You might say I was a late bloomer in the dreams department. Having grown up in a high commitment religious environment, where having ideas or dreams was frowned upon in favor or putting the “greater need” above our own desires.
Well, that’s a story for another time, but if you’re like me, I can imagine you are often motivated by the great people you’ve seen accomplish their dreams and goals, and are living amazing lives. We’re told we can do it too. Somehow we often do not pay attention to challenges they went through to get there.
Goals are dreams we convert to plans and take action to fulfill.”
Zig Ziglar
Finally, after years of not daring to dream, I realized having personal visions, ambitions, goals, and dreams is a healthy part of life, so I went for it and started the pursuit. Somehow I thought it would all be different for me and things would just fall into place smoothly and quickly.
“Wake-up call!” There are a few things that are par for the course. “Oh, really?”… “Oh, yeah I know. I’m good! It’ll be great.”
It was great, it has been great, and I know it will continue being great, though perhaps more frustrating than it needed to be.
My dreams are still a work in progress and understanding the principles I’m about to share with you has taken some of the frustration and pain out of this process. I still have rough spots, but knowing what I know now puts the spring back in my step.
- It’s takes time to reach many goals and dreams and that’s okay. There are overnight wonders and surprise turnarounds but the law of the farm, or the law of gestation as Bob Proctor calls it, says that many things need time to develop, grow, and materialize. As Warren Buffet once said, “You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
- I would actually fail so much along the way. I’ve missed deadlines and dates I had set for reaching my goals. In fact, I’ve tried things and it turned out they were the wrong things. A benefit to failure is that this has taught me what works and what doesn’t work. I agree with what Eleanor Roosevelt said, “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” Besides knowing what doesn’t work, I am also finding out what does work.
- Exercising persistence is not as sexy as they make it sound. I’m sure you’ve felt like giving up on something at some time, in fact I imagine you did give up on things from time to time. The reasons to give up can be so convincing, especially after a failure or setback, but people who “cultivate the habit of persistence seem to enjoy insurance against failure. No matter how many times they are defeated, they finally arrive up toward the top of the ladder”, according to Napoleon Hill. (Read Think and Grow Rich)
- My plans can not be set in stone, even as good as I think they are. Confucius hit on this a long time ago when he said, ” When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” So, don’t fall in love with your plans. D.D. Eisenhower broke it down well, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.“ Be willing to change your plans when it’s clear a change is needed to reach your goal.
- I would have to change to become the person who could live my dream. Really? I thought I was it, the one who could make things happen and do anything I dreamed of. (I will admit I was not much of a dreamer in my early adult life.) Who knew I would be changing so much. Henry David Thoreau sure had a handle on this, “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
