Make Your Dreams Come True
“People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dreamed of.” – The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
I recently watched the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire show with Jimmy Kimmel, and he asked his guest what she would do if she won the million dollars. She wanted to start a charitable organization, write a movie script, along with some other goals. At the end of her list, Jimmy Kimmel pointed out that she could do all of those things without the million dollars.
The contestant seems to be a dreamer. Are you one too?
There are many dreamers out there, but unfortunately they often get caught up in their fantastical dreams, rather than living in the practical reality. To make our dreams happen, we must fuse both together - dream fantastically, yet work within the constraints of the real world.
There are many reasons why we fail to make our dreams happen. Sometimes, we just make excuses. We feel like we couldn’t possibly do something because we don’t have the time or money. Yet if you really think about it, the time is there for most of us. You can find ways to free up time, perhaps using less of it on entertainment. Or you can organize yourself better to avoid wasting time. It may even be worth buying certain tools or services to save some time. And you may be able to get around the money issue. Perhaps you can teach someone a skill that you know, and they can teach you a skill that they know. This way, you can both shoot for your dreams without needing to spend money.
Interestingly, this is a time in history where there may be many valid excuses – many of us are legitimately suffering health or financial issues or some increased worry about these things. Some of us may have suffered the loss of a loved one. Any of these things will tend to put our dreams on hold. But that doesn’t mean we should forget them entirely.
For you: you, who have taken the time to read this article about making your dreams come true, I would urge you to question whether you have just been making excuses. This is not the time to be too hard on ourselves, of course. If you are worried about just getting by on a day-to-day basis, by all means, focus on meeting your needs. But if your needs are all taken care of and you are doing fine, take a moment to reflect on your dreams.
Do you know what your dreams are? Or have you pushed them aside and neglected them, perhaps even forgotten them? Think deeply, until you rediscover that lost dream.
When you think of your dream, consider: Is there a way to make your dream work online? (to avoid close contact in the age of Covid) Or with no money? You may be surprised. Spend a day searching online for ideas as to how to make your dream come true with no special technology, no professional contacts, and no money. Again, you may be surprised. Before you search too deeply, please be cautious about people online who want to sell you the road map to making your dream come true - especially if the cost is excessive. I would encourage you to seek out free resources and start there. Books can also be beneficial and not too expensive.
Another reason we don’t follow our dreams is that we are worried about failure or what others will think. These are intertwined. If you are worried about what other people think, you probably worry about what they will say if you fail. To me, the only true failure is not even attempting to do something that you truly wanted to do. The inaction, the giving up before you tried, is the failure. Not being able to get views, or attention, or sales, is not a failure. In fact, this is the default. It is what we should expect to happen.
We are all hyper-focused on ourselves and our own lives. If I start going door to door and telling people about my upcoming book, I expect nobody to care. They don’t know me. They don’t owe me anything. I am just a random guy to them. If someone actually cares, now that is a special moment. That is out of the norm. (For your information, I have never gone door to door to tell people about my books.)
What is the next big reason that we don’t follow our dreams? We build up the dream so much in our minds that we know the reality will probably never live up to this. When you have your dream in mind, use your excitement and energy to make something or build something, not to fantasize. If you overdo the dream and make it into a fantasy, then you’ve basically killed it. This could mean that you will never be satisfied in actually pursuing the dream. In fact, you are likely to set it aside another year, then another decade, and so on. You may come to see that your fantasy is so grandiose that working on actualizing it will either overwhelm you or let you down, as it fails to live up to your expectation.
Personally, my rule is that I don’t really talk about my dreams. I prefer to take action on them and see how it goes. Sometimes your dreams evolve, change, or they even die out, and new ones arise to take their place. That is fine. I don’t need the pressure of having someone ask me how my dream is going. I just do it.
I’m sure I have had many dreams that never came true, but that was okay. My life needs or wishes changed as I grew. Dreams that you wanted to come true at some point probably failed to do so, and maybe you were thankful for that. Maybe we don’t need to achieve everything we thought that we needed or wanted.
However, many of my dreams have come true. Perhaps I am doing something right.
For example:
I dreamed of reading 40-50 books per year. I have been doing this for about a decade. Before that dream, I struggled to read a few books per year.
I dreamed of one day making a living selling books. I have been for years, with most years being better than the last. When I started, I was lucky to make just a few sales per day.
My wife and I dreamed of one day living in Europe and visiting many countries there. We lived in France for a few years and traveled to Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, and other countries.
I think that when you have a dream you really care about, you can find a way to make it happen. We just need to search deeper. It may not come easily, but there should be a way to make some progress.
A great lesson I’ve learned many times is that we should not wait to be discovered. The people who are the best at what they do just do it. You can learn to make music and then make it. You don’t need someone else to tell you that you are good enough. The same with writing fiction, or dancing, or countless other domains and skills. If it helps, forget the gatekeepers. Create something, then share it online for the masses to decide whether they like it or not.
If your dream is too big, perhaps narrow it down a bit to make it more achievable. Perhaps you want to travel to Europe, but the realities of life make this quite unlikely. That is understandable. But do you even know your own country? Or your own state? Have you truly explored it? Perhaps there is a lot to see and learn there as well.
What is your dream?
As I’ve said, I have had many dreams. Some of my dreams now are to write a perennial seller, to buy my dream home, and to write a book of poetry that I am proud of. I suspect if you get back to me in 10 years, some of these dreams will have come true. Or the dreams may change, and that’s fine too. But I find that my dreams tend to come true simply because I truly care about them, and I work on them now, rather than waiting for some perfect situation or time.
As an example, I write poetry, yet I have never studied poetry. I can’t guarantee that my poetry is good, but this is a meaningful project for me. I write it, and then I spend time improving it and conveying the story or message that I find important. Of course, this is something I do for fun in my spare time. Some dreams will be for fun, others may involve your career, and others may involve your family or your health.
If your dreams haven’t come true yet, pick one today, and dedicate yourself to making it happen. Stop making excuses, stop worrying about what others will think, and get busy. Either that, or acknowledge that it wasn’t your true dream, to begin with, and look for another one.
The quote at the top of today’s post is simple, yet it has been quite impactful in my life. I will restate it here:
“People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dreamed of.” – The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
