By: Ashley Berges
Are you ready to begin creating instead of day dreaming and waiting? In order to make your dreams a reality, you begin by moving the dream out of your head and onto paper. Begin by taking a personal inventory of what you bring to the table with regards to this particular dream and what skills you need to learn. Within this inventory you want to review and make honest assessments of your education, training, your strength of belief in your dream, and your dedication to achieving it.
Stop Dreaming and Set Goals Now:
You make your dream a reality by turning the dream into a life goal. In order to make your dream a goal you begin setting smaller milestone goals within your large goal. These smaller goals serve the purpose of pushing you to the finish line. When you use your inventory correctly, you adequately learn and deduct what you need to do to get closer to achievement. If you need to take additional classes, finish your degree, or begin reading on a specific subject, then enroll in classes, finish that degree, or begin reading everything on that given subject. If you have to wait to enroll in classes don’t let this stop you, begin accomplishing other things on your list first. If you need to work for a period of time in order to raise money to go to school full time then do that now. Rarely does a person achieve big dreams without sacrificing.
Ex: If you want to open a bakery, take stock in your abilities and the knowledge you already possess. Possessing a business/management degree is helpful but having no experience is something that needs to be amended. In this case, you want to work for an establishment that comes closest to the type of establishment you envision opening yourself. Getting real world, hands on experience, is a must for the individual dreaming of opening a particular business.
Fine Tune Your Dream:
The next step: Fine-tune your dream. You can fine-tune your dream by creating milestone goals to keep you on track for the big goal/dream. These milestones allow you to see your progress properly. If you fail to successfully place milestone goals, you tend to get overwhelmed by the process. Instead of achievement, you live to dream and always wonder what could have been had you’d followed through with your life dream. Your achievement of milestone goals begins as soon as you cross off items on your personal inventory.
Ex: You work for six months to two years and confidently know and understand the ends and outs of a specific business. Perhaps you’ve taken cooking classes to master the techniques you will use for your bakery and you’re now up to date with the latest health trends with regards to healthy low fat cooking, you can cross those off your personal inventory list and you’re closer to opening your bakery.
Make Needed Personal Changes to Your Life:
As you continue creating and achieving your dream milestones, you may realize that you need to make changes to your personal life to truly succeed on your journey. Many of us have people; choose situations, or lifestyles that wreak havoc on our progress and success. In order to be successful in life and achieve the life dream you possess, you need to take a healthy assessment of your personal life. Take a good look at the friends you spend the most time with. Are they positive? Do they also possess dreams and are currently working on their goals to achieve their dream? Are you more focused on partying than achieving your goals? If so, then you may need to hold off on your goals until you’re ready. If you’re ready and don’t want to continue wasting time, then you must begin to make changes to your life.
1. Birds of a feather flock together. The saying is a bit cliché but still holds true. Take a good look and make changes where needed. No one is going to want you crying on their shoulder years from now when you never even got close to your dream because you were too busy hanging with the wrong people who didn’t care about themselves and their dreams not to mention you and yours.
2. Stand out in a crowd. Be yourself and find your own voice. If you want to be original, then you have to be original.
3. Stop living for the weekends. Stop living for the weekends and begin living for your goals, yourself, and your future. You owe it to yourself to be productive and make your dream a reality.
4. Surround yourself with others who goal big. It’s not about dreaming big, it’s about goaling big. Spend time with people who are setting goals and make their dreams a reality. These people will be the ones working daily to attain their goals.
