Statistically speaking, most people have consistent dreams for accomplishments they’d like to achieve, over and over, year after year, but they never pursue those dreams. They never take action on the things they really want in life.
Most people settle for a comfortable, okay, good life, not an extraordinary one. Which means, that most people never experience feeling truly fulfilled. Most people aren’t sucking the juice out of life they are taking a sip.
Why do you think this statistically true? Why are 70% of Americans living lives they are kind of, sometimes, inspired by?
The most basic answer to that question is this: Most people don’t believe they can have what they want. Not believing messes up the whole pathway to achieving what they dream about. There are a few reasons why this happens:
- Most people are conditioned at a young age to believe that you can’t “have it all”. Some people even learn that if they do want it all they’re greedy. It’s the “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” principle.
- Most people are surrounded by people that are living comfortable, decent, average lives. They start to shape what’s possible for them by what’s possible for others. Their own bar in life then gets determined by the people closest to them.
- Most people relate to their future from their now. They look at what they want and if it’s a far cry from what they have they often decide it’s too hard. Or maybe they go after their dream for a while but when they fail a few times they decide they aren’t good enough and settle instead.
We all deeply desire to achieve what we want in all areas of our lives. Problem is, most people squash their own desires because of the three points above.
This means, YOU are the only thing in the way of you not realizing your dreams! Bottom: If you don’t believe you can, you won’t take action. It’s that simple.
So how do you cultivate your belief muscle? How do you go from not believing in yourself to believing?
How to achieve your dreams
Honor your little voice. Everyone has a little voice in their head. Some call it the Universe. Some call it their authentic self. Some call it their higher consciousness. Some call it God. If you listen, you’ll hear your little voice speaking to you. It’s always directing you to what you want and need to do.
Honor that voice. If you don’t, you’ll create resistance against what you authentically, instinctively want and know is right for you. Think of your relationship to your inner voice like an elastic band. The more you pull away, the more resistance you create. Not honoring what you authentically want is a recipe for struggling to feel fulfilled and at peace with your life.
Incremental progress. Set small goals for yourself that are easy for you to achieve. If you want to lose 30 lbs for instance, focus on what you need to do in week one, such as: Buy workout clothes, a gym membership and go to the gym once. When you accomplish something simple acknowledge yourself for making progress. Accomplishment precedes accomplishment. Start small and you’ll gain momentum to keep going.
Own your failures. In anything you’re trying to achieve you will likely fail in some way. It’s more likely that’ll you’ll experience failure than not (especially when going after giant dreams). So, if you want to achieve a big dream you have to make friends with failure. The simplest way, is to use failure as a metric. When you fail you’ll learn what not to do and that will get you closer to what you need to do to produce the outcome you want.
Learn from each failure and you’re good. Anytime you fail ask yourself: What do I need to do next time to achieve the outcome I want?
Surround yourself with growth environments and people. You are strongly influenced by the people and environments you put yourself in. You will unconsciously take on their behaviors and set your bar to their level. Instead, set your bar by people you admire. Model their behaviors. And bring other people to your level if they have a low bar for themselves.
Obsess about your passions. Sometimes you’ll decide you need to lay a dream to rest because you realize it isn’t for you anymore. That’s fine and part of the process. It comes with growth. But, there will be dreams you have and things you want that speak to you and don’t go away! Listen to what these are. They point to your passions and the gifts you have to share with the world.
When you discover what you love, want to learn more about, excel at, and want to share with others, get obsessed. You’ll start to see more pathways opening up that you need to follow. There’s a brain region that allows you to key into aspects of your physical environment that you decide your passionate about learning more about.
Willingness to work for the dream for the sake of the dream. You have to want the dream so bad that you want to work for the dream even when you can’t see how to get there or if you ever will. That’s the kind of attitude it takes to get there. The good news is, if you have this kind of mindset you will eventually get there. It’s predictable. If you take action and you’re strategic you’ll inevitably win!
Personally, I’m grateful and blessed to have learned very early on in life of the personal power I carry and that I am able to make my wildest dreams come true. This has come with much struggle and adversity. But through it all, most importantly, I’ve learned that there is no way else to live but to go after your dreams. Life sparkles when you do. And who doesn’t want to wake up every day to a life that sparkles and a feeling of deep fulfillment and gratitude?