Friday, April 08, 2011

INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK

41 ways to take your dreams more seriously…

1. Commit to your dreams. Either you are going to take them seriously or you aren’t. There is not really an in-between on this. Decide that you are going to do whatever it takes to complete your dreams. Commit now to take your dreams seriously. Commit now to do everything in your power to make them happen. Commit now to never give up.
2. Clarify your dreams. Sometimes our dreams just aren’t clear enough for us to take them seriously. You may have a vague idea, of a direction you might want to start moving in but you just aren’t sure what that would look like, or even what you would want it to look like. Set aside ten minutes to an hour. Sit down with pen and paper, and ask yourself what your dream life would look like. Be as detailed as possible.
3. Make time for your dreams. The only time you are guaranteed to have is time that you make for yourself. Pull out your calendar, and set at least one hour a week to work on your dreams. It doesn’t even have to be all at once. One way you could reach this goal would be 10 minutes a day 6 days a week. Even if it is just a little bit of time each day, you will still be better off than if you had made no time at all for your dreams. Make it clear to your friends and family that you are not to be disturbed during this time. If you can’t make that because you are doing all the chores in the house, than delegate some of your work to someone else. You need time to rest, and you need time to work on your dreams.
4. Cut out distractions. Anything that is not as important as your dream needs to wait until you have at least put some work in your dreams. Example of this would be tv shows which can either be recorded or watched online, checking your e-mail, messaging and twitter. Those can all be set aside for a later time; they aren’t going anywhere. Turn off your phone, turn off any application that you don’t need running, and put the extra focus that you have now gathered up in to your dreams.
5. Break it down in to habits. Any dream worth completing is going to take time, and practice. The best way to practice is to build a habit. For example one of my dreams is to get good enough at blogging to turn it in to a full time career. The habits required for this, are taking it seriously, writing every day, networking consistently, and constantly learning things worth hearing about. Once you have your list of habits see if you can break them down in to more habits. In order for me to network, I have to keep in contact with people, so I have to make that a habit. I also have to take time to put myself out there. These aren’t difficult steps, and I spend a month on each habit that I want to build, strictly focused on that habit. It takes a while, but every day that I continue to work on those habits I am one step closer to my dreams. It gives me a success to celebrate daily.
6. Define success for yourself. This goes back to clarifying your dreams. What would success look like? Why would it look like that? You have to set your own standards for what each of your successes are.
7. Set several small goals. This will build your confidence, and teach you one of the most important things you need to know for taking your dreams seriously; that you can.
8. Celebrate small victories. If you have finished building one of the habits that you need for your dreams than treat yourself. Go out to eat, grab a candy bar, sit down and watch a movie, just something to reward yourself for completing your goal. Also make sure to keep a list where you can write down each victory as you gain it. This will be useful on the days when you are not sure if your dreams are really worth taking seriously. Heck, even if you’ve just done something for the first time. Celebrate.
http://www.thehappyself.com/41-ways-to-take-your-dreams-seriously

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