The Most Important Part Of Chasing Your Dreams
Note from Kimanzi: I will be in New York on business this week (super excited, first trip to NYC!), while I'm gone two of my friends will be moderating any comments. The two friends are: Chaka Dillon El (http://www.facebook.com/#!/Scientificmindsrecords) and William Haeflinger (http://www.facebook.com/#!/HaefsBarbecue)
The most important part of chasing your dream is to take action!
Before you can chase your dreams you have to know what they are and make sure these truly are your dreams, I suggest taking a lot of time to pray, think, meditate and talk it over with the person that is closet to you. If you are going to make changes that could radically affect your life you have to be sure of what your dreams are.
After you have figured out what those dreams, it's time to plan and do the research, too many times we approach things without a plan and end up crashing and burning because of it. You're smarter than the rest, so you will research exactly what you need to make your dreams happen, all the details. You will then take that information and make a solid step by step plan, planning as much as you can for anything unexpected.
Those steps are important but mean absolutely nothing if you don't take action!
After all the planning and enough research to know exactly what you're doing, you have to take some king of action. All of the planning and research will be in vain if you keep making excuses and don't move forward. Here are a few tips to help you take action:
Start slowly. You don't have to accomplish your dreams in one day, the smartest way to do it is to start gradually. If you want to write a book, then start the introduction. If you want to lose weight, exercise for 20 minutes, you get the point. When you move to fast you run the risk of falling down, and when you fall down you get extremely tempted to give up. When you move slower you're more likely to see the bumps in the road before you hit them, when you get to them you'll have a lot more time to react. We always in a rush these days, slow down and form habits that will help you live out your dreams.
Ignore doubt. No matter how well you planned, how much research you've done or any success you've had, doubt will always be there. You have to realize doubt is only trying to stop you and you have to ignore it. Be careful because doubt can come from all kinds of places, family, friends, and especially yourself. Don't let doubt keep you from following your dreams, life is too short and your dreams are too important.
Don't give up. Even when you have a failure or set back, you can't give up. Even when it seems like your dreams are stupid and everybody else is telling you they are, don't give up. Even when you're tired and you just don't have any gas left in the tank, don't give up. God has put certain things in your heart and mind for a reason and you have to do whatever it takes to live out those reasons. It sucks when you fail, I get that but it sucks even more to live a life full of regret, trust me. Don't give up, push forward and make this the year you finally chase your dreams.
I don't know where you are right now in the process but no matter what you have to take action.
After you do take action, don't get comfortable
For the last years (11 years) I have been in a job that I absolutely hate, I can't even sugar coat it. I have a close group of friends that are at similar jobs and they feel the same way. We deliver all day so to pass the time we all talk, pretty much our whole shift, we all have bluetooth devices for our phones. We talk about anything and everything but the thing that dominates most of our conversation is talk about chasing our dreams and leaving these jobs we hate.
To be honest I would have to say we have talked about doing different things towards our dreams for the last 3 years. We would get an idea and tell the group, we would get reassure that it was a good idea and we would tell each other that we will look into it. That looking into things goes on for weeks and weeks later when asked we had an excuse as to why it wouldn't work. We repeated this routine for the last 3 years until last summer.
I can't explain what happened except to say maybe we just got "sick and tired of being sick and tired". I knew I wanted to write so I started writing my first book, my friend Chaka loves music, so he started recording his first CD. My friend Will loves BBQ and started working on that as a business, my brother David wanted to start an online clothing store so he bought a shipment of clothes.
Do you see what happened and what the difference was? We took action!
Since we have taken action it hasn't been a fairy tale story, but it has started us on the path we should have been on three years ago. We have learnt and grown so much and had to re-plan, research more and ask for help but we are all on the path to our dreams and it feels good! Now when we talk it's all strategy and it's intentional, no more excuses. We keep each other accountable and call the other person out when we're slipping, it's has been a true blessing.
If you are doing what we used to do, stop making excuses and take some kind of action, take the first steps. It won't be easy, it won't be fun but you will be one more step closer to your dreams. Once you've taken the first steps, keep going, don't get stuck in the same comfortable spot (that's dangerous!).
Have you taken action? Will you take action?
