Everyone has dreams, but not everyone recognizes the fear that is holding them back.
We make excuses why we aren’t doing what we really want to: time, access, money, reality, etc.
If we were to apply The 5 Whys, number 4 or 5 would inevitably be fear.
Obviously
I am not talking fear of snakes and spiders, I mean: fear of failure,
fear of failing in front people, fear of not being as good as we think
we are, and a general fear of the unknown. Emotional fear, just as
paralyzing as the snake and spider, but more manageable.
For
those of you unfamiliar with The 5 Whys, it is exactly what it sounds
like. Take an issue you are having, for instance, why am I not a
fill-in-the-blank yet? Then ask yourself, “why?” and keep asking
yourself why until you get to the root of the problem. Money, reality,
time, blah blah blah, will all work itself in there, but if you are
honest, it will come down to fear. Maybe you are scared you will lose
the money you invest in yourself, which means you are scared you won’t
be good enough. If you don’t believe you are good enough, you are
beating yourself before you even start. Either by not putting in the
time at all, or working on your project with the feelings of eventual
failure at every step. It will come through in your work, it will seep
out during your sales pitch, and you will fail. A self-fulfilling
prophecy. Killing your own dream.
The
most important thing to recognize is each dream has steps. Do not look
at the finished product and think of it as too big. Think of it as a
collection of next steps, just out of your reach, attainable at every
turn. If this is really your dream, you will be willing to put in some
serious time to realize it. I am not talking days and weeks, I am
talking years and years. No big deal. No pressure.
Like Tony Robbins says, “People overestimate what they can do in a week and underestimate what they can do in a year.”
This
three step approach is designed to give you a comfortable space to work
in. The key to it all is W-O-R-K. Without really going for it, putting
in some major blood sweat at tears, your dream will just be sitting
there, waiting for some attention, for the rest of your life. Give it
and yourself the respect it deserves and get after it in the way you
should.
Baby Steps
Dream
living is a new thing for you. It will be hard to just jump right in
100% unless you are already working in the field you are “dreaming” in.
Plan out your attack. Set a schedule. Do something every day.
In
the beginning, you may not even know what in the hell to do. That’s ok.
If you have time set aside for your dreams, you can research people in
your field, steps they took, or things you should be working on. Every
piece of knowledge that you pick up will help. Everything you do in
those hours must be something that will help you reach your goal. If
it’s not, you need to stop doing it right now. What you will find is the
more time you put in, the more clarity you will receive on the steps
you need to take. Think of your time investment as earning compound
interest. Pretty soon you won’t need a schedule, you won’t need to
research anything, because you will be humming 7 days a week.
Start
with baby steps, every single day, and make sure it all is focused on
something that will allow you to reach your goal. Everything else needs
to be put on hold.
Mitigate Your Risk
You
need to be 100% on your dreams if you want them to happen, but you
don’t need to sell the farm to do it. If you are working, then work on
your dream before and after work, on the weekends. Get the 9–5, 5 days a
week thing out of your head right now. You know who works 9–5 and then
shuts down? No one who is trying to actually get something worthwhile
done. If you want to be a cog in the machine, stop reading this right
now. If you are willing to go 7 days a week, some on stuff you love,
some on stuff you don’t like to do but it allows you to do the stuff you
love, keep reading.
Don’t quit your job.
Don’t
pee in the boss’s planter and tell that secretary you don’t like to F
off, keep working. The less financial pressure you have on yourself, the
more clarity you will have to approach and attack problems. Desperation
is ugly and it will hijack your dreams. The less desperation the
better. No desperation is best, obviously.
If
it is going to cost some money, cut back on household expenses: eat out
less, don’t use so much data on your phone, cut out some of the movie
channels, or don’t buy so much expensive wine. Remember, you are going
to be working your ass off. You will not have time for some of the
extra-curriculars you have come accustomed to enjoying anyways.
This is a huge test for you: are you willing to give up your “fun” time in order to pursue your dreams?
If the answer is no, you need to make sure it is really your dream. Then make sure you understand what it is going to take.
The
answer, by the way, should always be yes. Of course you are willing to
cut out some “fun” for your dream. Why? Because the pursuit of your
dream should be fun already!
Do you think Casey Neistat (@CaseyNeistat) hangs out with friends all the time?
You think Gary Vaynerchuk (@GaryVee) is going out to dinner and partying on the weekends?
The answer to both is hell no.
Take care of your dreams and your family. That’s it. You don’t want compromise your family or your dreams, so don’t.
Dreams are fun. Family is fun.
Remember that.
Change Your Mindset
What is winning, and what is failing?
Forget everything you know, or think you know.
From
now on, winning is: learning, gaining a new skill that can be applied
later through a project that doesn’t “go anywhere”(I call this failing
up), taking a step in the right direction, doing something better than
the day before, learning from mistakes because you know it is all part
of the learning process, and finally, doing it all again tomorrow.
On the flipside, failing is: not in your vocabulary anymore.
Adios.
Ciao.
Hasta la bye-bye.
You
can’t fail. It is not an option because it is not possible. Let’s put
our Thomas Edison hat on. From now on when you don’t get the result you
want you have just found another way it didn’t work.
That’s it. Move on.
You are on a journey.
The path is not important, it’s the destination that is.
As long as you are still moving in the right direction, you are winning every single day.
Don’t forget that. You are winning every day you do something towards your goal.
You are a winner.
You are winning.
Congratulations.
You should be proud of yourself.
Down Days
You
are going to have days that are harder than others. If this is truly
your dream you will figure out ways to get through them.
Here is my vlog on what I do when I have s*** days. (What To Do When You Are Having A S*** Day)
I know I am all “ra-ra-go-team!” but I can get in to a funk too. I have
things in place to make sure they don’t last longer than they need to.
Hopefully some of those techniques can work for you
too.
You
know it’s a dream when you are willing to take some lumps along the
way. It will get hard. You will get down. You will not be as far as you
wished you were. It’s going to happen. It happened to me yesterday. Boo
hoo. Get over it and get back on the horse.
Keep
in mind that this is a journey, this is a lifetime. Get the calendar
out of here, don’t put a time limit on it, you shouldn’t even be
thinking of it like that.
Your time is up the day you die.
It’s time to stop dreaming, and start doing.
You have wasted every day up to this point by not following your dream.
The good news is, you never have to waste another day again.
So don’t.
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