The Five Dream Suckers

2008 the year that I will….
Make some positive life changes
Form some new habits
Finish reading that self help book I bought 20 years ago

What changes can you make to your life?
What new habits would you like to form?
What do you need to let go?

You have incredible untapped potential inside you, inside each and every one of us. There is a person of high spirit, with great dreams, and oodles and boodles of untapped potential just sitting quietly waiting to be discovered inside you.
It reminds me of this story I heard from Michael Neil from Hay house radio.
It begins in heaven when one day a man passes away and goes to heaven like humans do. The angels were showing the man around heaven and they passed a door. The human asked “what is in that door?”
The angels replied that he shouldn’t go in that door, but they can not keep out. But they insisted he should not go in the door.
The human being naturally curious, decided to go in the door, when he walked in the door he discovered beautiful things, things he had always dreamed about, there was money, nice cars, a lovely home, and many other riches. He asked the angels why could he not come in this door, the angels replied that all of the things that were in the room should have been his, but he failed to ask for them and most importantly go after them.
If the human had just asked, set some goals and went after what he wanted he could have had his dreams come true.
How does this relate to us? What are we failing to do that if done would give us all of our dreams?
Achieving things for the sake of achieving things is arrogant, and should not be done but achieving your highest potential for the good of others is in my mind a worthy goal.
Because ultimately what you give you get in return and usually to a degree you can never predict.
How are you using your passion, your life, your soul, your heart, and your guts to help others?
We know success isn’t achieved by any one individual but instead through team effort. Its not about I, it’s about we, and there is certainly no I in team.
Where can you can choose to set some goals to pursue for 2008?
Who can you collaborate with to reach your goals, create something astounding, or have as a cheerleader?
We need to be able to give our goals a chance to breath; some people don’t give their goals a chance before they shut the door on them. And in a flash it’s gone... well that is until next year rolls around. Maybe you have tried to share your goals with others and they have all turned a blind eye, maybe you have collaborated with someone to create something together for them only to take all the credit with you then vowing never to do it again. If we do not create the air for our goals to breath and flow through, how will we ever know what we are capable of?
The potential for our goals can sometimes be shot down and killed in its tracks because of various reasons. I have designed 5 dream killers, I like to call them the 5 dream killers, they are: insufficient knowledge, not enough clarity or focus, too much energy with no channel to put it, too many dream suckers telling you cant do this, and not a firm inner belief or conviction that it can be done.
Let’s go through each track for why we can not achieve our ultimate passion.
1) Being stopped by having insufficient knowledge is usually what stops most people. They don’t take action because they don’t know enough; they think that they must know everything in order to achieve it. These people are prone to say things like “If only I knew about... then I would do this and this and this” They do not realize that taking action without knowing everything is how most successors achieve their level of success. It is impossible to know everything about how you will accomplish your goal, instead it is better to pursue in the face of the unknown. This will create more courage and greater self esteem. The door will then open up the answers as you progress, but the answers can not be seen unless the door is open, and the door can not be open unless you take action to open it.
2) We then may not want to try because we don’t have enough clarity, and we are not sure what direction to take. We must see that being clear and focused are prerequisites for achievement, but initially if we are still exploring and just starting out with our goal then we must be compassionate with ourselves for we must see that we don’t possess all of the answers just yet, and maybe we don’t know what direction to take but we must have a firm knowing of our vision we are shooting for, and have faith that the steps will appear. This is what makes it so much fun, because we can learn from present mistakes and correct our path as we go.
3) However we may have caboodles of energy, and may be deeply rooted in what we want to achieve but without a clear laid out plan we can not achieve it. We will spin ourselves around and around in a circle. For those of you that have a lot of energy, do not waste it, it is a blessing. Learn to use it for the highest good of others and yourself by mapping out your direct route to your ultimate destination your vision of what you would like to accomplish in the year. Keep clear on what benchmarks you will need to pass by setting tangible sub goals throughout the year, and put all of your energy into achieving one benchmark after the other.
4) We all have known someone to belittle us after we have told them our dreams, this is not uncommon. The tall poppy syndrome is a population notion in Australia. It may be from a loved one, a friend, a co-worker, or your neighbor but who ever they are, they are doing it because they love you and don’t want to see you get hurt. I suggest that you keep your goals and dreams secret, do not tell anyone what you are going after unless they are going after something similar and you can help each other. Ultimately people will see your life changing, they will see more enthusiasm in you, and your energy will eventually go up. Let them see what you do, do not tell them. Be a doer not a talker. If it is someone really close to you, and they belittle or put down what you are doing kindly thank them and express gratitude for their opinion. But remember it is just that, it is an opinion, at worst it is not even an opinion about you, it’s about what task or activity that you are actively engaged in. In short don’t take it personally, reach out to someone who cares for support if times get tough.
5) Finally the toughest of all of the dream killers is when you do not believe in yourself. This is the toughest because it is coming from yourself, if you don’t believe in yourself who will? You must believe that you can do this, if this is your hearts desire, this can be done. And let no-one tell you otherwise, for peoples opinions are often and seldom based on logic or truth. So do not believe what others think, or let their thoughts influence your thoughts and belief in yourself. If you want to limit yourself go right ahead, but do not let other people do it for you. You must quit because you are not passionate enough, not because you have your feelings hurt like a little girl. If you must quit make sure you have searched high and low and found that this goal isn’t strong enough emotionally to progress with. If on a scale of 1 -10 (with 10 being convicted, and 1 being not convinced) you find yourself a 5, don’t give up, keep going, sometimes our belief and conviction in what we are doing need time to catch up to what it is we are working on. Let your heart lead you, not your head. Believe in yourself if you want it badly enough, and never quit because you can achieve it if you believe in yourself.

So there are the 5 dream killers, I must admit to having all of them crop up in my life several times over and over and over. And some just not wanting to go away, but if you’re strong, firm in who you are and what you want you will with ease move past each dream killer.

Sometimes our dreams come to us when we least expect it, sometimes we are working for something that is so big, so unachievable that we loose sight of how far we have come. I suggest you pull yourself back every once in a while to recognize, yes I have done this and this. You must continually reflect and look upon yourself at how much you have achieved. Anchor those feelings of success within you and celebrate along the path and then look to your next goal.
Reflecting shouldn’t only be done when you need a boost, but make it a habit every night before dropping of to sleep to reflect upon your day. What went well, what didn’t go well, what moved you emotionally? Learn from that day, a day is a part of the masterpiece of your life. That really is all that your life is made up of, so learn something. You would be surprised at how many people fumble through life making the same mistakes day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. Don’t be
One of those people!

So what’s going to make the difference in achieving your goals?
The achievement of your goals depends on something a little deeper, something a little lower, something a little simpler, and something that’s inside yourself. What will ultimately take you to your goals is your level of emotion and purpose for why you want to accomplish that goal. Have strong emotion, and a strong purpose why and anything is possible, anything.
What are you going to achieve in 2008?
Why do you want to achieve it?
How intensely do you want it?