Your own words are the bricks and mortar of the dreams you want to realize. Your words are the greatest power you have. The words you choose and the use establish the life you experience. -Sonia Croquette
What words do you use when you speak of your dreams?
Do the words and messages that you use depend on who you’re talking to?
Unfortunately for my dreams, I’ve found that they do.
I have great aspirations for this blog and all that I can do to help large numbers of people.
I express this freely to others in the blogosphere, those who understand what I’m doing.
Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that I heavily censor myself when I speak to those who may not know about or understand my online presence – past and present colleagues who only know my corporate persona and family members.
After noticing that I do this, I started to ask myself why.
My answers are something like: They wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t see it as a legitimate business. It wouldn’t hold the same weight in their eyes as a corporate job. I don’t want them to judge me.
Yikes! It appears that I don’t have the self-confidence I thought I had when it comes to people outside of my blogging comfort zone. I’m not really owning my goals and dreams.
There’s wisdom in being selective about the people to whom you reveal your dreams. We don’t want to invite ridicule to dampen our passions.
But how much do we limit our own thinking and dreaming (and acting) by pre-judging those around us and assuming that they can impact our dreams?
By assuming that others will think less of us because of our dreams, we are devaluing our dreams and ourselves.
I had a preconceived notion that anyone in my corporate circles wouldn’t possibly be interested in what I write about. Boy, was I wrong! When I finally opened up and spoke with other people I work with about the concepts I write about, I discovered new, deeper connections with these people.
Time To Get Serious About Your Life
Does your own internal censoring also limit the energy, focus and drive you put behind our dreams? You bet!
The more I’ve been reading about what it takes to create a wildly successful blog and online presence, the more I realize that I’ve been playing at the ‘hobby’ level.
It’s time to get serious. As the old saying goes: Piss or get off the pot. Fish or cut bait.
There are no overnight successes. People create their own luck and success by working their asses off longer than most other people.
They practice their craft every day because they love it and they want to be the best.
If practicing your craft every day sounds like a chore, you probably don’t have the passion to stick with it long enough to be successful. Either figure out how to be passionate about it or find a new craft.
Where’s The Balance?
Of course, if your goal is to simply be happy practicing at your current level, that’s an awesome place to be.
When I push myself hard and stress out about how much more I have to do and how much farther I need to go to get to my definition of success, I sometimes wonder why I’m doing it. If it’s all about the journey, I want to be happy along the way.
In my mind, I’m trying to balance a happy journey with successfully helping thousands of people as quickly as possible, all the while living my highest values.
Is it possible? Definitely. It’s simply a learning process to figure out how.
Simple Steps to Owning Your Dreams
• Get crystal clear about what your dreams are.
• Think about when you’ve realized your dreams. How do you describe yourself to others? What’s your elevator speech**? How do you feel every day?
• Do something – anything – toward your dreams every day. Repeat your elevator speech to yourself.
• Practice your craft every day.
• Be bold enough to tell anyone about your dreams with passion and without concern about how they might judge you.
One day you’ll wake up and notice that you’ve been living your dream without even realizing it. I did.
Live your dreams!
**The Elevator Speech
The next time someone asks what you do, don’t answer with the dull and boring, “I’m a coach, teacher, manager, accountant….” When people hear this, it goes in one ear and out the other, eliciting no response.
What if you could raise an eyebrow of interest when you respond to this question?
Formulate a response that includes the following:
“Do you know how…” (Name two or three problems that are common among your ideal prospects.)
“Well, what I do is…” (Briefly tell them how you solve each of those problems while creating curiosity.)
For example, mine might be: Do you know how people get to a point in their lives when they think they should be happy and they’re not? Well, what I do is show them how they can be happy regardless of their current circumstances.
Most people will respond by asking me how I do this. It starts a conversation.
What’s your “dream life” elevator speech?
Check out my latest guest post at Tess Marshall’s The Bold Life where I describe a gut-wrenching event that happened to me and how I overcame the fear: Fear Is Now My Friend.