NormsMilfordBlog

It’s a Monday. Time to get back to work. Today’s graphic reminds us that we need to “work on” our dreams, too.

Dreams don’t become reality without putting in the work necessary to achieve them. Too often we let dreams become illusive because we never put the work in to achieve them. They remain out there, just beyond our grasp because we believe it would be too hard or take too long to actually achieve them.

Don’t let yourself get caught in that mental trap. If you have a dream that you really want to achieve, you need to treat it like anything else that you need to get done – with planning, commitment, patience and perseverance.

As you prepare for the week ahead at your job, also plan for what steps you might be able to take this week to achieve your dream. They may be little steps or steps that are just enablers to achieving your dream, but they are steps forward, steps towards realizing the dream. If you don’t include them in your plans for how you will spend your time this week, you will look back on Friday and realize that you didn’t make any progress towards that dream. If you do plan the time and then actually do the things that you plan to do, you can look back and celebrate another step towards the dream.

The funny thing is that the time that you spend working on your dream won’t feel like work. Instead, it will feel like accomplishment. Even if you are many steps away from your end goal, you can take pride in having accomplished a few more steps forward this week.

So, get to work making a living, but also get to work on achieving your dreams.

 Have a great week ahead.

I started this week with yet another “chase your dreams” post (see https://normsmilfordblog.com/2023/05/01/dont-stop-thinking-start-doing/). I think it is important to always be striving towards achieving your dreams. That does not mean that you need to become a “heads-down”, super-focused person who is unable to laugh.

I also believe that finding ways to laugh and be less serious about life will add years to your life.  As a society, Americans have become way too serious about everything – unable to find the humor in everyday life and unable to find forgiveness for others and acceptance of differences with others.

A sense of humor seems to be missing from our political scene these days. Instead of a chuckle and the thought, “where do they get these clowns?”, we have taken their bizarre behavior and ridiculous statements way too seriously. Perhaps it is because they seem to be having an outsized impact on political decisions that impact our daily lives. In any event, the fringe people on both sides of the political spectrum have become less humorous and much more threatening. Perhaps if you start imagining them again as the clowns that they are it might help. If you just stop and listen to some of their ridiculous statements, you can’t help but laugh. These are not serious people and you should not take them seriously.

So. What are we to do? You can start by taking my advice from past posts to make a funny face in the mirror to start your day. Taking that moment to break out of your serious mode can lighten your mood considerably. Being serious does not always mean being stern or angry looking. Instead of walking around looking like you are passing a kidney stone; try walking around looking like you just heard a good joke or just got good news. People will see your smile or hear your chuckle and want to engage you to find out why you are so happy.

It’s mid-week as I write this, so stop and have a good laugh to help you get through the rest of the week. Stop and take a look in the mirror. Make a funny face and have a laugh. Seriously, stop and have a good laugh.

Start the week on a positive note. I’ve noticed that this is a recurring theme and tha’s a good thing.

Far too many people begin each week by imagining reasons why they can’t achieve their dreams – they make up excuses for not even trying.

Successful people begin their week by reassessing where they are and thinking about what the next steps may be to making progress towards their dream. They revisit their dream as a long-term goal and then dedicate themselves to the short-term tasks at hand which must be accomplished to make progress towards the dream.

At the end of the day or the week they look back and see progress being made. They are happy to have been able to accomplish whatever smaller tasks were needed to make progress towards the ultimate goal – the dream. Sometimes, just like when you take the wrong path through a maze; they must admit that they have been pursuing a dead-end path and must back up and start anew. It is in those times that the strength of your commitment to the dream is most important.

If you have a dream that you cannot stop thinking about, turn that dream into a goal and then spend some time thinking about the things that must be accomplished in order to achieve that big goal. Make those things the little goals that you can accomplish in a day or a week or a month and t out to achieve that little goal. Celebrate those little wins and keep moving forward.

Keep thinking about your dream and start doing…

OK. It’s a Monday. You have the weekend behind you and the work week ahead of you. If you spent a part of the weekend dreaming about a better or different life; or maybe you just decided that something must change in your life; now is the time to turn those dreams into goals and those goals into plans.

Most people’s dreams are not small or insignificant things. They involved large, long-terms change. That may make them seem to be unachievable. The key to success in achieving your dreams is to break them down into smaller, more achievable steps and then commit to taking those steps and sticking with the process until you have achieved the whole dream.

For most just the process of writing things down will help. It provides them with a “To Do” list of things that they need to do and a check-off list that they can use to mark their progress. Writing thigs down will also help you see where you still have big chunks that need to be further broken up into achievable steps (goals).

Sometimes going through this process of breaking a big dream up into smaller steps and writing down the steps that you must go through to achieve that dream will cause you to rethink that dream and decide that it isn’t something that you want to put in the effort to achieve. That’s OK, too. Not all dreams should be taken past the wishful thinking phase anyway. What you’ve really done is to evaluate that the end result is not worth the effort that would be required.

Don’t stop dreaming. Just take the time to consider what would be required to turn you dream into an achievable plan. If it still seems like something that you want to do, then execute the plan. Dreaming is good. Planning how to achieve that dream is better. Successfully executing your plans is the best.

Dream on.