*** The Top Ten Reasons People Don’t Live Their Dreams and How To Overcome Them

Why do people sit day dreaming instead of taking action and living their dreams? There are many excuses and reasons for not living your dreams, but there are also ways to move the excuses out of the way and move into action. Living your dreams is so much more powerful than day dreaming them. The top reasons we hear for day dreaming instead of putting dreams into action and into your life are:

1. I can’t figure out how to make it happen
2. I get distracted by everyday life
3. I’m scared I will fail and not succeed
4. I lose track of the dream
5. My friends and family keep telling me it’s not feasible, that I’m crazy!
6. I don’t have the support to do it
7. I have other obligations and commitments
8. I’ll get to it tomorrow
9. I’m not really clear what it is that I want
10. I don’t have the resources – time, energy, funding....
11. I don’t have a plan
12. I don’t see it as even in the realm of possibilities

Do any of these sound familiar to you? Let’s explore some solutions for each of these.

1. I can’t figure out how to make it happen

This can be challenging. I recommend taking the dream and breaking it down into all of the components. These might be “categories” that are relevant to the dream. Once you have your categories or components take each category and break it into steps. What has to happen in each category? These are small steps. We will use all of these steps later when we craft a plan.

2. I get distracted by everyday life

Create a story of your dream and vision. Write it in great detail as if it is happening right now. Write what you see, what you hear, what you feel, smell, taste. Capture as much of the detail as possible. Once you have it written, read it over. Does it inspire you? If you have done your writing well, reading should give you an energized feeling of inspiration. It also provides you a roadmap – this is where you are going. Read your road map each day. Create a picture of your dream/vision an hang it on your wall where you will see each day, throughout the day. You don’t have to be an artist to create a powerful picture. Draw it or make a collage using magazine pictures.

3. I’m scared I will fail and not succeed

This one is huge. This is one of the many ways that we “get in our own way”. We are fearful. We imagine the worst outcome. Why do we waste so much energy imagining failure and not visualizing success? Just reading your vision everyday and visualizing your success will begin to conquer the fear. It’s also part of your own inner dialogue. Work to be in charge of your inner dialogue, taking control of it. You are in charge and you can choose to tell yourself different things.

4. I lose track of the dream

Writing down your vision and reading it, creating that road map keeps it alive and in front of you.

5. My friends and family keep telling me it’s not feasible, that I’m crazy!

This too is a challenging one to overcome. It seems our friends and family would want us to be happy, successful, living the life we want. The ideal isn’t always the reality we are living with. Sometimes those that care the most about us aren’t the best support people. There are several things that you can do:

• Talk with your friends/family that aren’t supportive and let them know about your desire and passion for living the dream, for bringing it into your life. Tell them about how you see your life changing, and the positive outcomes you anticipate. And then, ask them for their support. Remind them that they care about you and your happiness and that their support means a great deal to you.
• Form a mastermind group or support group that will support your new efforts. Meet with them in person or on the phone each month (at least) to report on how you are doing and what progress you have made. In a mastermind group each person will also report on their goals and their actions and you have the opportunity to support them as well. When I designed a cross country bicycle tour I asked several experienced touring cyclists to be on an advisory committee for me. They reviewed my route, my plan, my overall goal. They pointed out some key mistakes that I was making and not aware of. They also brought additional resources to the table with contacts across the country and experience. It was well worth it to have them work with me. I found that it also kept me on track, because I knew they were coming and that I had to have some work done to make it worth their time and effort.
• Reach beyond your typical circle and gather support from outside your circle.

6. I don’t have the support to do it

I think we’ve really covered it above with friends and family. By talking about your vision and dream you can gather support from unexpected places. People will reach out to you to help you. But if you aren’t talking about it everywhere you go, then they don’t know and they can’t offer anything.

7. I have other obligations and commitments

You certainly have to look at your obligations and commitments and figure out how you can create the life you want while honoring your commitments. I always think of children and family here. As parents we are committed to our children and we should be, but are there ways to fulfill your dream within your life? Can you prioritize things differently? Can you change your path while still being a good parent? I know for myself I decided to start a business. I have two children. Me, quitting my job had a huge impact on our lifestyle. Starting a business has had a huge impact on our lifestyle, but we prioritized it and committed to it and have figured out how to make it happen and succeed!

8. I’ll get to it tomorrow

Procrastination. At some point, if you really want to live this dream you have to commit to it and make it happen. Commitment is the key to procrastination.

9. I’m not really clear what it is that I want

I have used guided visualization and meditation to get clearer and clearer on what I want. Visit my website to get a free guided visualization for realizing your dream.

10. I don’t have the resources – time, energy, funding....

I have found that in many cases you don’t need all of the resources right away to realize a dream. Who does have them? Not many of us. We begin our work on realizing the dream step by step and we gather the resources along the way. We start with a passion for the dream and a commitment to make it happen.

11. I don’t have a plan

I recommend crafting a plan that is broken into the small steps you have to take to realize a dream. Taking small steps get you where you are going. I break the dream into categories or components and then take each of those and break those into smaller steps. I look at each area and identify what steps I can take each day or week. I find the things I am working on usually have several components or areas that need to be addressed. For instance with the cross country bike trip, there was the route, the accommodations, the support (bike shops, medical facilities), the service stops.... and many other areas. I needed to be moving each area forward at the same time. With my business it is the same way, there is the actual “work” of the business and then there is marketing, financial management, administrative management of the business and more...

12. I don’t see it as even in the realm of possibilities

To make a dream happen you have to see it as possible and believe in your self and trust that it is what is right. Crafting that vision statement that I talked of earlier and reading everyday will help you to bring it more and more into your reality and into the realm of possibilities. You will find that you are so excited by your dream story that you are inspired each day to take action.

I love realizing dreams. I believe that you have to have commitment; you must be willing to risk, and trust that you are doing the right thing, and through it all you must be courageous because it is scary to walk into new territory. But it is also a wonderful adventure, seeing what is around the next bend or over the next horizon. Dreams take us to new places and new doors open and new things emerge. When we sit where we are daydreaming, our world remains the same, stagnant. Taking action to realize your dream moves your whole world