Our Annual Vision Casting Retreat
One of the most important things that Jay and I do all year only takes a few hours. Yup. Just a few hours. And it’s completely changed our life. And it’s FREE.
Our annual Vision Casting Retreat is the most important thing we do all year. It is the quintessential example of the 80/20 rule: put in 20% effort for 80% return. And you totally don’t have to go away for a retreat. This can be done in a day date if you do your prep work ahead of time. (But, I mean, warm coffee, cozy sweaters, and a fresh journal do help set the tone.)
Our annual time away in January actually started out of absolute necessity. With both of our busiest seasons professionally falling in the same grueling quarter (Q4) on top of the frantic pace of the holidays, we found ourselves in a depleted stupor on January 1st, still buzzing around from too much caffeine and stimulation. We were desperate for some time to rest and refocus so we were fresh for the new year. When we started scheduling our time away before the demands of the last few months of the year picked up, we would blaze through the holidays with generally good attitudes and with our eyes on the prize: two glorious days nestled in the woods in our slippers with a fire going.
One thing I’m so grateful for is our shared dedication to living meaningful, purpose driven, life-giving days well. The first time we scheduled our getaway, we knew we needed to rest, but didn’t realize until we started refocusing just how much we also needed to ruthlessly edit our lives so that we were doing the most with what we have, rather than simply reactively managing things as they came down the line.
So, before we jump into all things Vision Casting Retreat, it’s essential that you have some foundational information about what’s most important to you. To start, I recommend identifying your core values by using this Values Assessment. Yes, it seems sort of trivial, but I promise it’s worth it.
If you’re doing the vision casting with a partner, I recommend identifying your individual values first and then comparing your results to find your top five shared values. So you’ll end this process with three sets of values: yours, your partners’, and then the values you share for your relationship. This is essential because a life of purpose and meaning is much more attainable when you actually know what matters to you and what themes you’re looking for in how you spend your time. If you’re just starting out, I highly, highly recommend Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar. (And, yes, you do need to for real for real do the exercises for it to really be worth your time.)
Okay, now that you have your baseline, let’s get started!
Before kicking off your vision casting, take inventory of your how your time was spent the previous year. I still use a pencil and paper planner so I go through and completely audit my calendar. There are some good podcasts and articles on this — John Maxwell is the OG calendar auditer. Rachel Hollis also has a podcast on how she does this process, if you’re more of an auditory learner.
Basically, measure your commitments against your values and/or how you envision your future self and put them in two groups — What was a good use of time? What was a waste of time? You measure this by whether this commitment got you closer to living out your personal values. Review what’s before you and look for themes… For me reflecting on the last year, I realized that I needed to spend much more time feeding my soul, creating, and doing meaningful work. The calendar audit also primes me for our shared reflection because it gives me an accurate read of the year and a direction as I think about scheduling the following year.
Next, I structure our conversations over two breakfasts (because we reflect best over coffee!). The first breakfast focuses on our marriage and macrolevel living (aka big picture stuff). The second breakfast focuses on us individually and microlevel living (aka small habits). If you were doing a day date, I’d recommend going out for breakfast to do the first set of reflections, going for a walk/getting moving, and then heading back to discuss the last portion over lunch.
I send the following prompts in an email to Jay a week or two before we leave:
Breakfast 1 | Marriage and Macrolevel Living
Review of our relationship in 2020. (What worked? What didn’t? What do you need in 2021 that you didn’t have in 2020? Most proud of? Letting go of? 2021 relational intention?)
Bring an idea of 2 books that you’d like to read together this year. (We’ll have 4 total, one for each quarter.)
Dream together by identifying our overarching goals/vision for the year together.
Make tentative travel/adventure plans. (This is part of our review schedule because adventure is one of our shared values!)
Breakfast 2 | Personal and Microlevel Living
Review each of our five core values personally and as a couple. Identify one way we can live more in alignment as a couple and personally in 2021.
Review personal reflections around Physical, Financial, Spiritual, Professional, and Relational categories. (What worked? What didn’t? What do you need in 2021 that you didn’t have in 2020? Most proud of? Letting go of? 2021 intention?)
Identify and discuss word of the year.
The key with these reflections is to look for themes. What words do you see popping up as you journal? What are you and your partner both looking for in the new year? What simple, small changes would get you where you want to go the fastest?
The items you choose to prioritize are what you put in your calendar first. Bring your planner with you and before you even get back in the car to go home, these items should be tentatively on your calendar. This reminds me of those exercises we used to do at youth camp where you had to put the larger rocks into the jar before the smaller ones and the sand, otherwise it all wouldn’t fit. Start with the big, most important things first. Schedule them in first and give them up last and do not feel guilty about it because the people who want to spend time with you want to spend time with healthy, happy you. They want the version of you that is able to serve freely, to focus on them in conversation, to give out of overflow rather than obligation.
Do not wait until you get a few weeks into January to look back at what you wanted to implement in the new year. By then, it’s so much harder to get it scheduled in. Chances are, by the end of January, you’re already knee deep in commitments if you haven’t set an intention and decided what you really want out of the year. It’s okay if you have to shift around the tentative commitments as the year goes by, but make sure you have made room for them. The most important thing is that you wrote them down and envisioned them as a part of your life for the new year.
Okay, so that’s it. Although I love a reset and reflection, this process can feel demanding even to me. But, I pinky promise you it’s worth it. If you aren’t going to sit down and look seriously at your life and how you’re spending your time, who is?
We all want a meaningful life. We all want to look back at the year with a sense of fulfillment. We all want to get to the end of our lives and feel that we lived lives of purpose.
But that doesn’t just happen. There aren’t just some “lucky ones” who stumble upon a fulfilling life. A good, meaningful life is attainable for everyone.
It takes work and intention and, sometimes, hard decisions. Editing and editing and editing with your eyes on what matters most, trusting the process. Forgiving yourself for time wasted and starting all over again.
And letting that golden goodness wash over you when those moments come, and they will, that are exactly as you imagined.