Tackling your Dream - New Year Resolutions

Tackling your Dream

By Carl ToersBijns

 

The New Year is quickly approaching and we are all prepared to make some New Year resolutions. It is likely that some of these resolutions are part of your dream in life or the basis for making your dream come true. Either way, you are about to go on a journey that will hopefully fulfill your destiny.

 We all dream of doing something special in our lives. We all dream of doing something that is satisfying someday. It may be a career change, raising a family, starting a business or become an artist in the music business or making a lot of money. Either way, you need to find a way to make your dream come true.

The world is made up of winners and losers. Not necessarily a nice way of putting it, the reality is that no matter what your dream is or was, there are some things thrown on those hard traveled tracks of this journey that makes it more difficult than once anticipated. Living a dream can be interrupted suddenly by something called fear. You shouldn’t be surprised or stunned this happens.

Fear is the number one reasons for not accomplishing your goals or dreams. It can happen to anybody and there are certain things you need to remember when encountered by fear.

First you have to be real. You must make a self-assessment of your skills, knowledge, abilities and experience as well as possessing the talent for acquiring such a dream.  The main thing to remember is that when you are pursuing a dream there will be a significant change in your life.

This change can spring many fears, challenges and insecurities at you as it will come from all directions that include where you live, how much money you have to support your dream and drumming up the intestinal fortitude to stay on this journey to capture your dream. 

Most of all, you will be faced with the fear of failure. Change means leaving your comfort zone. It means taking different risks and making decisions never made before.  One may have to endure a change in the environment and endure misery before reaching your utopia.  You must learn to tolerate and overcome things that are strange and terrifying.  You must learn how to face and handle those risks that come with the territory of being successful.

We have come to appreciate that change is one of the most terrifying things we face in life. Our latent fears and insecurities spring out at us from all directions. After all, change threatens our comfortable worlds. It doesn't matter that our comfortable worlds might be miserable places. Misery we know! Misery we can tolerate! But change is strange and terrifying.

Whenever you are faced with the fear of failure or any other fear, don’t make excuses. Rely on your common sense that got as far as you are and rationalize the problem. This is where you go back to your self assessment and must decide if you have an adequate amount of money or levels of education, skill or experience to pursue your goals and happiness. Make adjustments to meet your shortage and focus on the positive things that this effort will bring you.

You must not squander time or money during these evaluation periods. You must make decisive decisions with or without help from others. Regardless, you must face the fear and march on. This is where you have winners and losers come or overcome and meet these challenges before you. Don’t let your fears shut you down.

Wading through the deep waters of fear and adversity is part of the challenges of success. Success will demand you to do or perform extraordinary things in your life. It is what makes you a great person rather than the normal status quo you are trying to leave behind. How you respond will make you either a winner or a loser.

Perseverance is a great quality to attain when pursuing your dream. Never give up even when the pain is so bad and you are terrified at the moment or the day after. If you focus on your dream you will never turn away and run away from it.

 

Be prepared for failure, humiliation, embarrassment and anxiety attacks. These all come with the challenge of attaining your dream. Don’t underestimate your own abilities when faced with the challenge of self expression, public speaking, organizing your thoughts and putting a plan together. Even though you may have “never” done such a task before, you will overcome your fear of failure if you have faith in all you do and prepare yourself adequately to get the job done.

 

Learn to identify your disabilities and accomplishments. It was said by Eleanor Roosevelt, a woman who was well versed with fear in her life that “you gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”

You must learn to attempt those things we think we cannot do and tolerate the fact that if it means going through life without knowing success, you merely exist and lose that dream. If we fail to attempt the thing we think we cannot do, it can mean the death of our hopes, dreams and our spirit. It could mean going through life merely tolerating our existence. It can mean dying without having risked or felt the sting of failure--or savored the joy of success.

When we face those things we thought we couldn’t do we become stronger and smarter in life. We gain heart and desires and leave behind cowardice and being scared. We have the appreciation of life and knowing that overcoming all these challenges as well as the fear was quite a feat and undertaking.

It underscores the importance of the journey and the discovery of new found strengths and wisdom that has been inside of you since the beginning and now moving you right along to live your dream. It became your own recipe for success and you now know that taking all those risks has paid off for you in many different ways.

 

December 22, 2012