A Sure Footing: Tools For Climbing The Mountain Of Personal & Professional Dreams
Dreams and ambitions, we all have them, but what’s the difference between those that have achieved everything they want and those who haven’t dared start their journey? One simple thing: confidence. Starting any approach when it comes to achieving those dreams, confidence is the thing that gets in our way. So if you have an idea that you want to go over ground, whether it is a business, a project, or you feel you are stuck in a rut, what things should you consider when making the first small steps towards following your dream?
Have A Base Of Practicality
This is something that nobody ever wants to hear when they are chasing their goals in life, but it appears that, more so in the modern world, that we need to operate with some practicalities in mind. Even Robin Williams’ father, upon being told that his son wanted to be a comedian, advised him to get a trade under his belt. And promptly, Robin Williams began training as a welder. So, this doesn’t mean you have to train as a welder or get a trade under your belt if you don’t want to. But, we all need to make ends meet, and we need to pay the bills, so, by having some idea towards practicality, it will help you to take one more step towards your goals. The best thing to do is to go for a job or a trade that doesn’t require a major emotional investment so you can spend your time focusing on achieving those goals, whatever they may be. The moment you find yourself in a job that you don’t like, and you are slowly moving up the ladder, getting promoted, and being given more responsibility, your dream will slowly slip away from you. Likewise, doing a job that you don’t care about, and takes a lot of your time, can be very draining. The work-life balance debate rages on, but your balance has to be even more carefully predetermined. You need to make sure that you are fighting fit all the time, whether it is to do the job to make ends meet, to generate ideas and work towards your dream, to spend quality time with the people you love, and to make sure that you are emotionally healthy. It can be very frustrating when you feel that your energies are being wasted in a standard 9 to 5 job when you could be at home working on building up your dream business. Which is why it’s so essential for you to look after yourself and to make sure that you are doing everything in a healthy and balanced way. That guilt that you are not following your dream during the day can eat away at you, and it can be a breeding ground for depression and anxiety. Getting yourself mentally healthy is as important as taking the steps in the right direction, this is why it’s so important to take up a practice like meditation or mindfulness, or something that helps keeps you grounded. There are meditation tools on Gaiam.com for some inspiration, but when people follow the dream on a whim, it can have negative consequences down the line, either affecting friendships, relationships, or your state of mind, because you might end up full of regrets by leaving so many things behind. It’s so important that you operate pragmatically. This is something no dreamer wants to hear, but it will save your bacon further down the line!
Get Your Business Head On!
Achieving dreams takes all your heart and soul, but it also takes all of your capacity for common sense. The difference between the creative type and the business type is that one wishes they had the skills of the other, so think about this in terms of how you go about achieving your dreams. It’s never been more important in the modern world to have a very heady mixture of creativity and business acumen. But some people have been able to do it; the best actors rely on a combination of the two. And, creation can feed how you run anything like a business and vice versa. Whether you are running a business or not, or you are trying to promote yourself, or you are applying for that dream job, self-promotion is one of those fundamental tenets you need to get your head around. This is why networking is one of the main skills you read about with regards to almost any job now. And if you have a vision about the type of career you want to have, or the life you want to lead, does getting there involve some self-promotion, networking, or building yourself up in some way? Much like businesses require knowledge of the trends and changes in the modern market, you can apply these to how you can make yourself stand out for the right reasons. A good example right now is the concept of automation, so, with a site like DataServ.com, which has a really insightful article on the idea of project management and the automation aspects of business, can you apply some of these techniques into how you promote yourself? Project management isn’t something that is exclusive to the idea of corporations, we can all benefit from the fundamentals of organization and what we can do to maximize our outfits. This is all about you asking yourself how much time you need to dedicate to following your dream and how you can do it realistically without it consuming your entire life and affecting you negatively. This is what business is all about, in essence. And the great thing about this, as opposed to managing a bunch of people, is that you only have one person to look after: yourself. You are much easier to manage than swathes of people where conflict is rife. But you still have to manage the conflict within yourself…
Eliminating Self-Doubt
This is the biggest demon in all of us. When you aim to follow your dreams, some people stand in your way, telling you about the fact that it’s just not achievable, that it’s a pipe dream. And then, we can pile pressure on ourselves, where we then start to feel fatigued, which is where doubt will always make its entrance. There are two schools of thought to tackle in this. Firstly, you can go with the Protestant work ethic and plough through. This has many benefits, because it’s working through any distraction, and it’s keeping you focused on the task at hand. This can certainly benefit people who are very sensitive because it’s a practice in resilience and sheer bloody-mindedness. The other aspect is about accepting that you have these feelings or outside influences, and choosing to address them, either to see if they are worthy of your time. This comes back to the practicality aspect, in some ways, and if you find there is some flaw in your plan, then look at fixing it. If this doesn’t derail your plans completely, then you are free to carry on following those dreams. Self-doubt is natural, remember this. Look at some aspects of self-doubt as being a prompt reminder for you to check that everything is going as smoothly as possible. No preparation is perfect, but if you are wondering aimlessly in trying to get your dream business or dream career set up, then these aspects of doubt are signs that you should undertake either a little bit more preparation, or there are fundamental flaws in your plan that need changing. And, of course, the naysayers will have plenty to say, and you can either choose to listen to those people and let them derail your plans and your confidence completely, or you can ignore them. It’s thoroughly recommended that you pick the latter, because will you achieve anything by listening to the naysayers? We can all benefit from resilience, and especially when you are flying solo in achieving a dream that only you want, it’s very easy for everyone else to pick holes because they’re not doing it, you are!
In trying to achieve a dream, a person can learn so much about themselves. Sometimes, we can learn that the dream that we want isn’t actually the desired outcome, but we don’t know until we put ourselves through the wringer. And sometimes, by going for goals, and aiming for the clouds, we learn, in addition to who are the real supporters are in our lives, we learn so much more as a human being. In trying to achieve your dream, even with no prior knowledge of the subject matter, requires intelligence, guts, and determination. But the intelligence part is optional, because if you’ve got the tenacity to succeed, no matter what, this means you will gain the necessary tools along the way. Setting up your dream empire, whether it is a business, a career, or you want to move to another country and live like Luke Skywalker on some random planet, it’s all about the same things, developing what you need to succeed, and getting these traits.