Week 2: Who’s Behind the Vision?

Discerning Self-Led Vision from Part-Driven Goals

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“We can’t vision clearly if we don’t know who inside us is doing the visioning.”
— Seth Kopald, Self-Led

Last week, we began with presence.
You mapped where you are—not in an external sense, but within your internal system. You listened with curiosity. You practiced compassion. You met parts of yourself who might be hopeful, hesitant, protective, or just plain tired.

This week, we stay in the Discover phase of the Double Diamond.
But our lens narrows slightly.
Instead of simply asking what’s here, we ask:
Who is leading the vision I’m holding?

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Self-Led Vision vs. Protector-Driven Goals

Many of us have been praised our whole lives for being focused, driven, productive. So when we set goals, they often sound great. But inside, something might feel off.

In Internal Family Systems (IFS), we recognize that these well-structured goals are often shaped by protectors—parts of us that carry fear, urgency, pressure, or the echoes of old wounds.

These protector-driven goals might:

• Come from a part afraid you’ll be left behind

• Arise from a need to prove you’re good enough

• Feel like survival strategies dressed up as ambition

By contrast, a Self-led vision:

• Emerges with a calm inner knowing

• Feels expansive, even if it’s vulnerable

• Connects you to something deeper than performance—it connects you to purpose