According to Dallas Willard, there are three steps to achieving any significant change or growth in your life.[i] Whether you are trying to learn Ukrainian for an upcoming business trip to Kiev, become more patient with your two-year-old who has redefined the “terrible two’s,” or improve your ability to hear guidance from God about an important health decision, three steps are required. Willard summarizes them with the letters V, I, M.
The V stands for Vision.
Willard explains using the example of learning a new language. The journey begins with a vision of what life would be like if you learned that new language and why the cost of learning it will be worth the price. Just thinking, “It’d be cool to know another language” or “I’ll be able to impress others by learning a new language,” won’t be a vision large enough to sustain you through the difficulties of learning the language. In fact, it’s the lack of an adequate vision that explains why so many Americans don’t want to learn another language. We literally can’t “see” how our lives would be better through acquiring such knowledge. But it’s the presence of a compelling vision that explains why many in other nations do aspire to learn English. For example, my brother Craig has spent decades teaching conversational English to people in foreign countries. In every city in every country where he and his team open up a conversational English school, they are flooded with local people hungry to learn English. Why? Because these people have a compelling vision of the opportunities that will open up for them when they are finally able to speak English. They will have numerous new educational and economic opportunities.
Do you want to grow or experience change in some area of your life? It starts with vision.
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[i] Dallas Willard Renovation of the Heart (NavPress 2002); Dallas Willard, “Living A Transformed Life Adequate to our Calling,” http://www.dwillard.org/articles/printable.asp?artid+119.
