Dream Reality: Turning Your Hopes Into Achievable Success
Have you ever had a dream? I mean a dream about achieving something extraordinary, something great, something fantastic, and wonderful? I think we’ve all been there, with hopes and dreams of something better. But how many of us achieve our objectives?
Over time, life can be challenging and sometimes beat us into submission. We start with wonderful hopes and dreams, but reality steps in with busyness, daily responsibilities, distractions, and overwhelm. We put our hopes and dreams in a box and store them on a shelf for safekeeping. Over time, we think about them less, the excitement grows stale, and our dreams fade like a dim memory. But if you take a few minutes to think, you can still find a trace of your hopes and dreams within you.
In this article, I’m going to give you three basic principles you need to know to make your dream a reality and three steps you can take to begin your mission. These principles and tips will help you get started and step onto that narrow path of daily success, walking closer to your dreams and goals.
I’m giving you the complete overview up front so you know it now because I know from experience people like to jump in and do something without reading the instructions. Then, in the following chapters, I’ll break it down in detail. Knowing these principles will help you when the going gets hard so you don’t give up and return to your easy life.
You must focus on and understand these principles. Please stop taking notes and turn off your phone for the next few minutes. I know you can do it because these are the most important things to understand when achieving your dream reality.
TIME - Number one: it takes time. Sometimes it takes a long time. Achieving dream reality isn't something you’ll learn, start working towards, and then be done and successful next week. By its nature, the word “Dream” suggests something beyond what we are capable of, and it will take time to achieve it.
COST - The second, foundational principle is that it’s going to cost you. Achieving your dreams and success will cost more than you think. It will take more time than planned, cost more than calculated, demand more effort than expected, and test your relationships in ways you did not imagine. There is still a risk you will not achieve your dream or the success you seek.
REALISTIC - Finally, the third basic principle is to determine whether your dream goal is realistic. I want to be a great singer, but I can’t sing, so it’s probably not going to happen because it’s not realistic. I may want to be a great golfer, but when someone takes me to the driving range, I scare them, and they don’t invite me back. This shows that the goal and dream have to be achievable. It must be realistic and within the domain of possibility.
Those are three basic principles for the mission to achieve dream reality, and they’re also helpful for any goals when striving for greater success. It will take longer and cost more than you expected, and we need to confirm whether it is realistic given our capabilities. In other words, before you build, count the cost. It is okay to fail, and we will encounter many failures along the way. But if our dreams and goals are realistic, we will learn from failures, fail forward, and not collapse under their weight.
Now that we have the principles out of the way, I want to give you three practical steps you can take to begin your journey toward achieving your goal of dream reality.
ATTITUDE - The first practical step is your attitude. Your attitude controls everything you do and say. For instance, if you have negative self-talk, you must find a way to change that.
INTENTIONALITY - The second practical step is being intentional. You will become highly intentional about your life and actions. You need to prioritize what you do each day and week carefully so you consistently move in a positive direction toward your goals.
SUPPORT - The third critical step is to have support. By support, I mean accountability. We all have blind spots, and in the end, we do what we want. That’s why attitude is the first stepping stone. Then we need to gather support from like-minded people who can hold us accountable so we continue moving forward efficiently.
As we step onto the path to achieving our dreams, understanding the three principles and three steps can add rocket fuel to our wagon, launching us into the sky with enough velocity to overcome gravity’s pull. When reaching for the stars, you must do more than raise your arms and jump. You have to fly. To fly, you must complete the final step.
