People aren’t afraid of starting a dream. They’re afraid of change. Here’s how to get real with ourselves and begin our greatest dreams with boldness:
1. Be Honest
What’s really holding you back? Can you keep going on and on and claiming its fear? Could it be the old excuse that you are a perfectionist? Or is it that you are uncertain or unskilled? What if the real issue is that you’re simply uncomfortable with change? Or that you are simply trapped into a rhythm of how much action you are willing to take each day? More often than not, what prevents people from starting a dream is lack of sustained motivation and discipline. Because armed with those things you can overcome fear, right? So, begin with honesty about what’s preventing you from starting your dream and realize that the only way through it is to begin.
2. Get Focused
Lots of people have a dream but never reach it. Often it’s because they didn’t obsess about achieving it enough and match that obsession with initiative. If you have a dream, you have to focus on it so much that you pull it into reality. Challenge yourself to remove distraction and think more often and more deeply about your dream and the steps you’ll have to take to achieve it. So no to things that don’t align with your dream as time is precious.
3. Create a Learning Map
What would you have to learn in order to confidently and competently move toward your goal? This may be the most important question in dream fulfillment. Define the topic, skills, and abilities you would have to develop. Then, create a learning map to begin mastering them – a real schedule of learning. If you don’t schedule when you will learn something, and have a real deadline for learning a certain level of mastery, then it’s difficult to develop real capability and momentum. Learning is the root of all progress and personal development.
4. Start with Three Actions per Day
You start every great dream by willing yourself and working yourself each day to move towards it. That’s how you start. There’s no way around it – to succeed more you have to take more initiative. Everyone can do something each day to move their lives forward. Make sure you have a set of goals and checklists at the daily level that you are working toward. Even if it’s just something small, do it and cross it off. It’s the small wins that can give you confidence to start taking on the bigger challenges.
You were given your dream for a reason. And so let us stop making excuses and start moving toward our dream with real focus, intensity and force. That’s why we were gifted with that hunger and drive and desire for that dream – to strive for it, to grow into it, to achieve it, to become your best self along the way. Move with enough consistency toward your dream despite your fears and soon you’ll experience what we call The Charged Life.
* Source: Brendon Burchard – Start Your Dream (Even if you’re scared)