you're supposed to pick up everything and move, or you're supposed to sell your homes and give your savings to this organization or to this thing or this event, that everything that I have planned right now needs to be held open, including super difficult. It's one thing to say it with your finances. My children, my husband, my health, all of these things need to be held with open hands before God in full surrender, that He is ultimately in control. And so after I had this conversation with my husband, I thought, well, I feel like we do really have clear vision for where we're going in categories or when you lump things together. But what I decided to do, because I am a visual person, I love to have detail, I love a good piece of paper with a list. I decided to write out what I called a 10-year vision. But again, you could call it whatever that feels right to you. And I'm gonna actually share it with you. I'm gonna read it for you guys on the podcast. I do feel super vulnerable. It has a lot of personal things, but I also think that it's really important in talking about the next steps that we're gonna talk about before we end the podcast today. So I'm gonna share this with you. I hope that it helps you see what I'm talking about with this clarity piece. And I hope that it allows you to hear how vision can bring clarity to today's decision making. So I'm gonna read it to you real quick. It's not super short, but I feel like, again, it's important and it's part of the process of helping people really understand this clarity conversation. So it's titled Long Term. The year is 2036. I am 57, and my husband is 58. I love being retired with Jed at the lake house that we have built. It's everything we dreamed it would be with room for all of our kids and their kids to be here all at once. The home gym and spa are dreamy, and we love spending time daily investing and staying in the best shape of our lives. We love to exercise together, cook and eat nutritious foods, and we are still madly in love with each other. We prioritize our marriage and we know that it is the greatest earthly relationship that we have. We love sitting on the back porch overlooking the lake and seeing a dock that is lined with a wakeboat, a fishing boat, jet skis, a pontoon, and all the toys that our kids and grandkids love. We love having our children, friends, and family stay in the guest quarters to enjoy this amazing place and all it offers. We know that these gifts are not necessities, but tools to create a retreat that others can use to refresh and refocus, and that matters deeply to us. Hospitality is a central rhythm of our lives, and loving others well is a daily priority. When others are here, especially our children and grandchildren, we speak life and empowerment over their lives, their dreams, and the people God has called them to be. When people leave our home, we want them to believe that they can accomplish everything God has purposed for them as they go out to be light in a dark world. We pray that those who do not yet know Jesus as their Savior would leave with a longing in their heart. To seek him. Above all, it is our prayer that those in our presence would not see us but him. Our kids are thriving in their careers and their roles at home, living freely because of no college debt and the good habits that they have built over time. This is a reflection of decades spent surrounding ourselves with people who value growth, excellence, family, and a relationship with Jesus. Our children love the Lord, their spouses, and their children, and they find great joy in being together as a family. They are loyal, they honor their marriage vows, and they are faithful. As a family, we know that God has not promised us a life free from pain and suffering. When we walk through valleys, we hold fast to the promises of our eternal hope, the goodness of God, and the truth that suffering refines us and deepens our reliance on Him. We believe that God is good in the deepest pits and on the highest mountaintops. As parents, we have learned to give our children space to live the lives that God is calling them to without trying to control or shape their decisions to match our preferences. We trust that Jesus is leading and directing them. Even when seasons are hard, when distance separates us, or when we might choose differently, we remember that this is their journey and that God is refining all of us. Our priority is God-honoring relationships marked by healthy communication, care, and love towards one another in every circumstance. We love being present in the lives of our grandchildren and supporting our children as they raise them. We respect how each family chooses to parent, and our role is simply to support, encourage, and pray for them. We speak life, not criticism, hope, not despair, and truth, not gossip. Jed and I love traveling to help our children as they adventure, transition in careers, or welcome babies into the world. We love having the ability to go where we are needed. Living a life of freedom is what we always dreamed it would be. We are ready for the adventure. We say yes when there is a need in our family or close circle. And I am going to share just one paragraph about business because I think I really debated about putting this in or not putting it in. And I think it's really important because for me and for many listeners, business is one of the tools that God has entrusted to us, to me in this situation. So it belongs in my vision or my purpose, not as an identity, but as a responsibility. And I think sometimes we get nervous about talking about success or about big goals in business because it feels awkward or it feels sinful. But if you are in a business, if you have been called to a workplace, if you are in a position where there are things in how you provide for your family in places that God has called you to, then we are called to also steward those well. And I think sometimes we shy away from those. So I just want that to be known as I read just this one paragraph that's part of this vision with my business. It says, My business is doing in dollars in success line volume every month. My direct nations are my dearest friends. And together we are changing lives and building legacy businesses for our families. We love serving others, and our organization is built on service and integrity. We have trained ourselves to show up as leaders and refuse to become complacent simply because we have personally reached our own goals. The four books that I read each month are filling up the beautiful two-story bookshelves in our lake study. Growth has become a joyful daily habit that now feels natural and fruitful. I love living with discipline and intention. I continue to read through the Bible yearly, and I long to grow deeper in my relationship with the Lord. My eyes are set on eternal treasures, not on the earthly blessings we have been given. We get excited to write a generous check each month to help others in need and to support causes that advance God's kingdom. Giving is one of our greatest joys. We recognize that life is precious, that tomorrow is not guaranteed, and that our priorities reveal what we truly value. We pray that we would seek first the kingdom of God and that our lives would clearly reflect that commitment. We wake up each day with gratitude, looking ahead to the opportunity the Lord has for us. We are committed to staying the course and living our lives fully with joy, laughter, and gratitude every day. There is a lot of detail in here. There is a lot of intention in here. There is a lot of just not financial goals, but health goals and character goals and things we want to speak over the lives of our children. I also then have a one small paragraph recap. I come back to this. I edit it occasionally. I actually just going over it today again. There were some things that didn't feel like they were part of where I feel like God is really leading us or me in some of these things. And so I adjusted them or I changed them. But then I have a small one paragraph recap that I can read every single day if I want. The bigger one I might read a couple of times a month, maybe every couple months. But this recap is just a really quick clarity reminder of what we are working for. And it says in 2036, Jed and I are joyfully retired at our lake home, a place of hospitality, healing, and generational connection where our children, grandchildren, and loved ones are welcomed, encouraged, and spiritually strengthened. We are vibrant in our health. We are deeply in love and committed to daily habits that nurture our bodies, our minds, and our faith. Our children are thriving, faithful, and free. And we are present grandparents who support rather than control. We live with freedom to travel, to serve, and say yes to family. My business continues to flourish through integrity, service, and strong partnerships, creating opportunities and impact for many. We are lifelong learners, faithful givers, and joyful stewards of all God has entrusted to us. Above all, we seek first his kingdom so that those who encounter us leave longing for him. A very quick summary of what was a one-page vision. And so why do I share that with you? Why do I make myself vulnerable instead of just saying we have goals for our future, we want our kids to be living in a place of faith and all of this? And it's because, again, when you have detail, I've said it over and over. I'm holding this very loosely. This is if I was writing the motion picture movie for the Smith family in 10 years. This is the script that I would want to play out. But I know every single movie, real life, also has obstacles. And it's why I want things in my vision statement about even in valleys, even in pits, as a family, we believe that God is good. We believe that our hope is in eternity. We believe that communication and how we talk to one another and how we let go of our adult children and let them go and soar and create their own lives. These are all important characteristics and they shape the decisions I make today. Another thing that was brought to my attention, I think it was in a sermon many years back, was the pastor was talking about how in life there are very few pillars that you solely are responsible for that nobody else could do for you, that if you didn't show up for them, they would suffer. And for me, there's four pillars in my life. I am the only one that can be my husband's wife and helpmate. There is nobody else, so help me God, that would be able to step in and be my husband's wife or be his helpmate. I am the only one who can be the mother to Madison, Olivia, and Landon. They don't have another mother. They don't have another person that can step in and do that role. And so I'm thankful for all the people that come around them and the mentors that they have, but only I can be mom to Madison, Olivia, and Landon. Only I, pillar three, can take care of my own well-being, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Nobody else can exercise for me. Nobody else can decide to eat good, healthy, clean foods. Nobody else can read the Bible for me or seek wisdom and pray. I have to do all of those things. There's nobody else that can do that for me. And for me, there's nobody else that can run my business. That is something that only I can do. And actually, I had put down on this when I was planning for the podcast that my only I can run my business and my podcast. And I actually had to stop and go, nope, that's not true, Nikki, because the podcast, honestly, it really doesn't make this list because there are a lot of other podcasts out there. There are a lot of other marriage and parenting and family podcasts that are out here that you could listen somewhere else. If I decided I'm not doing the podcast, some voice would replace me. You would find another voice. And so I don't even feel like that can be a pillar. Somebody else could replace that. And so for right now, I can put that in my calling bucket, but I can't put it in my pillar bucket because again, I could be replaced in that. And so only I can be the spouse to my husband, only I can be the mother to my children. Only I can take care of my physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. And only I can run my business. And again, if at any point God told me to set that aside 100%, then that pillar would be eliminated. But for right now, I feel very strongly that God has that in the realm of where I'm supposed to be investing. And so my vision, if you think about it, when you go and you look at these four pillars that I just wrote out and shared with you, my entire vision only includes those four things. It doesn't have a lot of other stuff. And I do believe that there will always be space where things can come in and can get involved in that the day-to-day of my life that are not clearly written out in this vision, but only when they're helping me move towards these things. And so how does that show up in how I train today? How does that show up and how I make decisions, how I say yes, how I say no? It's in the little things. It's how I show up with joy. If I want this to be true of my marriage and my children, if I want hospitality to be a core character of who we are, if I want people to come into our home and leave feeling better, if I want them to experience and see the presence of the Lord in our home, if I want my family to communicate well, if I want us to interact with one another in a way that shows love and respect, how I show up today in my home around my spouse and around my children absolutely 1000% is a direct reflection into this vision becoming possible or not. Now, I'm not going to say that my kids couldn't still have amazing things happen to them if I became a bitter old woman in my home, but I do believe that it would greatly impact the benefit and the life that I would get to live and interact with my kids if I decided to be a wretched woman, if I decided to be somebody that was bitter and angry and moody all the time. And so when I'm looking at what are the goals that I need to set in my life in 2026, it's looking through a lens of this 10-year, this 20-year goal. One thing that I know I have been struggling with is a little bit of grumbling and complaining in the kitchen. I do not like to cook. And this is going to seem so trivial to some people. I do not like to cook. I don't enjoy packing lunches. I don't enjoy meal prep. I don't enjoy coming up with new things. It just feels like a task that is on my list of I have to do it. And ultimately, I am working on if I truly want to be a hospitable person, if I truly want my kids to laugh and be joyful, I need to find a way to enter that kitchen as if it's a place of service. Not that I enjoy it. It is a place of service. I don't want it to be a torture chamber. I need to come in with a mindset of I am here because I am getting to serve the people that God has entrusted me to. So working on joy in my life, it helps me set up. In 2026, there are a few areas in my life where I need to commit to finding joy in things that don't bring me a lot of joy as they are, and how I serve and how I communicate around this task, as how I present myself in the kitchen to my family. Again, for some of you, you're gonna laugh at that and seem that seems silly, but it is a practice, it is a character, it is a softening of my heart to show up in something that I don't like day after day, hour after hour. If you're a mom, you know it. You basically live in the kitchen. And so finding joy in that, reminding myself that this is my place of service. This is where I get to serve my family, to send them out strong with healthy foods. It's how I prioritize time with my husband. Just this last weekend, we were looking at the calendar and we try to get away a couple times a year, maybe once for a week if we get a chance, or at least a long weekend. And so we have for six months now had a weekend in February at a sweet cabin in the woods that we found that we have been so excited for. And all this information was coming in about basketball schedules for our son and a tournament that's taking us out of state and a couple other things that came on the calendar. And everything was getting backed up back to back. And it was starting to feel way too stressful. And so my immediate response was we need to cancel our weekend getaway. We'll do it another time. And I felt such a heavy presence of that is not the answer. The answer is not that you cancel time with your husband, which is the highest earthly relationship priority I should have is in my marriage. The solution is not to cancel that, which is going to be a couple of days where we get to sit down and we get to talk about our vision and we get clarity and we talk about goals. We talk about where we get to change or refine or where we need to do better or where we need to adjust. And just pushing that out because there was resistance there felt like the right thing to do. But my vision gave me clarity to say, no, that's actually not the right answer. The right answer in this situation was we shortened it by one night. That created breathing room between the other events that we're gonna have to gear up for. It created less stress and anxiety for me and looking at the calendar of kids' events and how we can show up in a way that is not that there's so much stress. It there has to be checks and balances in some of these ways and how we show up. It's how I communicate with my kids right now. If I want to live out this vision where there's this trust and community and love that filters through us as all adults when my children are all adults, and then they bring in spouses for those that get married, and then there's other children. If we can't learn to manage our communication now when we're living together, what makes me think that we're going to be able to manage it when we only see each other occasionally? And so again, priorities for me is how am I communicating? How am I letting adult children be adults while also trying to manage that they're living in our home in this time? How am I learning to listen more than I speak? How am I learning to go back to what I taught my kids when they were little? Is it kind? Is it true? And is it necessary? And if it doesn't fall into all three categories, then I don't need to say it. If it's not kind, it's not true, and it's not necessary, then I need to ask the Lord to help me to hold my tongue, to love through difficult times and to sharpen that skill now. I just had a conversation with my middle daughter, and she would be totally okay with me sharing, but we were going at it. We have more of a similar personality. And when I say when going at it, I have some kids that if I say something, they just say, sorry, yep, you're right, or okay, I'll work on that. Her and I are more the same. She pushes back like I do. She's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna challenge you on that. And so we were going back and forth, not at all having an argument, but there was a heated conversation. And ultimately by the end of it, we were laughing. We hugged. She sent me a text, sorry, I was difficult. I sent her a text, sorry that I was being stubborn, whatever. But last night I walked into the bathroom and gave her a hug. And I said, Hey, I just need you to know that I know today that conversation didn't go exactly like either one of us had probably hoped that it would. But I'm asking that you give me grace because I'm learning to parent adult children living in my home for the first time. I've never had adult children living at home. This is a first for me. And I know that you've never been a 20-year-old college student working 12-hour shifts, also living at home. And so I know you're navigating that as a new part of life, and I'm navigating this as a new part of parenting. And so I want to ask you to give me grace as I figure it out. And I am giving you grace as you figure it out. I love you. I'm sorry that we didn't communicate that well. It was great. We hugged, we moved forward. These are skills I have to communicate right now. I have to be committed to working on these things. It's how I create habits in my Bible reading and my nutrition and my movement. It's how I control time thieves that come in and distract me from doing the things that I need to do to get to this place that I want our family to be at, Lord willing. Again, holding open loosely. And so it allows me, when then coming back to say in 2026, based on this vision, based on the clarity that now I have, how am I gonna be able to make those goals for the new year? And it makes it very clear for me here's the goals I need to make for myself. I need to become the woman who lives that future today. It's how I show up relationally in my health and in my spirituality. I need to invest in my marriage like it's one of my greatest legacies because it is. I need to build health this year that I want to enjoy later. It means, again, for me, it's not a goal of chasing a body. It's about building something that is gonna give me vitality and muscle and energy for decades to come. I need to parent for freedom, not control. If I want to parent in a way of freedom that my vision talks about with adult children, I need to start doing that now and not parent from wanting control. I need to cultivate hospitality as a lifestyle. I need to not have it be events that are once in a while. I need to create hospitality as a way of living, a way of inviting women to come in, a way of inviting families to come in, inviting other young children and adult children to come in and find refuge. I need to build my business with legacy and generosity in mind. I need to make growth non-negotiable habit for me, which means listening to wise voices. It means reflecting on what I've learned. It means studying scripture daily, reading the Bible yearly. I need to practice generosity now. I can't wait until all of the things are as we want them to be. Generosity is not an amount, it's about a posture. And that is something that we need to be exercising right now, this year, in 2026. And I need to wake up every day with gratitude and on purpose because gratitude creates joy long before circumstances do. And I don't believe that circumstances ever create joy. I believe that circumstances can make us happy. I believe heart posture is where joy comes from because the it is well with my soul, it's nothing to do with circumstances. It has to do with an internal peace and joy that comes only from the Lord that is there no matter the circumstance. So gratitude and showing up, so thankful for where I am today, for what the Lord has entrusted me as I'm working towards these next things. And so this is a big overview, but how that vision And how getting Claire helps me be able to say yes and no to things, to be able to easily look at maybe you made a list at the beginning of 2026 of all these things that you wanted to get done. And as you're listening and as you're processing, I really pray that a lot of you, or at least a handful of you, if a handful of you go back and do this exercise of getting really intentional about this vision and writing it out, what does it look like? Because what your vision looks like, if you're a mom who's in her young mid-20s and you're writing a 10-year vision, your vision is going to be very strongly focused on 10 years from now. What does it look like as my kids are getting into high school, as they're heading off to college? What have we instilled in them? What are the virtues and the values that we focus on in home? How do I communicate with my husband in these really trying times of building careers and raising kids? And if you're also working or you're building a business, how do you show up in a state of exhaustion and still work with integrity? If you're in a season of your vision is that you're just out of college and you're single still and you're writing a vision about what you really feel God is calling you to in the next 10 years in your vocation or in your singleness or in your new married life, what does that look like? And how are you becoming that person that would be able to fulfill the vision or the calling that you believe God has for you? If your vision is right now and you're already retired, you're 60, you're 70, your 10-year vision is going to look very different about how you want to run the next chapters as you have more freedom and you have more choices and more resources. And so no matter what stage of life you're at, this is going to be very tailored to, man, your 10 year vision is going to look very different than mine because of where I'm at in life. And every single decade is about legacy living when we choose that. But I think life and our society gets us so caught up in survival that the goal is to get to the end of the day. It's to crawl in, to be able to go to sleep, to fly out of bed the next morning and do it all over again, that we forget that literally the life that we're living is creating a legacy, whether you're intentional about it or you're not, you are every day creating a legacy of what you will look back and you will have to ask yourself and be accountable for how you showed up. And I know that sometimes that can be very overwhelming because it feels like I just can't think about one more thing. But even if you start with the smallest of things, the very smallest of things, then what can you start to eliminate? When you ask yourself, what's on your list that doesn't align with your vision or your calling? And how do I eliminate it? What are you spending time on because you feel that you should rather than you feel that you're called to? How do you eliminate it? What are you filling your calendar with because it brings you validation? There was a lot of things that used to fill my calendar because it brought me validation, because it gave me an add a girl or a pat on the back, or I got to accomplish something, but it wasn't moving my family closer to the vision that we had. And what would living on purpose and with vision do for you and your family? And I have a resource that I'm going to attach. It's about 20 questions. It's broken into questions that keep your direction clear, questions that align your life with long-term vision, and questions that hold your plans loosely before God. For example, a few of the questions that keep your direction clear. If I fast forward 10 years, what kind of person do I want to be? What do I want people to experience when they're in my presence? If my life produced fruit that only I could see in eternity, what would I hope that fruit is? There's several more in that category. Questions that align your daily life with your long-term vision include things like, did my choices today move me 1% closer to the life that I believe God is calling me to? Where did I say yes to something today that pulled me off course and why? What small ordinary obedience did I practice today? Again, another dozen or so questions in that category. And then lastly, questions that hold your plans loosely before God. Things like, am I clinging to my plan or am I holding it with open hands? If God changed this tomorrow, could I still say He is good? What am I most afraid of losing? And what does that reveal about me? Am I building my identity on outcomes or on obedience? And if my circumstances shifted, would my purpose still stand? And a little prayer that can be prayed with that is Lord, I make plans in faith, but I trust your leading more than my blueprint. Shape my steps, even when different from my strategy. And it goes back to that Bible verse that I talked about earlier, and I'll put that in the reference in the notes as well. But just a really important conversation that I think we need to have sometimes, not about striving and going after what the world tells us we should have, because at the end of the day, it's my responsibility. I just was telling my husband, I feel like health and nutrition can be a full-time job. And it's important to take care of my health. But we also can make our bodies an idol or make this goal an obsessive thing that's taking us out of a lot of other things. And it's about finding balance and being centered in this calling and the clarity of where you are going, whether you're a single parent, a single with no family yet, you're in college, you're in high school, you're a young married, you've been married for decades, you're retired, you're a widow. Like it doesn't matter. You still can get clear on what you believe God is calling you to focus on. Write that out and then let it be easy for your yeses to be yes and your no's to be no's. So I know this was a lot, you guys. This was a lot of information. It was vulnerable for me to share. I hope that I don't have regret here, but vulnerability is it will come with some judgment and some rolling of eyes and a lot of other things. A lot of people think a lot of this is hocus pocus, but I do believe that there is a lot of scripture that calls out being good stewards of what we have. And being a good steward means that we plan. It means that we have vision for what's ahead, but we also trust God to mold our hearts to be able to walk in accordance to what he's calling us to. Even when we misstep and we think that something we're going after is his leading and maybe it's not, we just pray that he would redirect us and get us back on course. So a lot to digest here. Be sure to check the notes so that you can have any of these resources that I mentioned. And then next week we'll come back and we'll talk about finishing your race strong. I know sometimes as the year progresses, it can be very easy to get discouraged and feel off course, but how do we stay motivated and engaged? And again, when you have clarity and you know what you're going after, it's a lot easier to go lift those weights when you think about playing with your grandkids in 20 years than just I want to have some biceps to wear in the dress and just getting good clarity and then staying in your race. So thankful for you guys being here. I know this was a longer episode. I hope that you take something from it. And we'll see you back here next week. Until then, friends, take care.