How Dreams Come True

I have always been a dreamer, I never swam in the same direction as many of my friends; mindset that is. I never envisioned myself as working for a company for twenty years and then getting a golden watch for surrendering twenty years of my life making someone else wealthy. I have always had an enterprising mindset; I found various ways to make money when I was young and some endeavors were not as legal or legitimate as my mother would have liked but, I was an enterprising young man.

How Dreams Come True-What Is Your Plan

As I grew older, it was drilled into me to stop dreaming. It was not in a direct manner so to speak, but more on the line of “we all have to grow up sometime and become adults”. To me, that said that I have to swim downstream like everyone else and I guess I conformed and started to go with the flow. But, in the back of my mind was this gnawing thought. This gnawing, almost nagging thought that I am so out of sync. I am not doing what I know I should and want to do!

As adults, it is so hard to break from the “so-called” norm and pursue your dreams! We begin to have careers, families, relationships and everything that comes with being an adult. So dreams become a faded memory. The minute you make the mistake of saying anything that sounds remotely like the word “Dream” come out of your mouth, everyone breaks into “conformist” mode and reminds you that you are an adult and adults do not dream!

So, how does one follow their dreams? Better yet, how does an adult pursue their dreams? I have found that you have to be willing to go against the flow; you must be willing to swim upstream. Pursuing one’s dream requires taking a calculated risk.

• Create a plan, have someone with similar goals, plans, and ideas. Try to partner with someone who has accomplished the same thing that you want to do or accomplish and have them review your plan.
• Work out all of the kinks and refine your plan.
• Activate your plan, begin to walk it out.
• Stay focused. It is easy to become distracted or to fall back into bad habits and mindsets.
• Be patient and surround yourself with like-minded people to create a support community.
• Be prepared to fail and learn from your failures.
• Never, never quit!

This is something that I share with a lot of people when they begin to talk to me about following after their dreams but, they are afraid because they are not sure if they will succeed. It has been said that the richest places in the world are not in the diamond mines of South Africa or the oil fields of the Middle East but in the local cemetery! That’s right, the local cemeteries! You see, so many people will die without ever realizing who they are, without ever fulfilling their dreams and purpose!

How Dreams Come True-Obstacles and Failure Are Not the End

People will go to their graves with books that were never written, songs that were never heard, inventions, cures, movements and leaders that will never be shared with us!

And the last question that I ask them and I’ll ask you; IS YOUR LIFE THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD? Many people love to read about other people who are faced with seemingly insurmountable odds, endured unbearable hardships only to beat the odds and become someone of significance. Someone who dared to dream and accomplish their dreams; someone who was told that they couldn’t do it, they would never make it and despite all of their adversity, they made it! 

My question to you is this; why do you assume that you could never be that person? We can easily replace their name with yours, we can easily insert your hardships and obstacles where theirs are. What makes your situation any different than theirs? We get excited and are often motivated when we read or hear about ordinary people who become extraordinary because of the way that they fought through adversity to fulfill their dreams, but for some reason, we cannot see ourselves doing such things. Why not? Why not you? We spend more time downplaying who we are and what we are able to do- that we talk ourselves out of going for our dreams before anyone else can.

How Dreams Come True-Are You Strong Enough?

Well, are you? Are you strong enough to break free from the negative self-talk, are you strong enough to let go of some of the people who can’t see you do better for yourself and want to keep you in a place of complacency? Are you strong enough to break free from self-defeating behaviors and habits that keep you in the same cycle of failure and defeat?

Unfortunately, I have found that most people are not willing to try because they have tried before and failed or they think that trials and failure are evidence that they cannot succeed. Al Hollingsworth tells a story about a bear that eats a lot of berries until one day he smells something that smells really good and the bear goes to investigate the source of the smell. Well, the bear comes up on a camp and there is a steak frying in a pan; the bear starts to eat the steak when a camper shoots him in the behind.

Well, you know that bear took off running! He didn’t die but his behind hurt for days and he had no clue what really happened to him. A few weeks later as he was eating berries; he caught a whiff of something that smelled really good and very familiar, he smelled steak and he followed the smell right into another camp.

The bear took a few steps toward the great smelling steak that was cooking and then he stopped; he remembered what happened the last time that he went for the steak. He remembered the sting on his behind, the sound of the gunshot but, he also remembered the taste    of that steak! What would you choose? The steak or berries? Ask yourself, are you strong enough?