You're a Visionary

Authored by Shelby Shepherd (Visionary)

Visionary, n.

An Image-Bearer who is driven to think about or plan the future with great imagination, intuition, and intelligence. She's creative, more focused on the bigger picture than the granular details, and gifted at motivating others to jump in and help bring a vision to life.

You were created to leverage your strengths as a Visionary for God's Kingdom🔥

1. God created you to see uncultivated potential all around you.
2. God created you to feel inspired to challenge the status quo and inspire others to be a part of change. He uses your enthusiasm to ignite hope in others and rouse them to action.
3. God created you to be obsessed with the big picture.
4. God created you to imagine out-of-the-box ideas and solutions.
5. God created you to feel motivated to tackle huge projects and be tenacious in the face of enormous obstacles.
6. God created you to be a fountain of new ideas.
7. God created you to be a researcher and persistent problem-solver.
8. God gave you a high risk-tolerance. (This is so valuable.)
9. God created you to feel deeply compelled to bring even the most mundane aspects of your daily life into vibrant alignment with your most significant core values.
10. When your world swirls with people, pressures, and problems, God created you to see opportunities for impact.

⚠️Three Visionary Pitfalls  (The Evergreen Planning Method is Designed to Help You Avoid These)

Along with our natural strengths come natural gaps and weaknesses of which we need to be aware if we want to move forward in wisdom.

1. Visionaries are easily bored by minutiae. This means it's easy for Visionaries to conveniently forget that with every grand plan comes a million and one details that need to be set in order for that plan to be successfully executed. Many Visionaries solve this problem by gathering a team to help them, but if they aren't careful, they will wear their team out by devaluing the effort, time, constant problem-solving, and emotional bandwidth it takes to manage the details of their vision.
2. Visionaries tend towards shiny-object syndrome. Once a plan is in motion and its reached the detailed-execution stage, Visionaries tend to want to hop to a totally new plan. Often, the Visionary's "gut feeling" that pivoting to a more important project, developing a more valuable version of the existing project, or responding quickly to new information is accurate. But if a Visionary doesn't practice self-control and learn how to appreciate, support, and follow-through on ideas that are already in motion and worthy of completion, her hunger for novelty will eclipse her better sense. In turn, her life will start to become a string of half-baked initiatives.
3. Visionaries can think their giftings are more important than those of non-Visionaries. If a Visionary leans into sin instead of sanctification these situations, she will often become inconsiderate, manipulative, and tyrannical—holding her vision as more important than the eternal souls around her. She'll also tend toward pride and elitism, believing that her vision is God's gift to the world, and insisting that she immediately be freed up from all the mundane tasks associated in keeping the work going so she can tend to "more important things." God resists the proud, and without repentance, this mindset will be the undoing of everything that was originally positive about a Visionary's contributions.

🗝️ The #1 Key to Focus on When Planning As a Visionary

Your key focus: Stay inspired, but also stay grounded.

With His sanctifying grace, your Visionary ways are an asset to the Kingdom of God. But only insofar as they are in alignment with plan God is working out. While we cannot know all of the future mysteries of His plan, we can know His revealed will through the Scriptures—and this is what we're responsible to honor.

"He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" — Micah 6:8

"And the King shall answer and say unto them, 'Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me." — Matthew 25:40

Goodness, justice, mercy, humility, and faithfully serving the least of these before the face of our God—these are the grandest things to which we could ever aspire.

So when we sit down with our planners, our minds exploding with amazing new ideas, we will do well to take these ideas and plant them in the soils of everyday, humble faithfulness.

🫱🏼🫲🏽 Tips On Working with Others

Perhaps you've been viewed as an "optimistic dreamer" when things seem to be going haywire but you're still feeling eager to figure out a solution. When others are struggling to see the opportunities, don't let go of your Visionary.

Emotions will settle down, and in the meantime, you were created to help carry the torch of hope when things seem dark.

Influence with patience. Don't get frustrated with others for "lacking vision"—instead, quietly keep moving forward, even if in the background, with the good work of brainstorming solutions.

When others are ready, bring your ideas to the table with confidence and a heart bent towards truly serving others (and not your own ego). This looks like always giving others space to process, push back, and participate in ideation.

9/10 of the ideas that hit the table may not win the day, but if you have done due diligence and have approached the situation with a servant’s heart, there's almost always going to be one that will turn on the lights for everyone and unlock massive, life-giving progress.

And that one idea will be worth all of the hard work and patience it took to keep your hand to the Visionary's plow. Keep going.

And when it comes to working with others—just take a page out of the Coactive’s book and really study and appreciate the beautiful productivity personalities God has given others so you can learn to better support them with your own.

🕯️As a Visionary, You Bear God’s Image

Your ability to think deeply about the future, imagine what could be, and intuitively sense untapped potential is not random—it’s a reflection of the God who created you. You were made in the image of the Master Planner, the Creator who spoke galaxies into existence with purpose and order.

Your creativity mirrors His artistry.

Your big-picture thinking reflects His eternal perspective.

Your tendency to motivate others is His Kingdom multiplication program in effect.

You may find yourself more energized by ideas than details, more captivated by potential than by process—but even this is a beautiful aspect of bearing His image. He designed you to spark momentum, to take the first risky steps in the process of turning dreams into reality, and to be a catalyst for action in the lives of others.

When you feel that compelling tug toward a bold vision, know this: it’s not just a personality trait—it’s part of your imago Dei. And when surrendered to His sanctifying work, your Visionary strengths can become a powerful tool in His hands to bring beauty, order, and life into the world around you.

"Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established."

— Proverbs 16:3

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Did we miss something?

You’re a multifaceted, whole person. The test is just a starting point to help you reflect, but it may not capture every nuance of your personality. You may find you have a combination personality, a strong wing, or even resonate more with another type altogether. It's also good to recognize that all of these traits are healthy reflections of God's Image, and we should seek to grow in well-rounded maturity. You can dive deeper into the other productivity personalities below.

• Visionary - Driven to think about or plan the future with great imagination, intuition, and intelligence. Creative, more focused on the bigger picture than the granular details, and gifted at motivating others to jump in and help bring a vision to life.
• Task-Crusher - Driven to think practically and accomplish things. Resourceful, more focused on diligent execution of real tasks than on theory, and gifted at seeing a plan through to its completion.
• Strategist - Driven to think tactically and design repeatable systems. Prudent, more focused on the sustainability of an enterprise than on new innovations, and is gifted at keeping things organized while mitigating risk.
• Coactive - Driven to embrace a variety of perspectives, skills, and contributions to accomplish important work. A peacemaker and more focused on encouraging and appreciating than on being admired. Gifted at cultivating strong relationships and treasuring the best in others.

You can also go back to the quiz here.

Inspiration for these personality categories came from the work of Les McKeown as detailed in The Synergist, an awesome book on team dynamics.