Dreaming big isn’t just a motivational buzzword—it’s a vital practice for living a meaningful, intentional life. Too often, we allow negative experiences, fear, or complacency to hold us back from pursuing the bigger visions we once dared to imagine.
But what if dreaming big was the very key to unlocking a life of purpose, passion, and impact? Today, I want to share six compelling reasons why dreaming big is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and for the legacy you’re building.
God has uniquely equipped each of us with talents, gifts, and potential. When we choose to dream big, we honor those gifts and reflect our trust in God’s plan for our lives. As Mark Batterson powerfully states,
“Most people believe that God is real, but few people actually live like it.”
Are your dreams big enough that they require divine intervention? When we pursue God-sized goals, we lean on His strength, grow deeper in faith, and give Him the glory as we see His hand at work. Dreaming big is not just about personal ambition—it’s about living in a way that showcases God’s power and faithfulness.
Think back to a time when you woke up excited about life. Chances are, it was because you had a clear and inspiring vision of what you were pursuing.
As John Maxwell puts it:
“A dream is an inspiring picture of the future that energizes your mind, will, and emotions.”
A clear vision motivates you, bringing energy and passion to everything you do. If you feel stuck in a rut, it might be time to take a step back and dream again. A new vision could reignite the spark you’ve been missing.
Goals are essential, but without a big-picture vision, they often lack meaning. Yogi Berra humorously reminds us:
“If you don’t know where you are going, you might not get there.”
Big dreams provide the direction you need to set meaningful goals. They connect your daily actions to something deeply significant, giving you the perseverance to stick with your goals even when challenges arise.
When you’re clear about where you’re going, you know what to prioritize and what to eliminate. A strong vision helps you identify the activities that matter most and avoid distractions that don’t align with your purpose.
Your daily habits shape your future. If you’re spending time on things that don’t move the needle, it’s time to re-evaluate. A compelling vision gives you the clarity to make decisions that lead to intentional, impactful living.
Confidence grows when you take consistent action on meaningful goals. Dreaming big and making progress toward those dreams helps you build skills, character, and resilience.
As you step outside your comfort zone and see progress, your belief in yourself grows. Big dreams inspire you to become the best version of yourself, and that journey fuels a deep sense of self-esteem.
Apathy and complacency are common struggles, especially when life feels routine or uninspired. Big dreams are the antidote. They challenge you to step up, engage fully, and live proactively.
We weren’t made to coast through life. We were designed to embrace challenges, pursue purpose, and make an impact. If you’re feeling stuck or uninspired, dreaming big could be the key to awakening your passion and creativity.
A few weeks ago, I shared the 5 most common reasons that people stop dreaming. It could be because of comments from others, past hurts and disappointments, the habit of settling for average, lack of confidence, or a lack of imagination to dream.
It is important to identify the things that might be holding you back from getting a bigger vision for your life so that you can proactively attack them and move forward. I’d encourage you to go listen to that training if you haven’t.
Today, I want to talk about the other side of things. I want to give you 6 compelling reasons to dream big! We hear people talk about chasing your dreams all the time. We hear people talking about getting a big vision for your life.
So why is this actually important?
It takes time to dream. It takes effort to review your life and think about where you want to go in the future. It takes time. It’s not always easy work.
So why should you do it?
I believe taking time to dream and think about an exciting future is one of the best things that you can for yourself and a great investment of your time, so I want to share with you 6 reasons I’ve found as to why this is so important.
You ready! This is going to be fun. Let’s jump in!
Number 1 reason why it is important to dream:
I believe that Big Dreams Honor God
God has given you potential, he has given you gifts and abilities, and I don’t think it honors him to sit on the sidelines and coast through life without maximizing those. Big dreams mobilize you to steward what he has given you well.
There is a quote by Mark Batterson that has been sticking with me for the past couple of months since I read it. He says, “Most people believe that God is real, but few people actually live like it.”
Most people believe that God is real, but few people actually live like it.
How many things are you doing in your life right now where you need some divine intervention? How many things are you doing right now where you have to depend on God?
You should have a dream or a pursuit in your life that is destined to fail unless God shows up.
Big dreams honor God because they cause us to rely on him. They cause us to depend on him. The bigger the dream, the more we have to depend on God, and the more we have to depend on God, the better we come to know him, the more we see him move in our lives, and the more we give him glory through our lives
If I only do things that are fully within my control, then there is no need for God in my life. If everything is so comfortable in your life right now, do you truly need God? Have you set your life up in a way where you are fine without him?
Big dreams that are destined to fail without divine intervention put you in a place where you need God. They force you to pray. They force you to trust. They force you to get out of your comfort zone and rely on God’s strength.
And they ultimately give God a chance to show up in a way that only He can do where he gets the glory. If I want my life to bring God glory, then I need my life to show him off. I need my life to be proof that God is living and active. I need my life to show that trusting God is truly the best path. I need to show that I can have peace, comfort, strength, and joy in the midst of challenges.
Don’t run away from opportunities for God to show up in your life. Be ok being uncomfortable because that will be an opportunity to come to know God in a deeper way and for Him to show up in your life and for your life to be a testimony of his goodness, power, and faithfulness.
Big dreams honor God. Stewarding your gifts and your potential well brings honor to God. If you want to maximize everything that he has given you and make the most of your life, big dreams will compel you to do that.
Number 2 reason why it’s important to dream, is that a compelling vision gives you energy.
Think about the times you have felt most alive. Think about the times in your life where you woke up with energy and passion…most likely it was a time where you had a vision that was compelling to you. You had something that you were excited to pursue. You had clarity on where you wanted to go or how you wanted to contribute.
A clear vision gives you energy. A clear vision gives you passion. A clear vision gives you a reason to wake up each morning with excitement.
John Maxwell has a quote where he says, “A dream is an inspiring picture of the future that energizes your mind, will, and emotions, empowering you to do everything you can to achieve it.”
A dream energizes you mind. It energizes your will. It energizes your emotions. It compels you to work hard. It compels you to persevere. It compels you to live with courage.
I believe the lack of a compelling dream or vision is one of the main reason that so men are living in apathy right now. One of the greatest things plaguing so many men right now is apathy. It’s complacency. And the reason why is because they don’t have a compelling vision that is getting them excited to attack the day.
In the last few months, I really felt like I was stuck. Like I was in a funk. I didn’t have the usual passion or energy that I normally do. The reason - I had lost sight of my big vision. I was getting so caught up in the tasks each day that I forgot why I was doing all of it in the first place.
I gave myself a day to dream and to paint a clearer picture of where I wanted to go and so much of that excitement and energy came back.
If you aren’t living a very exciting life right now or if you feel like you are stuck in routine, taking some time to get a vision of an exciting future might be the boost you need to find some more energy and passion.
Number 3, a long-term vision aids in setting goals
Yogi Berra said, “You’ve got to be careful if you don’t know where you are going, ‘cause you might not get there.”
If you don’t know where you want your life to go or what you want to be about, it is difficult to set meaningful goals. You can come up with some quarterly goals that might be meaningful, but when they are connected to a long-term vision for your life, then they really start to take on meaning.
When you know where you are wanting to go in the future and you have a clear sense of direction, you can set quarterly goals in a focused way that leads you toward that vision
A lot of goals fail because they aren’t connected to anything meaningful enough to continue to persevere when things get hard
Pursuing goals is hard. Following through on something takes a lot of work. If it isn’t connected to something deeply meaningful to you, most likely you won’t have the grit and perseverance to see it through. But when you know that this goal is leading you to an exciting future, you are more likely to stick with it.
The best way to set goals is to get a clear long-term picture of where you want to go, and then work backwards from there. You should know that the goals you set each quarter are sending you in the right direction to accomplish the future that you want.
Number 4, a Clear Long-Term Vision helps you make daily decisions
Clarity of vision creates a clarity of priorities.
When you know where you are going, you know what to invest your time in. You know what things are important. You know what activities will move the needle, and you know what activities are distractions.
If I have a compelling vision for my future, I know that wasting time on my phone or on TV is not going to get me there. I know that spending all my time on emails and reacting to things throughout the day is not going to get me there.
I can identify the activities that will truly move me closer to my vision and I can focus on those activities daily. You won’t change your life until you change something you do daily.
It is ultimately your daily agenda that will determine your future. If you know where you are going, you can decide how to spend your days. If you don’t have any sort of big dream or vision for the future, it is extremely difficult to know how to invest your time and how to make decisions.
When you get a big vision for your life, set quarterly goals that are in line with that vision, and then manage your daily actions well, you have a powerful system for reaching that vision.
Are your current daily habits leading you to the future that you want? If not, it might be time to get a clearer vision of your future and figure out what needs to be done on a daily basis to get there.
Number 5, big dreams boost your self-esteem
The most truly confident people that I know in life have clarity on who they are and how they want to contribute to the world. Knowing where you are going gives you a greater sense of identity and purpose…both of which boost self-esteem.
You build the most confidence and self-esteem in your life when you take consistent action on meaningful pursuits. It’s extremely difficult to take action on meaningful pursuits when you don’t know what you're pursuing in the first place.
As you make progress on your meaningful pursuits, you will feel a great sense of confidence. You will grow in key skills. You will grow in character. You will grow in resilience and perseverance. You will start to believe in yourself.
The last reason why it’s important to dream big and gain clarity on your long-term vision is because it helps kill apathy in your life.
I mentioned this some earlier, but one of the greatest ways to stop coasting through life is to take on meaningful challenges. Nothing engages your passion, energy, creativity, and abilities like the pursuit of a meaningful challenge.
You are meant to play offense with your life. You are meant to live proactively instead of reactively. If you don’t have a clear vision for you life, you will fall into someone else’s plans. You will spend your time reacting to what’s thrown at you instead of going after what really matters to you.
We are so determined to make our lives as comfortable as possible, but comfort oftentimes breeds passivity. Challenge, mission, impact, a big dream - those things will awaken your energies and compel toward something worth fighting for.
If there is nothing exciting you about your future, then there is nothing to keep you from wasting your time on your phone, tv, or other things. There is nothing compelling you to do hard things.
In the training a few weeks ago, I challenged you to take some time in the next week to dream and think about a compelling future. If you have not done that, I would really encourage you to get that on the calendar as soon as possible. Do it this week. Don’t wait. An exciting vision of your future could be just the thing to give you that boost you are looking for. It could be the thing that gives you passion and energy each day.
You must be intentionally about this. With everything going in in your life, you will not magically end up with a clear long-term vision unless you are intentional about it. Get it on the schedule.
Thanks for joining me today! I truly appreciate the opportunity to be with you today and I hope that you leave today feeling encouraged and inspired to dream big and pursue everything God has put on your heart to pursue.
You have what it takes! You are one decision away from changing your life. Pursue God-sized goals, live intentionally, and build a life you’re proud of.
