In my last few posts, I’ve talked about creating your own luck and making an impact in this world—for yourself, your family, and your community. In case you missed them, your mindset is the key factor in determining your success or limitations.
One of my favorite sayings is, ‘Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.’ You see, dreaming and limitations go hand-in-hand. If you believe you have limitations, then your dreams will be circumscribed by those limitations and you’ll never enable yourself to dream bigger.
In each of my most important successes in life, the key was not giving up on a dream. And the key to not giving up on a dream is understanding why you want to make that dream come true. These dreams don’t happen overnight. It takes time and focus to dream up ideas, and then it takes even longer to make the dream come true.
This is the single most important first step in making any dream come true. You must understand the importance of the dream to you. Dig into the ‘why’ behind your dream. Ask yourself why you should commit your most precious resource to pursuing your dream.
To achieve success, you first need to know how to dream. You can’t take action without a dream to follow. And to dream big dreams, to dream dreams that Fire YOU UP, you need to learn how, and the bigger the dreams the better.
The problem is, most people don’t allow themselves time to dream. They don’t ask the ‘what’ questions. Great dreams come from great questions. The better the questions, the more exciting your dreams! I wasn’t born with these ideas to succeed or come pre-programmed with right actions to pursue. I learned that there is a methodology to success.
I started by asking the question, ‘What would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail?’ Think about that question—I mean really think about it, without any limitations. That’s harder to do than you might think, because whether you like it or not, your brain has already come to accept limitations that have been imposed by other people.
One of the most important elements in dreaming is to dream without limitations, to dream with reckless abandon, to dream as if no one is watching or judging you. Dreaming is very personal—it’s what makes you, you. But to dream big dreams, you have to dream without limits—and that can be hard when you’ve grown up learning the rules of your house, the rules at school, the rules at work.
You have only two limitations in life—number one: your imagination; and number two: your determination. No one, and I mean no one, decides your limitations. You and you alone decide what you can or can’t do. Don’t accept a limitation unless you’ve proven to yourself that it’s your own limitation, and even then you don’t have to accept it.
Let’s start with finding your passion. How do we find it? It’s hard, but it’s not as complicated as you think. Get out a piece of paper and retrace your life from the very beginning all the way to the present, noting all the things that have attracted you—things that you’ve gotten excited about. Is it Sports? Is it playing offense or defense? Is it art, singing, drawing, music, dancing? Is it math, science, astronomy? What is it? In everything you’ve done throughout your life, you’ve gravitated toward something. Write it down. That’s understanding your path.
In a related post, I spoke about the Trinity—Passion, Purpose and Power. You can start on the purpose side or the passion side, but you need both to make it work like two oars in the water. So, when you’re doing your reflection on finding all your passions in your life, you’ll likely find them interconnected. And, if you’re feeling stuck in your progress or pursuit of your dreams, remember your ‘why’ and tap into your source of inspiration.
I have a framework of actions to succeed at anything that you can find in my book, Be Unstoppable. However your past has shaped you, your future is yours to shape—and if you want to shape it for success, stay connected with me for ways to achieve your dreams.