Dreams

In no other time in history has it been easier to let our lives run us, rather than us run our lives.  

We get so caught up with making a living, that we forget about making our life. 

We don’t just not make time to set goals anymore, we don’t even make time to think and dream about what we really want!  Rather than ask those deep complex personal questions to ourselves, we choose what seems like the easier road at that moment, staying busy and continuing with our current living (Technologies help us with this cause!).  This approach works…until it doesn’t.  

Each one of us has our own limit, a place where our necessity to live with purpose, begins to outweigh our current life of comfort.  But, back to the importance of planning for that dream life…

Planning and goal setting is a necessary piece of the success formula.  Despite what our culture seems to tell us, we don’t just “make it” someday.  Acquiring the life we truly want takes work…but it can be fun work! 

Creating plans and writing out goals is the easy part.  It’s fun.  When we do it, it makes us temporarily feel productive and safe even.  The difficult part for all of us is then finding the persistent want and drive to then take these ideas on paper, and bring them to life.  That is where dreaming, or visualization, comes into play.

Dreaming and visualization is what creates our emotional fuel, it is what gives our goals and wants energy.  Dreaming is what allows us to experience and feel what is possible, it brings our goals to life.  Dreaming is what connects our mind with our heart, an absolute must.

When things get tough, or when things don’t go our way, it is our emotional state that will dictate whether or not we push through or not on our goals.  Emotions begin with thoughts, and you can control your thoughts.  

When you wake up in the morning, you always want the weight of your past to be outweighed by the pull of your future. 

Dreaming is what strengthens the pull.

WEEKLY THOUGHT

On the first day of practice with his new team, Jim Valvano, the late legendary North Carolina State College basketball coach did something that changed the trajectory of both his life and his players.  

Like every other coach in America, Jim’s goal was to win a national championship.  That was a tall order for NC State in those days.  They were just a middle of the pack team playing in arguably the best conference in the nation at the time, the ACC. 

Jim was an emotional and energetic Italian man who was already living his dream…so why not dream some more?  Jim felt in his heart that his team could win a National Championships, but how could he get the team to share that same belief?

When a team win’s a National title, it is customary for each player to climb a ladder and cut down a piece of the net.  This is where Jim’s dream concluded, now he needed his players to see the same ending.

On that first day of practice, his players came out on the court to find no basketballs.  There was nothing that resembled a normal basketball practice.  Instead in the gym that day, the only two things to be found were a ladder under the basket…and some scissors.  That was it. 

Jim had every one of his players that day climb the ladder, cut down a piece of the net, wave to the crowd, and feel what it was like to be a champion.  He was giving their dreams fuel, he was letting the players experience his dream.  2 years later that team did what nobody thought they could do, they won the National title and cut down the nets.

Knowing what you truly want is one thing, but feeling what you want in your heart opens the door to amazing things.  When was the last time you thought about the things you really want in life?  When was the last time you visualized what those things would truly feel like?  

Start dreaming.  Life is short.