Live Your Daydream

Are you Living Your Daydream?  If not, what is holding you back? You have dreams. We all do. We have big dreams and small dreams. And we all daydream.

Small dreams can be dreams of owning a new car someday or taking that vacation you have been saving up for. Big dreams might be to go back to school, get a master’s degree, be the boss at your workplace or take music lessons. These are the safe dreams we feel comfortable talking about to other people.

Daydreams Are Important

Then there are daydreams. Daydreams are described as a way to reduce stress, relax or take a mental break from whatever it is you are doing.

I believe they are much more than that. I believe they are a preferred state of being and a place where you would much rather be than where you are. If only you could get there.

I believe they are a message from your soul that is telling you that what you are doing, where you are, is not your heart’s desire.

They can help you accomplish that short relief from stress and need for relaxation, but they have an important message for you.

Close your eyes and imagine yours. And I don’t want you to try to imagine the small dreams. I want you to imagine the mega audacious dreams you are afraid to tell other people about because you think they will laugh at you. The ones you try to dream about when you go to sleep at night.  You know the ones I mean. Do you daydream of a life in a tropical paradise, a huge house, a better relationship, sailing around the world, or starting a business. You can live those dreams if you want them bad enough. 

Now, think about the dreams you had when you were 20. Maybe they are still the ones you dream about today. What happened to those dreams? What got in the way?

Over the years in my practice as a therapist, I discovered that most people had something happen to them that robbed them of the belief they had as a child – a belief they could do anything, like be an astronaut, a sports or rock star, run a country or a company. Live on an island or own an island and a yacht and live in a mansion, or a grass hut if that is more to your liking.

I had dreams that got lost. My life was full of heartache and pain. It took me a while to figure out why I wasn’t living my daydream. But I did with the help of good people along the way. 

Because of what I am about to share with you, I now love getting up in the morning, love what I do and love sharing what I have learned with others.

This isn’t about having a dream and trying to wish your way to a better life. Nor is it about believing if you have a vision of a yacht or Lamborghini that they will suddenly appear because you put it out to the universe. Those types of programs and books will keep you excited and motivated for a week or two, but what I want you to learn is how to get motivated and stay that way because you are focused on the right things for the right reasons.

It is about moving from where you are at, to where you want to be, by making small course corrections and putting into practice what I teach my clients every day. These are practical tools and ones that work.  But they only work if you are willing to do the work.  They worked for me, work for my clients and they will work for you too.

These tools took me from a life of darkness, desperation, and despair to the wonderful life I live today.

Like most people, when I was in my early 20s, I was on fire, I wanted to make my mark – to be successful. I wasn’t sure what that looked like, but I had some ideas and dreams.

I couldn’t know that soon every day, every week, would look just like the one before it. And I sure hadn’t planned on living the same week over and over again and thinking that would be a meaningful life.

I knew I wanted to be successful but didn’t really know what that was, or how to get there.

Does This Sound Like Your Life?

Do you ever feel as though you are just going through the motions? Do you ever feel as though you’re drifting through life without ever really getting any sense of inspiration, engagement, or excitement? Is it hard to get out of bed on some days?  On most days?

Does life sometimes feel like a series of uninteresting chores with today looking just like yesterday and tomorrow?

Or perhaps you are happy and comfortable, but you rarely feel challenged or excited. Maybe you spend most of your evenings on the couch watching TV, surfing the internet or on your social media pages. Or out at the pub with friends.

Maybe you spend your whole life picking up after your children or taking them to lessons, games, or practices. Maybe the children are grown and gone, and you are wondering: “What now?”

What will you be leaving behind when you are gone? What is your legacy?

What Kind Of Life Do You Dream About?

Are you able to imagine having a life that inspires you? A life that inspires others. Instead of looking at social media, television, and movies, wishing you had a life like theirs, why not build one that has others wishing they had a life like yours? Maybe that is beyond your imagination’s capability right now.

The reality is that you can build a life that excites you, motivates you and makes you want to get out of bed.

It doesn’t matter if you aren’t even aware of what it would take to inspire you. Or maybe you already know but can’t seem to make it happen.

Maybe you are ready to make the necessary changes. Maybe you aren’t. I assure you, if you are willing to follow simple principles and you are focused, committed and willing to do the work, your life will change dramatically. But if you aren’t willing to put the effort in, tomorrow will look much like today and next week will look like last week and next year will look like last year.

When you realize you are not living the life you had hoped for, the question is: What are you going to do about it?

I want you to finish this statement. The messages I am hanging onto that are preventing me from living my daydream are….

Myths, False Beliefs and Lies

Often, we fall short of living our daydreams because we buy into one or a number of myths, false beliefs or lies. One of the most common myths is that you need money to be happy.  When I was working building houses in the poorest regions of El Salvador, one of my most startling observations was the amount of absolute joy I saw on the faces of people who were fortunate if they could earn fifty dollars per month. We were building houses out of corrugated steel that were four hundred square feet, with a concrete floor and the gratitude and happiness we would see when we turned over the keys was priceless.

The new owners would have nothing more than a burlap sack to sleep on which would be placed on the concrete floor because they had no beds. No furniture, no electricity, and usually the families only owned one or two pots for cooking their meals on an outside fire. In one village they travelled three miles per day on foot to haul fresh water from the community well.

But the joy and laughter were enough to make your heart swell and your eyes fill with tears. And enough to make me feel guilty for complaining about my abundant life that such a large percentage of the world’s population cannot even begin to imagine. These people were proof that you do not need money to be happy. 

I want to be clear; it is ok for more money to be one of your dreams and goals and if that is part of your desire. I am just pointing out that it is a myth that money equals happiness.

Another is that you need to be highly educated to succeed and build the life of your dreams. 

Walt Disney never graduated from high school. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, graduated high school but dropped out of university. Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, dropped out of high school to pursue his dreams. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, dropped out of college in his first year.

I could go on at length listing people of minimal education who have created amazing lives and legacies. What did they have in common? Vision, commitment, resilience, and desire.

Yet another myth is age. Lots of people believe that if they haven’t achieved their goals by the time they hit middle age, they won’t do it and begin to settle into their circumstances.

Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa at age 77. Colonel Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, at 65 was sleeping in his car and living on his $105 per month social security cheque when he went on the road to start selling franchises.  Certainly not in the same lofty company as those two, I was 52 when I went back to school to train to become a therapist.

These commonly held lies, myths and false beliefs about money, age and education or any number of others, will be obstacles which prevent you from creating a great life if you continue to believe them.

Why Don’t People Live Their Dreams?

Research indicates that only 9% of people achieve their goals. The research isn’t suggesting that 91% of people are just simply not getting there because of lack of desire and commitment.

The reasons people don’t achieve their goals can’t be numerous and some are out of a person’s control like major health issues, or accidents.

Assuming they haven’t experienced a life altering event that prevented them from realizing their potential, in my experience, these are the most frequent reasons people don’t live their daydreams.

1. Most often, goals are too vague. I want to be rich, successful, or live in a mansion aren’t goals by themselves. For a goal to become a reality, there needs to be a plan. A goal without a plan is just a wish. Part of the plan needs to be the discipline to carry it out. Execution is everything. If people aren’t willing to suffer the pain of discipline, they will live with the pain of regret.
2. Shiny Object Syndrome. People with Shiny Object Syndrome are always hopping from one thing to the next, chasing the next great idea. Or they may not even be chasing it. They may simply be distracted by any thing that pops into their line of sight or consciousness. People who suffer from this usually have vague goals and no plan. If your goals are your own, and you are focussed, you will not allow yourself to be distracted.
3. Lack of Patience and Persistence. People who seem like overnight success stories, rarely are. It just seems that way because we have not heard of them until they make the news. We don’t hear of their struggles rising to the top because struggles aren’t newsworthy, until success shines the spotlight on them. When you are struggling to make your dreams come true, think of a toddler learning to walk. A toddler falls down an average of 23 times per hour when they are fist trying to master walking. That’s persistence and patience.
4. Fear of Rejection and Being Judged. This seems like a bit of an odd one, but it really isn’t. You would think living your dream would be about acceptance and everyone being happy for you. Afterall wouldn’t everybody like to be like you when you get there? Nope. Some people when they are starting the climb, find out that people who accepted them before and were their friends, shy away from them and their new highfalutin ideas. Strangely, some will choose to let their dreams go rather than leave the so-called friends behind.
5. Giving Power to Others. This is about not living your life authentically – true to yourself. Many times, family members, friends and other people with influence have their own self-serving reasons to either direct your decisions or even directly tell you what you should or should not be doing. Don’t find yourself in your final days regretting that you listened to them instead of your heart.
6. Lack of Successful Mentors. A true mentor will support you and guide you as you strive to attain your goals. Once you are locked in on your goals, purposefully find a mentor or mentors who have the right experience and expertise to help you achieve your dreams. You may need more than one mentor. If your goals are about building a successful business, you need a business mentor, but you may also need a spiritual mentor or other mentors to help you achieve balance.
7. Bad Company. This shouldn’t need explanation but sadly, it does. I have lots of clients with beautiful dreams and aspirations who hang around with albatrosses thinking they are just harmless friends who won’t keep them from living their daydream. The odd person will rise above, dragging the dead weight with them.  But it is far easier to climb a ladder with successful, fully supportive people above you, cheering you on than it is dragging unnecessary weight behind you. Look at who you spend your time with and ask yourself if they will help you achieve your dreams or not.
8. Focusing on Outcomes. Of course, you must be able to see the daydream, but the focus should not be on the outcome. Focus needs to be on changing behaviours. If you focus on changing behaviours and have a specific plan in place, it is much easier to be present in the small task or tasks of today, or the goal may seem to far away and you may become overwhelmed. If you want to run a marathon, you start gradually and build up to it.
9. Inflexibility. In today’s language it is described as the ability to pivot. The journey to living your daydream will not be a straight line, you must correct your course as necessary to reach your destination. Don’t quit because the wind is blowing from the wrong direction, adjust your sails. It doesn’t mean you won’t get there; it means you are becoming a skilled sailor.
10. Fear of Failure. Some worry they will try to live their daydream and fail. There is greater discomfort in not trying than in being content to live a life of quiet desperation. It is important to keep in mind that a setback and a failure are not the same thing. Developing a mindset of “What can I learn from this?” instead of “Why is this happening to me.” is a character trait of all successful people.
11. No Investment in Continuous Learning.  Free or cheap online courses are a dime a dozen for a reason. Research the right people who can teach you how to do what you want to do or live like you want to live. These are people who have done it or are doing it. Then step up and buy the expensive course or take the training. And I don’t just mean find people who make lots of money. I have lots of unhappy, wealthy clients.
12. No time to work on them.

Stay tuned for the next episode when I tell you how to create the time you need, to learn how to live the life you want to live.

And if you want to learn more about how you can live your daydream, visit the homepage and click on Live Your Daydream.