It can feel impossible to move toward your dreams.
It can feel like your doing everything you can and still getting nowhere. That you’re just treading water. You’re stuck. You’re moving, but the goals aren’t coming any closer.
Sometimes, all it takes is one idea to completely change everything.
An idea that truly grips and inspires you. One that takes you on a deeply emotional experience and forces you to transform how and why you live.
Hopefully, this article will do just that.
Let’s see:
“Our path is not about what we have done or where we have been; it is about where we are going and what we are becoming.” -Reyna Aburto
No matter how good or bad your past has been, don’t get stuck there. Accept it for what it is. Know that your past need not determine your future. You get to decide the meaning of who you’ve been and where you’re going.
“You’re more likely to act yourself into feeling than feeling yourself into action.” -Jerome Bruner
The time will never feel right to live the life you know you should. It will never be easy nor confident to uproot your current way of living. If it were, you would have changed long ago. Thus rather than waiting for the “perfect” opportunity, you’ll have to get up and create it for yourself. This doesn’t mean that you have to have the whole vision mapped out, although what it does mean, is that you need to take the first step and then let the momentum carry you onto the next.
“No matter what you want to change, it won’t be as terrifying as the first step you take toward making it.” -Ryan Holiday
The anticipation of an event is always far more powerfully than the event itself. Hence, the smallest step in the right direction usually ends up being the biggest step of your life. Once you see yourself operate beyond fear, you suddenly realize that there are no limits. Thus, when you change your direction, you simultaneously change your entire destination.
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Don’t be limited by someone else’s imagination. You need not be confined by what was done in the past. Instead, be lead by your own imagination and curiosity. Create the future based upon what you think is possible, rather than what other people say is possible.
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.” -Oscar Wilde
Rather than basing your lifestyle upon what seems “reasonable” or expected, it’s far more powerful to decide what you want and then figure out the means to get it. This isn’t about spending lavishly or going into mountains of debt, but rather, forcing yourself to go in the direction you intend to go. For example, I recently bought a ticket to Southeast Asia before I even have enough money to fund the trip. I’m not passively waiting until I can logically live my dreams. Instead, I’m forcing myself to operate at the level that my dreams require.
“Wherever your mind goes, your body follows. Wherever your thoughts go, your life follows.” -Benjamin P. Hardy
Mental creation is always preceding physical creation. The blueprint you build in your head becomes your life. Hence, when you decide who you intend to become and then provocatively work towards the vision that you see, your life will quite suddenly begin to reflect that. Although, the reverse is also true; if you don’t direct your attention to where you indent to go, your life will become an increasingly entangled, hectic and confusing mess. Thus, you must plant your thoughts with intention. You must care for the garden that is your life, for you’ll reap what you sow.
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” -Robert Louis Stevenson
The road to any goal is a matter of taking one step after the next. The process will naturally take you where you want to be. However, results are the enemy that distract and prevent us from seeing this. Hence, when you aren’t seeing the results that you want, don’t change the target; change the process. Plant more seeds. Uproot your current behaviors and replace them with new ones if you must; just don’t stop watering your dreams.
“If you want something you never had, you have to do something you’ve never done.” -Thomas Jefferson
What got you here, will not get you there. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Hence, once you begin imagining a different future, you absolutely will have to begin acting differently. You’ll have to get rid of all that no longer serves you. You’ll have to upgrade your personal standards for who you are and how you spend your time.
“Your future is as bright as your faith.” -Thomas S. Monson
When you have complete peace that your dreams will come true, they surely will. However, for all doubt to be gone, you must also act alignment. You must see yourself grow and transform. You must have a clear and compelling future, and then stridently strive towards it in the here and now.
“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” -T.S Eliot
You are your only limit. It’s not your genetics or society that determines how far you go. Instead, it is entirely up to you. The only question that remains is:
How far are you willing to go?