How Being Realistic is Crushing Your Wildest Dreams
Become a practical dreamer
As kids, it’s drummed into us that daydreaming is a waste of time. Actually, our dreams are significant, and our determination to follow them largely shapes our lives through the opportunities and risks we do or don’t take. Visualising what we want takes us closer to our goal. It’s the old adage from Bob Proctor who said that if you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand.
I have dreams of the life I want to live, and all too often, I’ve been told to keep my feet on the ground and face reality. However, the people giving me this advice are far from living their dream lives.
So who do you listen to — yourself or the people around you who are being realistic?
When realism doesn’t work
I’m confident Richard Branson and Steve Jobs were told they had ridiculous ideas and should do something concrete and sensible, but they went against the grain in the pursuit of their ideas. This is down to one thing — self-belief.
Both men knew their ideas were groundbreaking and that they were worth the investment of time and effort no matter how long it took. Being realistic makes us look at the life we have and focus on what has already been achieved rather than create the future that we want. Basically, being realistic is a dream crusher that removes all glimmers of possibility.
Put simply — you need to dream and dream big!
Holding back
Four years ago, I was resolute in my decision to change my life. I hadn’t yet turned 40, and I felt in the prime of my life. Despite this, I changed hardly anything. I made the cardinal error that most of us do — to yearn for something better but take little or no action.
Why? Fear of failure, the self-limiting belief that I am not worthy of success or just plain laziness? It’s probably a combination of all three.
Bestselling author Jennifer Cohen says intelligent people are really good at predicting possible adverse outcomes, therefore don’t even try. That’s why conventionally ‘smart’ people do not meet their full potential. This sentiment is probably true for most of us, and why we dismiss our dreams so quickly because we can’t see past the obstacles.
How to start and build momentum
Write it down
Write down what your ideal life would look like. Being 100% honest with yourself is one of the first steps. Until I wrote my dreams on paper, I had so many ideas swimming around in my head without focus.
Don’t be realistic here — that’s the point. The sky is the limit, and by solidifying your thoughts on paper, you are one step closer. Our brains need a visual cue and having something visual in front of you creates a focal point. Once you have a blueprint, you have somewhere to begin.
You have to feel it
The reason why we want most things is generally that they will make us feel better. We all search for the feeling but get confused because we link the object and emotion together. I wanted more money, not because I liked the feel of the paper in my fingers, but because of the freedom it would bring and remove worry about lack. I wanted a new car because I wanted a safe vehicle for my kids and something I knew would be reliable.
Be really honest about how you want your life to be, but think carefully about your why. If any of the answers about the things you want will force people to change their perceptions of you — you might as well give up now. If your sense of self-worth is based on others’ opinions, you will never be genuinely happy.
Keep the faith
Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman has determined that our emotions have as much a role to play as our brains in dictating our perceptions and interactions with the world.
What are you scared of? Sometimes I let myself become overwhelmed by looking at the end goal and looking at my first step and imagine a jump straight from A-Z, completely missing out on the small steps along the rest of the alphabet.
Without self-belief, you might as well give up now. If you don’t believe you can do it — you never will because that is how you have programmed your brain.
Ignore the naysayers
You know the ones — you tell them your dreams, and they laugh or tell you that your head is in the clouds. Let them crack on. These are the people who don’t have the dream life, and have their own limiting beliefs that amazing things are impossible.
If they want to live the same life over and over again, let them, but don’t let their negativity put you off. People mock what they do not understand, but they’ll be laughing on the other side of their face when they see you making strides towards your goals.
Make a move, don’t waste your time
If you want to change your life in any significant measure, you cannot do it sitting and watching Youtube videos — you need to become a creator, not a consumer.
I recently stopped watching Netflix and limited my scrolling, and it’s had an enormous impact. We all have busy lives, but time is the one thing that cannot be bought. We all have the same amount of time, but we cannot stop it or rewind it. It must be spent wisely.
Look seriously at the time you have either before or after work and see where you can make adjustments. You have to take action, or absolutely nothing will change. If it’s important, you’ll make time. I have a busy full-time job and two children, so if I can redress the balance, it’s possible.
If you always do what you did, you will always get what you got!
Jennifer Cohen
Be like glue
Stick with it. The 10% rule by Jennifer Cohen is that if you make 10 attempts at something, statistically, you will succeed. It is designed to get you to see failure as an essential step in the process, not the reason to give in.
It will be hard and frustrating at times to follow a path that leads away from the known. However, if you can’t get comfortable with being uncomfortable, stop hating your ‘humdrum’ life and get cosy in it.
Our world of instant gratification has a lot to answer for when effort and patience become too hard. Wishing will not make things happen, only action, self-believe and a whole lot of guts!
