Yesterday I talked about taking the first step towards achieving your dream. Today I want to talk about some of the issues that you might face while taking those steps. Many of us have dreams whether it be to start a new job, or to quit a job to start your own business, lose weight, run a race, change careers completely. Whatever your dream is, it is yours alone. No one can make that dream come true for you. You have to work for it on your own.
While you are working to pursue that dream you may come across some challenges. It’s how you deal with those challenges that are important for the success of your end result. You may feel some of the following things, but don’t let them overcome you:
– Uncomfortable – we tend to stay where we are because it is comfortable and we are familiar with everything involved.
– Scared – the fear of the what-ifs or the unknowns are very strong feelings to keep us from moving forward
– You’ll be tempted to stay with the familiar and safe place – In regards to work, job security is never a guarantee
– Doubt – Sometimes you will doubt yourself or someone will doubt you which makes you doubt yourself
– You can’t please everyone and your decision is yours alone. If people you care about makes you doubt your decision, it’s ok to continue on with what you want to do because ultimately it’s your life and your dream.
After you get over the negative feelings and hurdles you will begin to realize that your dream is something you are good at and that’s why it was your dream in the first place. You will begin to feel confident that you can do what you set out to do. You will realize who smart you really are. You will stand out on your own. If you are like me, I am listening to podcasts about dreamers and am seeing that other people are reaching their dreams and are going through many of the same experiences I am going through. You may begin to network with those people and it will help build your confidence. Those new acquaintances are good people to have on your side, especially when the doubt and fear begins to creep in. You can reach out to them to express your feelings and may learn that they too had the same feelings at one point when working towards their dreams.
Something that I am terrible at is being patient. During the times when you want to know what will happen if you do this or that, there are times where you may have to wait. Waiting isn’t easy! It gives your mind time to think and time to think brings in fear and doubt. You may want to run faster and get a better finish time, but you can’t get faster over night. You have to be patient and work up to that pace slowly in order to get faster. You are going to get hurt when you do too much too soon. Did you quit your job to go back to school? Well you don’t graduate overnight. It may be hard to get all the basics courses done before you even get to the core classes related to the major that you are working towards. Be patient. It will come.
The best things in life are worth waiting for. It took me a VERY long time to start my family, but now as I look back all of those years are a blur now. I am so busy and happy with my family and am so blessed by the life that I have and waited so long to have.
Have faith and believe in yourself that you will achieve your goals. If you have achieved your goal and are now living your dream you will feel light and happy. Your life will have a burning desire to get started and do what you love. Isn’t that worth waiting for and overcoming all of your hurdles to get to as the end result? I know that is what I want for my life. I know that while I have many miles ahead of me on my calendar for the training plan for Dopey, I am looking forward to checking those miles off and seeing the success of all of my hard work.
Don’t give up on your dreams because of the feelings that you may have listed above. Not to sound morbid, but the number one regret people have when on their death beds is that they were never brave enough to achieve their dreams. Don’t put things off, we are not promised tomorrow. The time is now.