Remember when you were a child, and someone asked you what your dreams for your life were? As children, we are tapped into our places of pure passion, for we know nothing else at that point. Somewhere along the road of life, it changes, becoming buried under mountains of the “have to’s”, “can’ts” and “shoulds”. And then one day, perhaps as we reach our thirties or fourties, we reach a point in our lives where we finally give into the inner restlessness—the restlessness that says “Hey, remember me? What about those dreams?”
There is a poster that sits on the wall above my computer in my office. It has a picture of massive rock formations that look like they couldn’t have possibly been built by a human. And underneath it is a caption that says: “I am grateful for my ability to reach for my dreams.” Each morning I look at this and am reminded that I have 100% capability of being the creator of every aspect of my life—not just envisioning it, but actually being involved in the process of making it reality.
You too are the creator of your life; that includes your dreams. I'd like to show you how easy it is to build a sure road map to creating them. It starts with a few, simple steps. Armed with your pen and paper, sit down and take a few, good, deep breaths. Then ask yourself the following questions:
1. What are my passions? In other words, what am I passionate about? What do I love to do more than anything?
Why are these questions important? It’s important because any vision for anything—your life, a goal to move towards, your purpose, all has an emotional component attached to it. It is the invisible force behind any action that you take. Without passion, there is nothing but hollow actions. My top passion is writing—when I was in late teenage years, I discovered that one of my dreams was to be a successful, published author. I couldn’t think of anything else that I’d rather be doing.
2. What are my values? In other words, what is important to me?
Whether it’s authenticity, integrity, peace, love, or money, values are vital when combined with passion, they lead directly to your vision for your life. Any dreams or vision must contain what you value, what you consider important, otherwise what’s the point of the dream?
3. What are my desires? In other words, what do I have a burning desire to do or be?
These can be anything. The sky’s the limit. When I was twenty years old, my #1 desire was to be on my own time schedule, get up whenever I felt like it and write books on mind-body-spirit issues. I can successfully say that five years ago, I reached it, and it was because that burning desire to be the master of my own time and create life the I wanted it to be, overrode everything else.
4. Now that I have ascertained my desires, what can I specifically commit to, in order to make these desires reality?
Why is this important? It's important because commitments give you a purpose and it signifies seriousness. One of my first commitments as a writer involved committing to a time target. I promised myself that I would complete my book by July 2006. I exceeded it and finished it April 1. Personal commitments are promises—promises that you make to yourself. They also energize you and help you to focus your energy.
5. Now that I’ve committed myself, what do I need to do get there?
The last steps are small bite-sized pieces of the picture. It’s like eating dinner. You don’t gulp down the whole plate at once, but take one fork-full at a time. This is the same with commitments and action steps. Using my book writing example, I made a reasonable action step of writing at least 100 words per day—sometimes I made it minimally, most often I exceeded it. But each day I took this step, it reminded me of the goal of completion, and the energy surrounding my completed book, kept me motivated.
George Burns said, "I would rather fail at what I love than succeed at what I hate." So, if you want to succeed, and experience the thrill of living your dreams, the first thing you need to do is declare your passions, values, desires and interests. Then decide that you will take that step to actively creating it—make commitments and action steps. I guarantee the rest will fall into place.
Oh yes, and my dream about being successfully published? It will happen next month.
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