Last week we talked about how important it is to dream about what we want to achieve in our career or in life generally. And that’s all fine, but to just dream probably won’t make a big difference. What we can do is to use our dreams to get creative about our own vision and help to shape the future that we want. The dreaming we do helps us to build a successful life for ourselves and make the vision come to life.
Here are 5 things to consider as we kick this process off:
1. The clearer our vision (of what we want to achieve) is, the more likely we are to pull towards it – with less clarity, the more we are likely to stay where we are. Staying where we are (despite having other wishes) = remaining in our comfort zone.
2. Dreaming about possibilities for the future and then linking that to our vision, makes it very clear what is important to us.
3. The act of dreaming provides a focus and direction for us.
4. It also gives a meaning to what we are doing – it inspires us
5. Dreaming can be the kick-start to defining and organising our strategies and plans in a proactive way
Here are some questions to ask yourself to start the dreaming process for your future, but don’t be restricted by them – allow yourself to think bigger, dream bigger.
• What is your purpose – why are you here? What are you really passionate about? Maybe to learn and grow, maybe to help stop world hunger, maybe to be a helpful human being, maybe to contribute to science and research – the options are many, we’re all different and we can all contribute in different ways. It’s not a must to identify a purpose, but those that do find it to be a source of endless inspiration and motivation.
• What does success mean to you? Do you know? If not, you need to. Many people find that they are not as successful as they want to be, but realize that they had never identified for themselves what success means to them – or that they had bought somebody else’s definition of success (without questioning it)
• What do you want to achieve? What’s your vision, your mega-goal, your regular goals, your small goals? Break it down, make it specific.
• Think about how each area of your life is connected – Home, career, charity, business, hobby etc. Are they cooperating with each other, are they supporting and giving leverage to each other?
• Think about the people who can support you! Who are the people in your dream support group? Make sure you connect and exchange with positive, supportive people who can creatively challenge you to achieve what you want – and you can do the same for them.
• What are your key personal strengths that can help you achieve your dream/vision? What talents and characteristics do you possess that can provide the focus, skill and leverage towards your vision? Get to know them, develop them further and make use of them as much as you can.
Start writing all these things down. Cut out pictures from magazines, print pictures you find on the internet. Create a dream board, a vision board that provides the constant visual reminder of what you want.
And when you achieve it, celebrate! And maybe, just maybe, you may have another dream that you want to pursue.
Here’s to your success – whatever that means to you, not others.
