How To Chase Your Dreams With a Family (Part 3)
For a long time my wife hated my dream. I would see a little success here and there and tell her about it, but she was so turned off to the dream, that the success didn’t matter.
It was my fault, at first I didn’t involve her or our kids, I just did what had to be done and used any spare time I had to work on my dream.
That’s the problem with chasing your dreams some times, it’s your dream, not your family’s. So why would they want to be a part of something they know nothing about?
Something crazy happened in year two of chasing my dream, I got smart and told my family exactly what my dream was, I laid out the whole plan, then asked them for help. That move made all the difference and is one of the main reasons I’ve seen any success.
Having their help has been invaluable and will be for you as well. As an introvert, I know how hard it is to open up sometimes but amazing things happen when you do.
So we’re moving forward in this series about chasing your dreams with a family. Having a family doesn’t have to stop you from that life that you and they deserve.
We’ve laid the foundation in talking about:
Setting up an emergency fund: You never know what surprises life will throw at you.
Doing extra work: If you need extra income to make your dream a reality.
Truly figuring out what your dream is: It may not happen overnight but be clear.
Doing proper research: If you want to get from point A to point Z, what route will you take?
Start small
I don’t know about you but I’m super inpatient, I want what I want right now! The problem with that is you tend to go big or go home. When you go big, there’s a lot more on the line and things have to work out just right.
When you start small, you don’t need as much and you’re a lot more flexible to change things up if you have to. For example: my good friend wants to open a BBQ restaurant. He could go big and get a large loan to get a building, buy equipment and hiring a bunch of people.
Going that route means his business has to be successful pretty quickly to cover all that overhead. That means going all out to bring those customers in and when they don’t come, things turn desperate and then sloppy.
He would start doing things that he’s not comfortable doing to get business and would start to hate his dream or worse, that dream would crash and burn.
He has wisely decided to start small and opened a small catering business. His overhead is low, very low. He is a one man show, so he only has to worry about himself and he knows that how hard and well he works, determines how successful the business will be.
He has a lot more freedom and can be very flexible if he has to be. He is building up a loyal customer base, one customer at a time. This is the best way to build a business, you get a really strong following this way.
It’s especially important to start small when you have a family, you’re not only trying to take care of yourself but their well-being as well. You wouldn’t want to do something that would put them at risk, would you? Start small and build upon that dream.
Be flexible
We talked about this a little in the previous point but you have to be flexible, you never know what circumstances will come up. Your dream may change and evolve and being stuck in your ways can only hurt your dream.
If you see something isn’t working, be willing to admit that and figure out what’s the next most important step. Keeping an honest, open dialogue with your family can really help you here.
If they’re involved and behind your dream, they’re just as invested as you, so they will give you some good advice. They might also see something you don’t, it’s always good to have an extra pair of eyes helping examine things.
Being flexible means that if something related to your dream affects your family in a negative way, you’re willing to change things up.
Take an action step
If you haven’t already, take one small step forward with your dream. If you want to write a book, write the introduction. If you want to open a restaurant, plan a menu, you get the point.
Take that small step and feel that either and get pumped. Tell your family about that step and if possible, take it with them. They will be your biggest cheerleaders and we all need strong people in our corner.
If you’re already on the dream chasing journey, how can you simplify how you’re going about chasing that dream? How can you go about it smaller? Are you flexible? How much is your family involved?
I hope you take to heart the little challenges at the end of these posts, action is the key!
Have you started small with chasing your dream? Are you flexible?
