Tag: Dream

A DREAM REALIZED…

The Tower of Dreams holds all the knowledge, w...
The Tower of Dreams holds all the knowledge, wisdom, history, and insights of the fairies race. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On December 13th a dream of mine became reality. My first book “A Happy Life for Busy People” was officially released. There was lots of things I learned along this long journey to bring this book to life. One, is that you must never lose focus on your goal and dreams. This was given a dramatic boost by a friend of mine who created a great pendant with the word ‘focus’ and a compass on it which I keep by my computer and it reminds me daily that I must keep my mind, thoughts and efforts on what is going to push me forward. Speaking of that person I have also learned how valuable the people around you are. Friends whose words planted the seeds of that would eventually grow into this blog and then to the book. There have been numerous people to give me feedback and encouragement when I was filled with doubt. As the book came out the support and well wishes filled me with gratitude almost to the point of being overwhelming. So I stress again, pay attention who you include in your life. When important and trying times arise they may be the lifeline you need. When you are about to give up on your dreams these people can push you to believe in yourself even when you may not.
What became apparent in my reflection of this whole journey is how important those words are. That brings two important points to light here. One, thank you cannot fully describe my feelings towards all of those people, and two, how important my encouragement may be for others. I have lots of friends chasing dreams of their own. My friend Cari has written a book that I am sure will change lots of people’s lives. My sister is about to graduate from school and begin a whole new career. How much we may underestimate the power of some simple encouragement from someone around us. So I encourage you to do two very important things as this year draws to a close. One, take a close look at those people who you surround yourself with the most in your life. Are they motivating? To they give you energy or drain your energy? Whom should you spend more time with? Remember it is easier to increase positive than to subtract negative. By adding more positive people to your life, the negative ones will begin to drift away. The second thing I think we could all benefit by doing is searching for places where we can add support to someone else’s dreams. Is there words of encouragement you could offer someone? Maybe something we could do to help their dreams along? The people who have helped me to get my book in the hands of as many people as possible thus changing their lives for the better have been amazing. Therefore as the year ends and a new one begins, part of my new years resolutions will be to help and to serve in whatever capacity I can to bring the dreams of others to light. Look at your own life, do you have friends or family members, maybe even coworkers or strangers who are pushing toward achieving a goal? Lend them a hand or at least an encouraging word. It could not only help them, but in doing so could help them change the world for the better!

DREAM ON…

“If you don’t have a dream, there is no way to make one come true”

-Steven Tyler

ok, not only is Aerosmith one of my favorite bands, but Steven Tyler has a most unique look on the world. Here is a man who went from having it all to the depths of drug addiction and being close to death and back again. conquering not only addictions, but the numerous doubters that told him it couldn’t be done. His secret here was he had a dream, or more precisely a vision of what he wanted from his life. It is also proof our dreams must evolve. Being someone who has been in several bands myself I know achieving the “Rockstar life” can seem like a great goal, but look at this man who achieved just such a thing. It lead to a life of excess and self-abuse. It wasn’t until he realized life was almost being taken away from him that what was important became obvious. His love for music and entertaining people. Knowing that he could not continue doing that in the state he was in caused him to become sober and increased his passion to a point where he has more energy than most people half his age. I cannot begin to stress enough how important knowing your end game is. I equate it to playing a game where you do not know the rules or how to win. How on earth would you hope to succeed? I have had several people approach me and inquire about goals they find unrealistic. “I’m 55 years old, and I have always wanted to be an astronaut. Don’t you think it is a little late to make that happen?” So what does happen if the odds of achieving a specific goal seem like a long shot? Try looking at the essence of the dream. The essence of the dream? what is that? Well let’s take our example above. This man did pick a later time in life to start pursuing a goal that may require time and physical traits he may no longer pursue, although with private space travel becoming closer to reality every day that also may not be out of the question. Let us assume this man is not a multi millionaire ( I know him and trust me he is no more than I) So what to do if you cannot afford to purchase a ticket to space? Well this is what I mean by the essence of the dream. Why is it he wants to go to space? Is it urge to travel to exotic places? An interest in celestial bodies? Certainly there are other avenues to explore there. Keep searching for everything that excites you about your dream. Provide as many answers as you can. This will not only give you several different arenas to explore, but also help fire up your passion and provide you additional motivation to chase that dream and achieve that goal. Ok, so listening to the song “Dream On” may not hurt either.

THE FIRST STEP…

“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.”

James Allen from the book As Man Thinketh

Raise your hand if you have heard the acorn and the oak analogy before. Ok, now put it down as reading your computer with one hand in the air looks rather silly. Stop and think of this; if an acorn stands in your way how hard is it to move? You can pick it up and give it a toss or even just kick it away with your shoe. Same with the egg. you could easily crush the fragile shell. Now what if that hatched to a powerful eagle? The force is a lot more intimidating. This is why we must pay attention to our dreams, or more accurately our mental focus. If it tends to fall on the negative side, which as I recently discovered can be far easier to do than I remembered, we must address these thoughts while they are still an acorn, while they are still an egg. For if we continue to feed our negative focus with worry, fear, anger and other such emotions they become the oak. A far more difficult opponent. Conversely we must also closely watch our dreams. When they are in their infancy they are like the acorn, like the egg. Easily crushed by the opinions of others. We must feed them with positive thoughts. Feelings of expectancy. We must surround ourselves with others who support us and our dreams. Then as the acorn becomes the oak, our dreams become immune to the negative thoughts of others…and more importantly our own doubts. Quite often we can crush our own dreams when there are in the fragile acorn/egg stage. So just remember to keep yourself focused on the thoughts and pictures we keep in our mind daily. Destroy doubt and fear as soon as they are recognized and feed dreams as often as you can.

SAVIORS OF THE WORLD…

“THE dreamers are the saviours of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers; it cannot let their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows them as they realities which it shall one day see and know.”

James Allen from the book As Man Thinketh

 

The first few days of this week we are going to look at quotes from the book As Man Thinketh by James Allen. Today’s quote emphasizes the importance of dreamers. How many people’s lives are now better because of the dreamers? Whether we are talking about Martin Luther King jr’s quest for equality or Bill Gates vision to bring affordable computing to the masses. Dreamers always affect far more than themselves. As the quotes says, dreams often sustain us through all of our trails. What exactly does this mean? Let me cite a personal example. Recently I have been faced with losing my position at the Postal service and having to train the person who will be taking my job. Not only is this bad enough, but my future whether with the company or not is a mystery. Today I collected my personal effects from the office. A sad moment that made the reality of the situation very clear. In moments like this I am forced to examine my own skills at remaining optimistic. When life seems to have knocked you down, do yourself a favor. While you are down there contemplate what it is that keeps you going. For me it is a dream of what I wish to become. An author who can make a living bringing joy and a better life to others. Without this dream, without taking daily focused action towards its accomplishment I would feel at the mercy of my employer. In these hard times those who can inspire us become our saviors. The help us take one step further when we think we cannot. Even then we are at the mercy of their dreams. Do yourself a favor and focus on your own dream with certainty and positivity. Become your own savior.

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING…

“People often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning”

-Mahatma Gandhi

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t you are right”

-Henry Ford

When it comes to anything the most important aspect in regards to whether you will succeed or fail is your attitude about the subject. These two quotes above from two great leaders demonstrate that. It is amazing to me to hear lots of people speak to defeat their own dreams. I wish I would’ve painted for a living, but now it’s too late. Some people when they hear I am writing a book tell me they were always going to write a book but never did. My answer is always the same “The get out there and do it NOW!” Yes, I do say the last word rather loudly, but that is because these people have been talking themselves out of their own dreams for years. Listen, I am not telling you to abandon your job and family and head off to the beach to surf your life away, but if you have a dream start on it. If your dream is to be an artist explore that talent. Start drawing, painting, sculpting or writing before work, after work whenever you can find time. Trust me in the beginning it is hard, but once that part of you comes alive again energy comes out of nowhere, passion explodes. You are eager to take an hour less sleep because you are doing something for your soul, that could very well end up helping your pocketbook. here is some bad news, your first attempts, they just might suck. Don’t believe me? Go back and read the first couple posts of mine here. I am not saying that to put myself down, just to show you that you have been denying part of yourself for years and it takes a while to develop a passion. Even if your first attempts leave you saying you should be satisfied with just doing that current job you despise, keep on swinging. The world is always grateful to someone living their passion. It could be an engineer designing safer roads or cars, a composer bringing beautiful music for all of us to share. I personally am overwhelmed and it is the best part of my day when I can hear how much this blog has helped even one person in the smallest of ways. Why? Because that is my dream, that is my passion. To help others live a life of passion and to discover the true beauty inside them. Now when you are beginning and you are putting out a less than polished product, you run into people I have mentioned before, Dream killers. Why on earth people will rain on other people’s parades and put down their dreams I do not understand. If I could count how many people have cautioned me and discouraged me about writing my book I would reach a pretty high number indeed. They may tell you they are just trying to not let you get your ‘hopes up’ I tell you get your hopes up! When you fall down, keep them up! In fact, when you are down quite often hope and faith are the only friends you may have. So make your hopes and dreams and faith strong. Feed them daily. Chase your dreams this weekend! Just begin to start chasing that passion! I’ll see you all in the winners circle!

DRIVE

“If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams”

-Les Brown

This may be one quick way to motivate yourself into action.  If we admit our current situation is of our doing we often leave ourselves with two questions.  If we are dissatisfied the question is “what are we going to do about it”.  If we are satisfied the question becomes “Now what?”.  Either way you can see accountability is a great beginning to a better life.

VISION BOARDS

One of the main complaints I hear when discussing how to make the lives of those around us, not to mention our own, more positive and rewarding is the effort it takes. After all, in this age of job uncertainty and just trying to ‘make ends meet’ who has the extra time to worry about happiness. My first response is usually to point out that focusing on surviving will keep you in a constant state of just barely getting by. After all it has been proven what we focus on is what we attract, so why not focus on your dreams? I do not wish to discount this concern though. During the holidays especially it can seem we have 25 hours worth of things scheduled in a day. So I am always on the lookout for ways to make achieving a positive life easier and almost automatic.  Here is something even better, this one can actually be fun! It’s something you can do with your spouse or even with the kids! Continue reading “VISION BOARDS” →