Exciting News! Welcome to Season 13 of The Devoted Dreamers Podcast!

This year marks a shift as The Devoted Dreamers Podcast returns to weekly episodes—each centered around a monthly theme to help you tackle the biggest barriers to pursuing your God-shaped dream.

IF YOU HAVE A GOD-SHAPED DREAM, THIS IS THE EPISODE FOR YOU!

Expect a mix of shorter solo episodes and insightful guest interviews that provide inspiration and actionable advice.

In this episode, I share the results of the 2024 listener survey, including who’s listening to the show, what life looks like for you outside of the dream, your heartfelt desires for your dream, and more.

What to expect in this new season:

Real-life Inspiration: Relatable stories from real dreamers overcoming real challenges with faith-driven perseverance. Their tales will inspire you to take action in your own journey.
Actionable Advice: Every episode is packed with practical steps to help you prioritize what matters most, manage your time effectively, and move closer to your dreams, all within a manageable 20–30-minute format.
Faith and Dream Integration: This podcast isn’t only about dreams; it’s about the embodied experience of integrating our faith, dreams, family life, personal growth, and creativity into a cohesive whole.

Join me every week in February as we explore the theme of breaking free from lies about your worth so you can see yourself the way God sees you.

Press play and let’s get started!

CONNECT WITH ME:

Website || Facebook || Instagram || Submit a Question

New to the Devoted Dreamers Podcast?

START HERE → with my free guide: 17 Quick-Win Actions to Get Your Dream Moving Forward. It’ll help you build some momentum to keep taking steps toward your dream and help you discern where to go from there.

Enjoy This Episode?

Here are a few mentioned episodes that you might enjoy:

Ep 298: How to Start out Your Dream in Alignment with God with Polly Payne

Ep 299: How to Overcome Fear and Take Leaps of Faith Toward a Dream with Polly Payne

Ep 301: Why Dreaming Big is a Trust-Builder for your Faith with Rachel Bates

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Scripture:

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus,
so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
~ Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works
which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

~ Ephesians 2:10 (NASB)

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The Devoted Dreamers Podcast is produced by Jonathan R. Clauson.
Theme music by Reaktor Productions.
Ad music by Komiku.

The unedited transcript for this episode of The Devoted Dreamers Podcast follows:

I’m your host, Merritt Onsa, a Christian life coach. I’m kind of like the Joanna Gaines for women of faith who have big dreams about how God might reorder the second half of your life so you can use your gifts and life experiences to usher in beauty, revolution, redemption, healing and service to others. It’s not a redesign of your home that we’re working on. It’s a brand-new way to live in freedom. Free from fear, free from second guessing yourself all the time, and free from the lies that the enemy has used to keep you quiet and playing small in the past. Isn’t it about time more of us who believe in Christ started living that way?

I’m on a mission to engage 10,000 women worldwide to start taking intentional and purposeful steps that will bring their God shaped dreams to life. If you believe in Jesus and you see his work in your life and you’re aware that you’ve been given gifts, talents and a life story that could serve and benefit others, maybe you’re among those 10,000. I hope that you are, because you’re here listening to a podcast about dreams.

Maybe you’re looking for a chance to see if your dream has legs. You want to try it on for size and figure out if it’s possible. You want to be inspired and encouraged that there’s hope for what you’ve been dreaming all these years. Maybe you’ve been too fearful in the past, or someone dashed your dreams with a comment that hit too close to home, or you just haven’t had time to figure out how to proceed. Well, my friend, this is your time. This is your space. If you have big ideas for how God could use the gifts he’s given you and the years of your life that remain, and you have a dream that would serve others, let’s figure out how to turn that heartfelt hidden dream into real, actionable plans with impact for God’s kingdom work in the world.

Welcome to season 13 of The Devoted Dreamers Podcast. My friends, I have missed you and I have been anticipating this day for a very long time. This is a big year for The Devoted Dreamers Podcast. I’m heading into year nine of podcasting. I started in 2016 with a toddler on my lap and a dream in my heart. I had no idea what I was doing or how I’d find the time to keep doing it or what direction God would ultimately take it in.

But here we are, almost nine years later, and in case we haven’t met, my name is Merritt Onsa. I am a life coach, a biblical mindset coach. I love shepherding women through this process of identifying a God shaped dream and stepping into the reality of what it looks like to live it out. Even if you have kids at home or you’re caring for aging parents, or maybe you have a full-time job or a part time job or you need this dream to bring in an income. Whatever circumstance you find yourself in, it is my passion to help you see the dream and see the importance of you actually taking steps toward the dream. Seeing how your gifts and your talents merge with these things that God has put on your heart that you want to do with your one precious life that he’s given you here on this earth.

My mission is to see 10,000 women step out of the shadows and start leading the dreams God has given them. I am in year nine of this endeavor; it is not the fast track. You are not going to find anything here about hustle culture or running yourself into the ground or destroying your family in order to bring some big ambition to life. That’s not what we’re about here.

We are about resting in the Lord and trusting in the provision that he’s given us for the dreams he’s put on our heart. What you will find here is encouraging content that gives you some threads of how you would step into God’s plan for this dream in your heart with confidence and trust in Him. You will find relatable stories from real dreamers with real life challenges, but also faith- driven perseverance to inspire yours. You’ll find actionable advice and practical steps that fit your busy life, helping you manage your time, focus your energy, narrow your priorities so that you can use that little time that you have on what matters most.

And finally, this is a space where faith and work and dreams aren’t silos. These aren’t separate things that exist outside of us. Your faith and family and community, your personal growth, your creativity, the services that you want to put out into the world, those things are integrated in a whole person, in you. And I know that you want to do work that you love with the time and money freedom to be with the people who matter most to you. And, and that’s what I want you to find here: a space where that is an okay thing to pursue.

My focus for this season, season 13, which may last through summer or maybe even to the end of the year, but I’m circling back to doing weekly episodes and every month is going to have a theme and it’ll have a couple of solo episodes focused on that theme and then an interview episode also focused on the theme, helping address some of the key struggles and key conversations that I’m having with my clients and other listeners of the podcast focused around what dreamers need most for taking the next steps and bringing our dreams to life.

So I did a survey at the end of the year last year and I wanted to share some of the takeaways from those conversations. It was a written survey on Google Forms. There were some significant themes that came out of it that I thought would be helpful and interesting to share here today.

I want to give a little overview of who listens, why people listen, things that you’re struggling with, related to your dreams. Whether or not you answered the survey, I hope there’s some nuggets in here that are relatable to you. I think there may be.

Listeners in the survey said that they listen to this podcast for encouragement to follow God’s calling. Not just any dream that they might have, but something that is faith-focused for them. They are here for real, relatable and heart centered conversations, for practical God-focused inspiration to take action and then the safe space to explore and discuss the heartfelt dreams that they have. There’s a mix of inspiration and action.

And just some basic demographics. It may not be a surprise that 100% of the people who responded to the survey were female. This is a podcast targeting women, but the age breakdown was really interesting. 20% of listeners were in the 25 to 34 age category; 30% were age 35 to 44; another 30% 45 to 54, and then 20% 55 to 64 years old. So the biggest chunk of you listening out there, 60% of you say that you’re 35 to 54 years old. That seems to align with what I think about in terms of just life phases that allow women to actually begin thinking about big dreams. Like you’re probably not…you probably don’t have a newborn. Maybe your kids have left for college or on their way out.

In fact, let me go to that 20% of you said that you don’t have children. 30% say that your children are grown. 30% have elementary or middle school aged kids. That’s where I’m at. I’m in that 30%. I have a fourth grader and a first grader at this moment. And then 20% had either high school or college aged kids.

Now for the listeners themselves, 90% are married, 10% have never married, and education kind of ranges from high school or some college. That’s 30% of you. To those who have completed a bachelor’s degree, 50%, and a master’s or higher 20%.

As far as listening to podcasts, what your habits are or this was also very interesting to me. Like as an Android user myself, I always wonder like, am I the only one? But 70% of listeners say they have an Apple device that they use to listen to podcasts, while 30%, so I’m not the only one, have an Android device that they use to listen to podcasts. And this is no surprise. People like to listen while commuting, doing housework or yard work, caring for animals or exercising. Those were kind of the top like, what do you like to do while you listen?

And this next statistic is something that I am shaping a lot of my decisions around for this season, and it is your preferred episode length. I know that my interview episodes get long. There’s so much I want to know from these women and by the time we hit record on the conversation, I feel like they’re friends and I just love talking to them. But I know as a podcast listener myself, I don’t always have time for a 45 minute or an hour-long episode. Most of the places I drive are 15 to 20 minutes. I might go on a 30-minute walk or a run here or there, so I really want to hear from your behavior, from your desires, the ideal length of podcast episodes and try to lean into that this year. So 70% of you said 20 to 30 minutes is your ideal episode length. 10% said 5 to 15 minutes. 10% said longer, 45 to 60 minutes. And then 10% were flexible said it depended on the topic.

Women who answered the survey this is a little bit about you: you’re looking for and the reason you came to The Devoted Dreamers Podcast. The reason you hit play is because you’re looking for help to stay focused and not chasing every idea that comes your way. You want to focus and do the work. You’re looking for consistent and sustainable rhythms to stay on track in the midst of a busy life. I feel you, my friend. Perseverance. Like how to hang in there when progress feels really slow. Like I said, I’ve been doing this for nine years. I know what you mean. Progress feels slow sometimes. And there is something to not quitting when we’re not seeing the results. You know, doing so with wisdom. But perseverance, when progress feels slow is what some listeners are looking for. Also stories of people achieving long term goals. There’s that like, yes, this is a long-term goal. You’re not going to, you know, make a million dollars in a year. Like I heard some college students talking about over the weekend at a sporting event. Let’s have some reality here. Like anything that has never existed before, is maybe something you’ve never done before, there’s a learning curve and you want some help believing, understanding that you’re not the only one. Kind of feeling a little bit silly about, like, how long do I stick this out, right? Because if God’s in it, there’s something in this for us. Our relationship with him is the goal. But what he’s going to do in that, in the midst of perseverance, in the midst of sticking it out, there’s great benefit to that.

So let’s see, what else are women looking for in listening to Devoted Dreamers?: guidance for navigating life circumstances that block dreams. There was a decent chunk of you who feel like you can’t pursue a dream right now because of what’s going on with your health or your life or your family. I get that and I see you wanting that here as well. And I’m gonna work on that too. Speaking at least to the circumstances that I’m familiar with. And maybe bringing in some guests to talk to that as well. And then balancing how we surrender our dreams to God while taking action so that we’re not like stepping too far ahead, listening for his voice, that kind of thing.

There was a little bit on kind of your preference of the types of episodes you like to listen to. 70% of you said you like a mix of solos and interviews. 20% prefer the solos. 10% prefer the interviews. Hey, so we’re gonna have both this year. Continued.

Some topic requests, something related to disabilities or caring for aging parents while you’re also raising children. That one I can talk to. Or specific solo episodes on topics that you suggest. So I would love to hear your suggestions.

I heard from listeners about their biggest frustrations related to dreams. And some of them are just traveling this road alone and not having a team to help. Some are time constraints, social media interaction, like you’re putting things out in the world, nobody’s responding. Related to that is marketing, self-doubt, apprehension, feeling like the space that you’re working in is really crowded. It’s hard to get people to hear what you’re talking about or to hear back from them about that.

And I heard some big visions. I asked a question about if God answered all your prayers, what would your dream look like? And I just want to read these to you because they’re beautiful. What I read as your big vision for your dream if God were to answer all your prayers about it: Hosting workshops and speaking engagements or ministry programs regularly creating physical or virtual sanctuary spaces for connection and rest. Building a team to support and grow your work. Using creative endeavors to glorify God and impact others’ lives. Helping women draw closer to Jesus and find healing in specific areas of their life. Generating sustainable income while balancing family priorities. Publishing books and seeing them impact a wide audience and seeing God open doors clearly and trusting his timing.

Thank you for those responses. That was beautiful just to hear your prayers over your God shaped dreams.

So it was really fun to read those responses and I’ll probably do another listener survey later this year. But to look back on 2024 really briefly, listeners loved Polly Payne’s episodes from January 2024. We did a back-to-back, you know, a two-parter with her in episode 298. She talked about how to start out your dream in alignment with God. She talked about the early stages of her God shaped dream of creating Horatio Printing. I did love that episode, so go back and listen to that one. And then in 299 Polly Payne was here talking about how to overcome fear and take leaps of faith toward a dream.

And shortly after that my friend Rachel Bates came to the podcast. She’s the founder of the Beauties Ministry, teaching girls about their worth in small groups and communities all over the world. Now her episode was number 301. Why Dreaming Big as a trust builder for your faith.

Those were your favorite episodes of 2024. I’m gonna link those in the show notes in case you missed them and wanna go back to any of those.

Before I move on to talking about what is happening in 2025, I just wanna thank you for participating here in whatever way you do that. Whether that’s listening, responding to the survey, showing up to any of my live events Your input has really helped shape what I want to do in this new year. So sum it up: Shorter episodes with practical steps. I’m going to give you things that take less time to digest and give you actionable steps in each episode. Things that you can do and take away in order to nurture your God shaped dream.

I want to integrate some more spiritual practices and themes that will grow your faith. I realized that in some of my face-to-face events that I host on Zoom, I always pray or we look at scripture or maybe I share a devotional or something from the Every Moment Holy book. I don’t do a lot of that on the podcast and I would love to do more to kind of integrate the pieces of things I do elsewhere with what I’m publishing here on the show.

And then the themes I mentioned, we’re going to have themes for every month. I’m just testing this out; we’re going to see how it works. But I want to focus on struggles that were mentioned in the survey. So time, family constraints, self-doubt, marketing, not wanting to do this alone. And so we are going to tackle those and some of the other big challenges that Christian women face when pursuing God shaped dreams.

Again, once a month the theme is going to shift. For example, in February we will explore how to break free from lies about your worth and to see yourself the way God sees you. The way that that manifests for me is sometimes we are more comfortable kind of hiding or keeping our dreams to ourselves. And when we know who we are, whose we are, we start to gain a little bit more courage about sharing those things out loud.

And then in March, the theme is about understanding your calling, seeing your unique purpose, how your gifts align with that purpose, how that’s aligned with scripture and what we do with our days, the days that we have here on earth.

And then later in the year we’re going to dive into more practical steps for building a Christ centered vision for your dream. Navigating fear, creating small steps to move forward. I’m always talking about taking small steps.

So if there’s anything that you can take away from this episode today, it would be take a small step, experiment with something just like I am modeling here for you today. I am experimenting with a new way to put this podcast out into the world. We’re going to see how it goes, see if you like it, see if it resonates and provides more actionable opportunities for you in the coming year.

In addition to the themes, I’m going to hand pick a guest for every month of the year in my eight, nine years of podcasting, my guest interviews haven’t changed all that much. I ask a lot of the same questions. I always prep my guests and say, “I want you to be vulnerable. I want you to talk about the challenges, the reality of what it takes to pursue a God shaped dream. Please do not sugarcoat it.”

I’m going to continue to have conversations and ask similar questions. But the format of the episodes is about to change. The reason I’ve always done this, like if you go back to an episode from 2017 and compare it to an episode of 2023, you’ll probably hear similar things. It’s because I wanted to give you a perspective of very different women with very different dreams tackling similar challenges and stepping into their dream in different ways so that you could maybe find a piece of that that resonates for you.

And so what’s about to change? Because I have that huge library of close to 300 episodes with authors, musicians, artists, non-profit leaders, ministries, coaches, solo entrepreneurs, women who are working full time or part time. I mean, there are few topics or categories of dreams that we haven’t covered on the Devoted Dreamers Podcast. So because that library is there, I feel safe to experiment with something a little bit different. So in the interest of sharing shorter episodes, that 20 to 30 minutes, capturing 70% of you who want episodes in that length, I’m testing out doing my guest interviews in two parts.

Part one will be a little bit about what the dream is, the challenges she’s faced on the journey, and the role of her faith in pursuing that dream. Part two is going to focus on tactical solutions and illustrating how certain struggles were resolved so that for someone starting out who’s listening, they could learn something tangible or take away from that particular guest. Then we’ll have a little bit of maybe prayer, devotional or scripture reading pieced into whichever one of those parts is a little bit shorter and we’ll see how it goes. I’d love your feedback on how the new format works for you.

If you listen to a lot of podcasts, you may notice that Devoted Dreamers is a little bit different. When I started my podcast in 2016, my podcast listening experience was minimal. I had listened to an entire season of Serial, which is the wildly famous true crime podcast. And I had listened to Startup, which is a podcast chronicling the life of a fledgling podcasting company called Gimlet Media.

Those were my two experiences with podcasts. Nothing at all like what I’m doing other than the fact that I’m talking to real people and they talk to real people on both of those podcasts. But I did Devoted Dreamers in the way that I did. I started it the way that I did because I want to show you the experience of pursuing a big dream. I think I got that from listening to Startup because they walk through the real-life experience of what it was to start this media company and pursue it fully and give their heart to it. And I wanted you to see the good and the difficult. I wanted to be vulnerable enough that I could let you see me struggle a little bit. I talked a lot in the very early seasons about how sweaty I would get when I would interview a guest. I wanted you to hear from others so that you would know that you’re not alone. I also want to call you out of hiding because I know how easy it is to keep hiding with our big dreams. They just feel safer that way.

I wanted to be vulnerable myself and give you permission to do the same, to invite you into a community of women like yourself, who want more than mediocre, but who love the Lord and believe that being a woman of faith is an embodied experience that touches the lives of others for Christ. And I wanted to remind you to be brave, to take action, especially messy action. This episode’s pretty messy today. My kids just came home. You probably heard some doors slamming.

But I wanted you to know that those two things, being brave and taking action, go hand in hand. So, Devoted Dreamers is your invitation to step into your dream and to join this community of women. I am gathering a movement of 10,000 Christian women to fire up their God shaped dreams for his glory and the good of others. And I hope that you are one of those 10,000.

If you are, if you’re listening and you’re like, yes, Merritt, this is for me. This is the place that I feel safe. This is a place I come for encouragement. This is a place that I know that I get some spiritual connection to the heart level desires that I have that I feel were planted in me by God, I want you to engage with me and the podcast this year. Maybe a notch up more than you have in the past. Send me a question you’d like me to answer on the show. Share feedback through a review on Apple Podcasts. Give me suggestions for topics you’d like covered in upcoming episodes. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t fit the themes. I want to know what you want to hear about, what you want to talk about.

The best way to reach me for any of those things for a question, for suggestions, is to go to my website, merrittonsa.com/contact and submit a question there. It’ll come straight to my email and I will be thrilled to respond to you. If you want to leave a review, you can do that on Apple Podcasts. Join the at least 70 others who have done so. I would love to hear what resonates with you about Devoted Dreamers.

And if you’re ready for more than just that, than just leaving a review or asking a question, come to a free Mastermind call that I’m hosting inside my Dream Believers community on February 20th. RSVP at Merrittonsa.com/mastermind all you have to do is show up, bring your questions, bring your concerns, bring the things that are keeping your dream hidden, and let’s talk it out. I would love to meet you and hear from you and introduce you to a supportive community of Christian women with God-shaped dreams.

I want to end with a verse that comes up a lot here on the Devoted Dreamers podcast and in conversations I have with dreamers.

It probably won’t surprise you that it is Ephesians 2:10. I love the book of Ephesians, especially for dreamers, but I’m going to read you two versions, two translations of this verse, say a short prayer and wrap us up. Ephesians 2:10 from the New Living Translation:

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

And from the NASB: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Heavenly Father, I pray for the woman listening today who’s hearing my voice right now that she would know that you created her for good works to walk in those works, that you’ve put your Holy Spirit in her. You’ve given her ambition, ideas, creativity, motivation. You’ve lit a spark in her to do a good work for your kingdom. Not for the sake of doing the work, but for knowing you. All of this is for knowing you.

And so I pray, Lord, that each one of us here today, listening, would know you a little bit more through your word, through the promptings of your Holy Spirit, through maybe this little nudge today to step into the dream.

Thank you, Lord for your women. Thank you for the dreams that you’ve given them. I pray for their courage, their boldness, their vulnerability, their willingness to hear from you about their dreams. And I pray it in Jesus’ name Amen.

My friends, tune in every week. Like I said, this is going to be a weekly show this year. Invite your friends. Share this episode and mostly trust God’s guidance for the dream that he has given you.

Finally, Daughter of the King, you were made for a beautiful purpose. Your identity and security rest in him, as does your dream, because the Lord is good and his ways are always good. No weapon formed against you will prosper because you belong to Him.

Until next week, stay faithful, keep dreaming. And remember, trusting God with your next step doesn’t mean it isn’t going to be scary. It means taking the step anyway. That’s what faith is.

You are welcome here among women braving those scary steps in faith, knowing our dreams matter because they are His. Until next time, I’m Merritt Onsa, your dream coach and sister in Christ walking by Faith with you in the dream.

Have a great week.