182: Vision Your Way Through

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Purpose Through Pain Podcast. I am your host, Joseph James. First off, why do you guys need to listen to our podcast? Why is it important? Everybody goes through a degree of pain in their life from birth all the way till death. Okay, we suffer things, we go through trauma, we go through experiences that have caused us all pain, different levels of it, different degrees of it, maybe multiple times, maybe repeated, maybe you're living in it, maybe it's just a one-time occurrence. However, how do we get through those things? How do we face our fears? How do we get out of trauma? How do we heal from trauma? How do we recognize triggers from bad experiences? Maybe it was a bad relationship. Maybe it's something you lived in for years for me. I lived in a very toxic home. Now, my home was also very loving, but we had things going on, mom and dad fought. Dad was abusive to my mom as well as my siblings, but my dad also pushed us to be things. My dad pushed us into greatness, my dad pushed us into be in hard workers and developing character and morals and attitude and things like that. But those things also stemmed into my adulthood, the rejection, the abandonment the approval, okay. I didn't know these things as a young child, I didn't know how to develop those things. I didn't know how to process those things, it stemmed later on in my life. My mother passed away when I wished it was my dad because I hated him, then my dad died. My best friend, my wife, died all in the same, my dad and wife died in the same month, her battle of cancer. So all those things are painful experiences, maybe you lost a job this past year. Maybe you were injured in a car accident, maybe you lost your home in a fire, maybe something's happened to one of your kids where they're no longer living at home. Those things are trauma, those things are bad experiences, those things are painful experiences. And so the purpose of our podcast is simply to encourage, help coach, guide people to find their purpose through pain. So I encourage you guys to continue to listen.

Today's topic, we're gonna talk about vision, we're gonna talk about goal setting. We're going to talk about how to get out of the funk that you're in for healing. How to get through your trauma, how to get through the experiences that you've suffered. Maybe it was something that happened a long time ago, maybe it was something that happened when you were a child that you still have not healed from today, maybe you don't realize that you have it and you're listening to this. I don't have anything going on. I promise you, something will eventually come up in your life, whether it's through a relationship or through somebody else that will rub you the wrong way. Why do those things happen? And so I encourage you not only to listen to today, but share it with people that may have gone through a bad experience, ‘cause we want to reach people, we want to reach the masses, we want to reach the world with our message that we all have a purpose through pain, we all have a purpose of why we've gone through things in life, and I wanna be able to help you guys get to that.

So let's talk about your experience, let's talk about what you're going through right now, let's talk about the issues at hand. Maybe you are in a bad relationship, maybe you are at the realm of, or the brink of going through a major divorce, maybe you've already been through one, maybe you've lost a child, maybe you've lost a spouse, maybe you've gone through something that just don't seem like you can turn around from it, maybe the inevitable has happened to you, and no hope you see no light at the end of the tunnel. I wanna encourage you today on how to get out of your funk. We all the Bible says, without vision, people perish. Now, the word perish can mean die, die can pass away. But really what it's talking about in that context is we die off, we die off within ourself, we lose focus within ourself, we lose focus of the tasks around us in life, we lose focus on being leaders, we lose focus on being servants and serving other people with a heart, we lose focus on our marriages. Without vision, people perish, the lack of vision, people perish. So how do we create that vision? The vision can be something that's long term. I want to do something, whether it's economically, I want to be a millionaire, I want to maybe wealth, I want to lose a hundred pounds. I want to be the fittest individual on the face of the planet, okay? I want to have married family with three kids, those are visions, okay? I want to own a boat, or I want to own a condo in the Dominican Republic, those are visions, okay? We have to have those in our mind, that's why it's a vision, it has to do with our eyesight. But here's what I'm telling you, we can't just seize them because our eyesight distorts us. Our eyesight sees our problem because it's looking through something physical, but our vision comes from our heart. Now we have vision boards where you can actually physically see, because when you are seeing those things, it stirs up the emotions within you. But vision comes from the heart. So you create those visions. I want to do X, Y, Z, okay. Maybe for you, in this situation that you're going through, you want to have, you wanna find a better relationship? Maybe you've gone through something really horrible, maybe you haven't had the best upbringing. Now I can't necessarily go out and pick new parents, the ones that I was born to as a child. However, I can create a vision within the home of how my atmosphere, how I want my atmosphere to be, that's a vision. Maybe you're a wife that's struggling with an abusive relationship, maybe you're a husband that is trying to do everything he can to save his marriage, save him from a divorce, maybe you're somebody that's just lost something very strong in your life, maybe it's a child, maybe it's a job, maybe it's a partner. Maybe it's a business deal, okay? We have to create a vision on how we want our atmosphere. See, I'm under the belief that we have the ability to create the atmosphere in which we want to live. Here's a little test for you. Go into work and act like a grumpy pants. Get in your feelings, as my girlfriend would say, okay. And I act just like a sour puss, do it for a couple hours and see how everybody's mood around you changes, and then do the opposite flip the script. Go in there and big old smile on your face, telling everybody how much you appreciate them and you love them, and watch how they start acting. See which one you like better, see which one they respond to you better, are they hanging around you because you're acting grumpy? Are they hanging around you because you're full of joy? See, we have the ability to be able to create our own atmosphere, create a vision. Think about it, whatever that you want. Maybe it is finding something within your home that needs to change, maybe it's marriage that needs to change, getting into church or finding counseling, but create that vision that will help you get what you want. Now, how do we get those things? We have to create goals. The goals that need to be set, the goals that we have to work for in life, we have to create them where they are actionable, okay. Think about the results you want to see. Number one, think about the results you wanna see. Think about the vision, if the vision is for me to find a new relationship after my wife passed away, I still desire to get married. I still desire to raise my family, not as a single parent, that's my vision. Now, how do I get to that? I have to break those things down. What, in terms of goals, how do I go about doing that? How do I go about finding someone? Of course, now there's dating apps and there's social media, and there's ways to meet people, maybe you join a group of people that is along your profession because that's where your goals and your dreams are lined up with, maybe that's one way that you meet them, okay? But the first thing is you have to think about the results that you want to see, okay? If you're not willing to put in the time, It may not be worth pursuing. If you create a long list of goals to pursue all at the same time, you may have a difficult time achieving them, just start with one simple thing, okay? I've always said this when I was going through, when my wife passed away and I was going through all that stuff, I didn't have the desire to get out of bed, I didn't have the desire to go to work, I didn't have the desire to talk on the phone or do social media, I didn't have that desire. So I had to create small, actionable steps, small, I had to be specific. So number two is to create smart goals, I've gotta be smart Stands for being specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound, okay, specific. So for me it was just simply getting out of bed, but before I could ever do that, I made it even smaller, I made my action step smaller, I chose to sit up in bed, that was specific. How was it measurable? How do I measure that? By knowing that I sat up in bed, I was able to know, okay, I'm not laying down. I'm actually sitting up, I'm not sitting up, I'm actually out of the bed, that was measurable, is it attainable? Can I achieve it? The only thing that was stopping me from getting out of bed, was my own mind. So I had to make the decision, I am going to get outta bed. Now, that was not, that was pretty much my only decision of the day. I didn't wanna do anything else, I didn't worry about grieving, I didn't wanna talk about talking to people, I didn't wanna worry about anything, just simply getting outta bed, is it realistic, R is it realistic? Yeah, it had to be realistic because I had to move throughout my day, the only way things were going to happen was me getting out of bed. And then time bound, okay. I wanted to sleep till noon, I wanted to sleep till one o'clock in the afternoon, and there were times that I did that, but I had to put a time to it, okay? If I'm used to sleeping at 12 noon, I surely wasn't going to get up at five 30 in the morning. So I got up at 11, and then it became 10 30, and then it became 10, and then nine, and then eight, and then seven, and then six 30. So I created something that I knew I could see the results of I created a smart goal, I write my goals down in my journal. For you guys, it may simply be, you know what? I want a better marriage. Now you gotta get specific with that part of the smart goals, you gotta get specific. What is a specific goal when it comes to your marriage? Maybe it's, I don't wanna argue anymore, I want to communicate more specifically with my wife or my husband, my children, my boss, I want a pay raise, how do I go about doing that? I want a better work atmosphere, how do I go about doing that? I have to write these things down. So for me, it was getting out of bed. So I created a couple things in the morning that I would do, my first five minutes was spit in silence, my second five minutes was spent writing down affirmations, then I began to visualize them V, so this spells the word savers, S-A-V-E-R-S. So spec, was silence, affirmations, visualization, and then exercise to begin with. To me, it was just like getting outta bed and walking around the house, I didn't have anything specific to do to begin with, okay. Then R was reading for me, I listened to audiobooks. At times I read a lot of times I just listened to audio books, and then the last S was journaling scribing, I got this method from Elrod and his book called Miracle Morning. That is what helped me to start creating things, which leads me into number four, create an action plan. How are you going to go about these goals? There's somebody out there that I know that's listening, that their child has run away from home, you're trying to save a relationship, create some goals. Maybe you need to get into their world, maybe you need to find out what's going on in their life, you're so concerned about them following rules and obeying the rules inside the home. Oh I believe those are a hundred percent important, but someone that's rebellious rules are not something that they're thinking about, they're thinking about going against those, but ultimately what they're doing is they're crying out inside for help. So go be that help, go reach out to them, talk to them, stop worrying about getting them to come home, start worrying about healing a relationship, stop worrying about them, obeying all the rules. Start worrying about healing their relationship, start worrying about digging deep inside of what the internal problem is, so create an action plan, many people decide on a goal, but never create an action plan to determine how exactly they're going to meet that goal, if I want to build a house in the Dominican Republic or in Honduras or Costa Rica, a vacation home, a first thing I have to do, I can think about it. Oh man, that'd be great, that'd be awesome. Then what do I have to do? I have to create plans, I have to find land, that's action steps, I have to hire an architect, I gotta hire maybe even a real estate agent if I want something that I'm going to buy or purchase, that's part of creating the action plan. Now, here's something that most people fail at creating a timeline. Now, how do you create a timeline when you're dealing with trauma? How do you create a timeline when you're dealing with loss? Okay, one of the things that we suffer with loss is grieving, we're in the constant state of mind of grieving, maybe it's crying all throughout the day, maybe it's being depressed, maybe it is searching for other avenues to keep your mind off of things, and this is what I say by this right here, create time for that, okay, now this is a little bit different than what I'm referring to in the goals. But when I am grieving and I am struggling with the aspect of grieving because I've lost somebody, for me, it was my wife and my dad all in the same month, 22 days apart. So I created a time of me being able to grieve throughout the day. 15 minutes, I took no more than 15 minutes at a time. Now I did that multiple times throughout the day. Okay, but I never went beyond 15 minutes, why? Because then that made my whole day just feel, ugh. That feeling when you're just, you don't wanna do anything. Your whole day just seems to be just, Ugh, I can't do nothing, nothing feels good, you're just, you get into that depression, take 15 minutes, okay? But when you're setting a goal, okay, I've done nothing but lay around the house Monday through Sunday, I can't do anything, I'm depressed, I don't want to talk to anybody create. Once you've created the goal, now create a timeline, okay? By Friday, I'm going to do this. By Friday, I'm going to reach out to my loved one and restore the relationship or work on it. By Friday, I'm going to go visit the grave site. By Friday, I'm going to write in my journal, create a timeline where these things will start putting into place otherwise, and I would even like to say find somebody that can keep you accountable.

Alright, I decided to create a goal for myself two years ago, and that was to become a private pilot. I wanted to learn how to fly, I wanted my own little peace of mind, and so I did. My problem is I didn't create a timeline, I created the goal. The goal was, or the vision was to become a pilot, own my own plane, that's my goal. Earn my private pilot's license, earn my instrument rating license, and own my own plane, so that's my vision. Then I had to create the goal to get there. Number one was I had to seek out a flight school, so I did that. Number two was I had to contact them. Number three, I had to get enrolled. Number four, I had to start studying, so I started creating those things. I started creating the smart, the specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound, but what I failed to do in the midst of it is create a time on when I wanted it done. So instead of it taking six months for a lot of people, maybe even a year, I'm two years into it. And it's right here at the tip of my fingers. It's almost done, but because of me not creating time to get that done, it's drawn out something that I could have been moving on to, another goal. I could have had my instrument rating by now, my private pilots and my instrument rating, but instead, I'm only. Almost there to achieve my private pilot's license, so I didn't create a time measurable, a time measure, okay? So create that time, measure number six, take action. Now that you've planned everything out, it's time to take action. You didn't go through all the work just to forget about the goal, every step that you take should lead to another until you finish your goal. See, for the private pilots, or even for me and my wife, okay. I created goals where I had to start cleaning things out of my house. Number one, the vision was to create a new environment for my home and my family. I had the, unbeknownst to me, I didn't see it coming, but as a young lady entered into my life, she saw things that I didn't see, and she wasn't pushy. She was very loving about it. She's, Joseph, she says, your wife's, her presence is still here, everything is still here. So you're locked in a time zone, you're locked in a time box, and she can be, she began to share with me, and she did it very peacefully, non-confrontational, you may wanna just start with one room. If you say you're ready to move on, maybe start with one room, and she actually helped me to create that vision for me. Now it's taken some time. I did things in different steps. But recently, now that my wife's been gone for two years, recently, only ‘cause it took four and a half months to get the furniture. But I got a new couch set, I got a new bedroom set and that was part of reaching the vision, but in the midst of that vision, I had to create the goal on how to get out, I had to create the goal on what I was going to do. So I took, I finally, number six was taking action. Number seven is reevaluate and assess your progress. Constantly reevaluating how am I gonna do this? What does this need to change? How does that need to happen? If you're going through a struggle, if you're going through a relationship struggle, I will tell you this, from past experience and current experience now, it is constantly reevaluating the goals and the vision for what you want. It's constantly doing that, it's like being in a car and you have a GPS when you make a wrong turn or there's construction, what does the GPS say? Rerouting, go 500 feet and make a U-turn. Rerouting, I'm gonna say reevaluate, reassess, rewrite your vision, rewrite your goals. Those things right there, that can be applied in any area of your life, any area. I'm gonna read the seven goals all over seven steps and goal setting, okay? Think about the results you wanna see. So first, create the vision. I want X, Y, Z, it can be broad to begin with and it's gonna get fine tuned the more you see it, I don't want just a boat, I don't want just a plane for right now. The plane I want needs to sit a minimum of six people, minimum. Why? Because I have three kids and myself, that's four, I wanna be able to carry at least two more passengers or maybe even luggage. So if I buy a four seater, it's not gonna be able to serve my purpose, all that, if I'm taking somebody with me, or let's say for me, I've met somebody I'm dating, and this beautiful woman, amazing woman, has a child. And so that's six people right there, believing by God that we're going to be together for the rest of our life, and I've been able to start my marriage or start into a new marriage and start life all over in this new journey of mine, I need six seats in a plane. Otherwise, what's the purpose of me having this plane? So that's my vision, and then there's other things in the plan or in the vision of the plan itself, okay. I have visions for my business, I have visions for my personal finances, I have business for visions for my children, okay? So number one is think about the results you want to see. Number two is to create smart goals, smart, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Number three, write your goals down, with the lack of vision, people perish, how can you know what you want? If you don't write them down? Don't rely on your memory, don't. Number four, create an action plan. Number five, create a timeline. Number six, take action and number seven, reevaluate and reassess your progress.

Guys, this can be applied in every area of your life, whether it's business, whether it's personal finances, whether everything's going great in your life, or whether you just suffered at a major setback in your life, these are the things that I did for me, for myself when I was going through the hardest times of my life. This is what's helped me get to where I'm at today. Guys, I love y'all to death. Please, by all means, if you know that this can help somebody, any of our episodes of Purpose Through Pain Podcast, please share it, subscribe, leave a review. I want to hear some feedback messages, you can reach out to me on Instagram.

My Instagram is Meet Joseph James, meet.JosephJames, Meet Joseph James, that's my Instagram, reach out to me. I'd love to be able to hear from you, we are going to take our podcast to the next level, over these next few months, we are going to be revamping a lot of things, bringing in a lot of amazing guests that I have lined up. And to help you guys out, to help you get through those things, we're gonna be starting a coaching program in the next few months to help you guys get from where you're at, the pain, the trauma, the resentment, the bitterness, the unforgiveness, the hurtfulness, you name it, where you're at in your life to find a purpose filled, purposeful life. Guys, you can't touch what you cannot feel, there's a reason why you're going through this pain, I wanna help you be able to find your purpose, I love you guys. Stay tuned for more episodes and please review and share. Love y'all.