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In this podcast I’ll be exploring the topic of Dream Building:
- I’ll explain why having a dream is necessary to living a happy and healthy life
- I’ll talk about personal core values and how they help you build your dream
- Finally, I’ll share some tips on how to build your own dream that will move you toward the life you’ve always wanted
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A lot of people today feel lost and live out their lives without really knowing what it is that makes them truly happy and what they really want from life.
What does this have to do with dream building?
Well dreams aren’t just what you experience during REM sleep. Dreams aren’t just visions and ideas created in your mind. Dreams aren’t just fantasies disconnecting you from reality. Dreams are much more.
Dreams act as your North Star a guiding light and give you direction in your life. Having a dream gives you purpose. It gives you the desire and the will to experience and live the life you want and to live it on your own terms.
Your dreams also make up your legacy where your legacy is your gift and your contribution to the world.
In order to live out your dream though you need to set goals.
Goals give you two things. Firstly goals give you an intention and provide you with a target to aim for. Secondly goals give you a means to reaching that target. So for example, if your dream was to be healthy and full of energy then one of your target goals could be to reduce excess fat and reduce your waistline by a certain amount before a set date. In the process of reaching that goal you would need to change up your diet and other aspects of your lifestyle. It is in this process of learning how to live a healthier lifestyle where you develop and grow as a person becoming someone different to who you were before.
So goals aren’t just something you achieve, but are also a means to learning a new way of being.
Without a dream your life becomes like a ship without a map and compass and without clearly defined goals that ship is without a captain on board. A ship that has set out to sea without direction and purpose will sail on endlessly going round and round in circles.
As the saying goes:
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
Having a dream gives you your GPS coordinates telling you exactly where you are now and where you want to go. Having clearly defined goals programs that GPS to give you the most effective route to achieve your dream.
Now I’m sure at one point in your life someone has told you to ‘stop daydreaming and pay attention’.
Now imagine if historical figures like Jesus Christ, Rosa Parks, William Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Leonardo Da Vinci, Kate Sheppard and Mary Ann Müller who have directly or indirectly changed the course of human history imagine if these people stopped dreaming and did exactly what everyone else was doing.
Martin Luther King Jr would not have been inspired to lead the African-American Civil Rights Movement and make his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech, but instead would have had to unhappily sit on the sidelines and settle for having to live out somebody else’s dream.
This is where your own personal core values come in.
Your personal core values are the needs you have when it comes to living an awesome life. They define how you want to live, they guide your choices, and they determine the type of person you want to be. Core values also influence the types of personal relationships you want to be in and also what communities and organisations you wish to join.
Basically core values help you choose when to say yes and when to say no.
Living in harmony with your values creates a very happy and well-balanced life free of major and chronic stress. However, if you don’t live your life according to your own set of core values then stress just begins to pile up and up and up and you’ll never achieve true happiness and health.
For example if you value health and vitality, but are eating fast food on a regular basis the image you have of yourself in your mind compared to what you see in the mirror may just shock you. Another example what if you value free quality education for all yet you work for a very expensive and exclusive private school with horrible teaching strategies. Working in a place that has a very different set of values to you will give you more stress then you bargained for giving you a lot more than a mere shock as time goes on.
Now if you aren’t willing to live your life and make choices that align with your core values then realise what you’re actually doing is choosing to live your life according to somebody else’s value system. To take control and responsibility of your own life means to live it in full alignment with your core values otherwise in reality it’s another person or organisation that is driving your ship wherever they want it to go.
Some categories of core values and basic needs you should be aware of include:
- Physical health
- Emotional health
- Mental health
- Spiritual health
- Financial needs
- Time needs
- Relationship needs
- Social needs
When it comes to building your dream you want to make sure that your core value system is in full alignment with your dream. If your values are opposite to your stated dream you will end up working against that dream so change your values to be more dream affirmative.
If your dream is to be healthy and full of energy then valuing eating whole foods over processed fake food-like products is in harmony with your dream. But if you end up eating fake food half the time then there’s a conflict between what you want for your dream and what you need in your life leading to stress and eventually unhappiness.
Okay so now that you know why you need a dream and a goal and to live life according to your core values and that these values need to be in harmony with your dream let’s get into how to build a dream worth living.
First up, find your dream. What is your dream?
You want to make your dream big enough to energise you and to move you. This energy in motion will give you the motivation and the inspiration to move forward in the face of challenges and obstacles that most definitely will come your way. You want a big enough why to inspire you to achieve what may look like the impossible. Realise though that impossible is simply another way to say I’m possible!
Your dream statement can’t be superficial. Something like wanting to lose weight or to look good naked or to be rich would be superficial. You can start here, but then ask yourself why do you want to lose weight? What will that give you? Maybe it will help you keep up with your children while playing or allow you to travel and walk the century old streets in Europe. Why do you want to look good naked? Is it to have more confidence and be a better lover to your partner? Maybe it’s so you can live a longer quality of life where you’ll be able to see your great grandkids one day and still be mobile and agile enough to pick them up. Why do you want to be rich? Is it so you can volunteer your services for free and help others who wouldn’t normally be able to afford them? Maybe being rich is a means for you to have more free time allowing you to support charities and other non-profit organisations.
In these cases you would reword the dream from wanting to lose weight or look good naked or to be rich to I want to be full of energy so that I can play with my kids without getting tired and out of breathe or I want to be healthy and fit so that I can travel to Europe and walk the ancient streets of Rome or I want to be able to give my full time and attention to supporting a particular charity.
So what is your dream? Is it to live in another location in a nice home surrounded by family? Is it to complete a half-marathon? Is it to climb Mt Everest? Is it to make vice president or to gain employment at a specific organisation? Is it to build a real foods delivery service? Is it to keep working in your current job to create enough financial security so that you can take time out for a whole year building your own business?
Write down your dream on a piece of paper.
If you’re finding it difficult to come up with a dream then think about what makes you come alive and are passionate about. Think about things that inspire and motivate you.
If you’re still struggling think about what you despise and hate or what’s causing you the most stress in your life in this moment. For example I hate the fact that food outlets even gourmet organic restaurants still use industrial seed oils like canola oil as their cooking fat of choice. So I could have the dream of becoming a real food advocate for getting natural animal and fruit fats into food outlets and getting seed oils out. Or I could have a dream of owning my own restaurant that served only real food without a single pretend fake food-like product in sight. Maybe you use public transport and hate the fact that the timetables and scheduling are out of sync with what people actually need. Your dream could be to create your own private transport service that provides more availability and flexibility. Perhaps your biggest stress right now is with your husband or wife and your dream is to renew your vows of marriage and to a have a loving and respectful physical and emotional relationship together.
Whatever your desire, pleasure or pain there’s a dream in there somewhere.
Next write down your personal core values. These relate to what it is you need to live your dream and to be happy. Write down at least five core values for the eight different categories I listed previously and feel free to add more categories such as career needs, equipment needs, or environmental and location needs.
Ask yourself in each category what do I need? For example regarding physical health you could ask yourself what are my dietary and movement needs? For spiritual health you could ask yourself what are my meditation and being outdoors in nature needs. For mental health you could ask yourself what are my needs in terms of challenging my brain and having some quiet time to myself.
Remember your core values should be congruent and in harmony with your dream.
Next step is to create your dream team. Your dream team are the people in your life who will support you in realising your dream. This could include family members, friends, personal trainers, business coaches, doctors anyone who is on your side and wants to see you succeed and that you need the support of in order to achieve your goal. Write down a list of people who will support you in realising your dream.
Next come the ABCs of dream building. ABC is an acronym which is actually read backwards beginning with C.
C stands for Clarity, B stands for Belief, and A stands Action.
Starting with clarity you need to be clear on what it is you need to do, how much time it will take, and the resources and energy you will need in realising your dream. This is where goal setting comes in.
Goals need to be SMART that is S M A R T which is another acronym.
S stands for Specific. So be clear on what it is you want to achieve and why, example ‘I want to decrease my body weighto isn’t as specific as ‘I want to feel happier and have more energy by decreasing my body weight by 10 kg’.
M stands for Measurable. This qualifies and quantifies the goal so you know when you’ve reached it or not. So sticking with the previous example you know you’ve reached your goal when you’ve decreased your weight by 10 kg.
The A and R stand for Attainable and Realistic. Your goal needs to be achievable and within the realms of possibility. So wanting to drop 10 kg in four weeks is a lot more attainable and realistic than four days.
Finally the T stands for Timeliness. Your goal needs to have an end date. This gives you two things. First it gives you a sense of urgency as you make progress toward your goal. Second it gives you a completion date on which you can check on the results you got or didn’t get. From here you can evaluate what worked and what didn’t work and then get cracking on a brand new goal.
Your turn. Write down one or two goals. Your goal should be both target-focused and means-focused or create one goal for each respectively.
So a target-focused goal would be wanting to decrease your weight by 10 kg before the 1st of December for example. A means-focused goal would be wanting to feel happier and have more energy making you a better father and husband or an employee that contributes positively to the workplace. One goal focuses on the end result while the other goal focuses on how you’re being in the process of reaching the goal.
Next, but still with the C of ABCs you need to create a plan of actionable steps that you need to take in order to achieve your goal and realise your dream.
Write down what you need to do and have done in the next 91 days or three months. Next write down what you need to do and have done in the next 28 days or one month. Then write out action steps for the next 7 days. After you’ve got your action items written out for the next 91, 28, and 7 days from today onward you are going to write down what it is you need to do today as part of completing all the action items for the week. This is your plan.
Once you’ve completed a week, review your 91, 28, and 7 day plans again and update when necessary and create a new weekly and daily plan. Repeat this process till you reach the end of your goal and evaluate the results.
After planning and gaining clarity comes belief.
Belief is a huge factor in realising your dream and accomplishing your goals. You may have a dream that seems beyond your current capabilities and skill set right now. Well believing in yourself is about having a vision of who you are going to have to be in order to realise your dream and who you will become once you’ve lived your dream. Self belief will drive out those limiting and negative thoughts that keep you as you are and prevent you from changing.
Napoleon Hill author of Think And Grow Rich, which is an oldie but a goodie in terms of personal and spiritual development books, said:
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve.”
And as Arnold Patent author of You Can Have It All says:
“To live life in ideal terms, you must first conceive of it that way.”
So before you can realise your dream in reality you must realise it in your bodymind. You must see it, envision it, embody it and fully embrace your dream. You need to believe in your self and know that you have what it takes to make your dream come true.
Now that you’re clear on what you need to do and believe in yourself the next and final step in building your dream is to take the necessary action required. You can read every single book in the world on how to ride a bike or swim, but until you put butt to bicycle seat or get your feet wet and actually have the experience all that knowledge will be of no use.
It has been said that ‘knowledge is power’, but in reality knowledge is potential power. Applying knowledge by being in action is when you are the most powerful version of yourself.
As Morpheus said to Neo in my favourite movie of all time The Matrix:
“…there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”
So use your empowering belief of self and take action on your plan.
“Experience is real power.”
One last thing to keep in mind is that life is a journey not a destination. Life is an ever changing process and you will need to understand that challenges and obstacles are a part of that process. The path toward your dream will be littered with many stumbling blocks. You will be able to steer clear of the most obvious hurdles that show up, but there will always be finer bumps in the road that you will never see coming that will trip you up.
So one the best tips I can leave you with when it comes to building and following your dream is to expect hardship and difficulties to show up every now and then and while you should follow your plan to the T, like a boat at sea surprised by very strong winds, don’t forget to make adjustments and course corrections along the way.
Your mission isn’t to get from A to B without a hitch. Your mission if you choose to accept it is to get from A to B with the least amount of clumsy hilariously goofy looking trips and falls as possible and to get up and stand up taller every single time.
Here’s to living the life you’ve always wanted.
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