Accessing Your Dreams – Part 4

 Part 4 - Getting started

In the last three blogs we have been looking at how do we access our dreams and bring them to reality. We have explored the importance of having dreams, some of the things that stop us dreaming or making them a reality and some things that help us engage with our imaginations in order to be able to dream. In this blog we will explore how we get started.

Getting started is often the biggest hurdle to accessing our dreams. Below I have outlined a few things to help start the process of defining ‘what is the dream’ and also ‘how do we start living the dream’ or ‘how do we start making our dreams a reality.

1.    Being as clear as you can be about what your dream is.

The first thing that will help you access your dream and see it become a reality is that you have a clear picture of what you are aiming at. To be able to articulate it in a sentence and then in detail. It takes a lot of hard work to get to this point and you will probably need the people around you to help you get to it.

2.    Recognising the help you need.

Recognising what help you need falls in to two main categories:

a.    The help you need to develop the dream. This could be people to help you refine and define your dream, it could be research you need to do, etching out time to engage your imagination or going to places that facilitate your dreaming etc.

b.    The help you need to start to implement and see the dream become a reality. This could be training or upgrading, or raising finance, recognising the people and skills that you need around you,

3.    Recognising who you are and how you are wired.

Most often our dreams flow out of who we are. Therefore, it is important that we develop an awareness of ourselves. Our strengths and weaknesses, our passions, things we find difficult. Part of this is understanding how we are wired or how we think and process information. Having as clear an understanding of these aspects of ourselves are often the difference between success and failure. It will also help us understand what help we need at different stages.

There are many good tools out there that can help you. If you contact me I can share some of the ones that we use and helped us in this journey.

4.    A clear plan

It is very important you develop as clear a plan as possible. Dreams normally stay dreams unless we have a plan and work the plan. Part of the plan is looking at the opportunities and obstacles, the financial impact and needs, what and where do things need to be done. If planning isn’t your strong point then ask others to help but you need to be the ‘dream holder’.

5.    Re-evaluating and going again.

• Make sure that you have clear milestones. These show how things are progressing.

• Have defined points when you will evaluate what has been achieved.

• Have points to re-evaluate your plan in light of the evaluation. Then go again!

6.    Getting back up when you’ve been knocked down.

There will be times when things don’t work. There will be times when you fail, when people let you down, when things don’t workout the way you had mapped it out. There will be dark days and there will be times of discouragement – when it looks impossible. When you get knocked down you have to dust yourself off, attend to the cuts and bruises , get up and move forward again.

·      Getting knocked down = failure, setbacks etc.

·      Dust yourself down = evaluating and re-evaluating and adjusting you plan.

·      Attending your cuts and bruises = intentionally facing and dealing with disappointment, hurt etc.

·      Get up and move forward again = moving forward on what you have learned and adjusted in your plan.

7.     The place of vulnerability

Realising that getting your dream out of your head and onto paper, developing a plan, speaking it out and putting it into practice puts you in a vulnerable place. Sometimes it will seem that some people are deliberately being negative and trying to burn it down. Realising it is just part of the journey will help and seeing it as an opportunity to refine things or convince you that you are in the right place. However, it is important to guard your heart because that’s where the life blood of your dream flows from without making your heart a fortress.

8.    The place of sacrifice and suffering.

If you want to see a dream come into being then it will cost you. You will suffer and sacrifice for it. There are times when it will feel unbearable and impossible. It is important to face this upfront and to talk to those around you, like family and friends, and prepare them as well because often the fuel of dreams are hard work, suffering, and sacrifice.

‘…it is a foolish man who starts to build a tower before counting the cost…’

9.    Expectations

Having good expectations is important as you enter the pathway of fulfilling your dreams. Some of the things above speak to that but we also have to understand that it is rare that all we imagined works out the way we thought when we dreamed about it. They will change and evolve as we pursue them.

I hope these 4 blogs have been helpful to some of you. For me it has helped to release my imagination and desire to dream again, to start to allow me to dream what this next season of life might look like – or more to the point what would I like it to look like!