What’s your dream? Do you want to travel the world, build a cabin in the woods and spend the rest of your life there, or run for a political office? Everyone has dreams, but far fewer fulfill them. The steps below can help you change that.
Set Your Intention
The first step in achieving your dream is one you can do right now, which is to write it down. State it as clearly, succinctly, and concretely as possible, and write it on whatever is handy, whether that’s a piece of paper, a bit of napkin or anything else. Decide that you’re finally going to pursue that dream once and for all whatever obstacles get in your way. Later on, whether it’s today or tomorrow, you can add some ceremony to the process if you desire, doing something special to mark the occasion, but the important thing right now is to get the ambition down in print.
Start Investing
If you’re one of the lucky few whose dream doesn’t require any money, you might not need this advice, but for the vast majority of people, this is one of the big obstacles to pursuing a dream. Real estate can seem like a great way to make some money, but being a landlord is tough and time-consuming. You might prefer to purchase shares in a property instead of owning it outright, which still produces income. For long term investments, real estate can actually be a better bet than stocks. You can start building a financial base through investments so that when you are ready, you have the money that you need.
Goal Setting
It might not seem very glamorous, but goal setting is an important element for achieving your dream. You might wonder why you need to set goals when you’ve already written down your dream, but that’s only the destination. If you want to create a success driven business mission, that cannot be done in one swoop. You need to figure out how to get there, and that’s where short, medium, and long-term goals come in. Make a list of all the steps that you need to take to achieve your dream, and write down sub-steps under those if necessary. You can work backwards to where you are now. If you want to be a veterinarian, you need to go to vet school. However, before that, you need to complete an undergraduate degree, and prior to that, you need to figure out which college is best to attend and how you will pay for it. Each of these branches into its own small list of what you need to do, and soon you will have a kind of road map to help you reach your goals.
Fill Your Days
In the end, whoever you are and whatever you hope to achieve, your life is the sum of what you do on each day. It won’t help to write down the big dream if you don’t live it daily, taking small meaningful steps to draw closer to it. Rewards can help with motivation, but ultimately, this is about making a change in how you live your life on an ongoing basis.