Are You Ready To Dream Again? Your Brain Is!

Dreams can be challenging. The dreams that inspire, engage, and ultimately define your life that is.

Don’t you wish you had a roadmap to help you identify, understand, and accomplish them?

Whether you realize it or not, everyone has these types of dreams, and for the most part we tend to think more about “how to achieve” them versus “what” they actually are. Unfortunately, there is no 10 step program to accomplishing your wildest dreams, defining them, or even how to think about them appropriately. However, in this blog we’d like to help you identify a few ways you can understand your goals more effectively.

“It’s crucial that you understand that organizing your dreams as goals before trying to accomplish them actually works in unison with how your brain functions.”

Even if you think of yourself as scatterbrained, your brain has an enormous capacity for storing information in a tidy way; your brain desires specificity. Thus, as you can imagine, one of the greatest stressors on the brain is indecision. In short, you must make your dreams practical so they can be organized within your brain, and executed by your person.

Creating specific “dream” plans will help with this process. We call it The Post-it Challenge.

The first step is to purchase Post-it’s of all colors and start to write down all of your dreams, old and new, along with your goals. Put them everywhere. Your car, your journal, your mirrors, your fridge, your desk. Yes, your family might think you’ve gone insane, but this is the good kind of insane. Your brain is dreaming again and the ideas will be flowing more than ever.

You may find that you’re shy at first, writing down things that are relatively easy to accomplish. Don’t be afraid to write down the outlandish things; the things that seem impossible. Laugh at yourself, surprise yourself with your dreams! And don’t worry about the how. The key, for now, is to get your desires out of your brain and onto something tangible. If you want some guidance, focus on goals and dreams in these areas: 

• Professional Life
• Physicality
• Spirituality
• Intimacy
• Family
• Friends
• Home
• Adventure
• Growth

Your ideas may seem random at first, but remember the mind is always looking for patterns. As you continue to add to these notes you may start to see how they work together. You may need to throw some away, add new ones. Or, you might have created the most honest list right away and start to work with it. There are no rules here. The only rule is - do it.

Make the space for dreaming in your life.

Once you get past the no rules stage and your ideas start to slow down (this may take months), become acquainted with your Post-it notes. Spend time reading them, thinking over them, seeing them everyday. And then the organization begins. Under each category (work, family, adventure..etc) write specific goals. More Post-it notes appear. Write huge goals that may take years to accomplish and write smaller goals that can lead you towards those larger goals. The point being that the smaller goals are action steps you can take now, and the larger goals are malleable and able to change over time as you change over time.

You may think this is silly but these steps of writing down what was previously stored in your head and in your heart are magic. By investing time in exploring your wants and desires, you’re beginning to unpack new and exciting goals and dreams. These realizations will lead you to people, places, and connections you may never have made otherwise.

The founder of the Applied Neuroscience Institute, Dr. William Larkin says, “Everything happens from a point of decision.” This is one of the most true things I have ever read. If you want to make a huge decision to change your life in any area, starting with the small decisions could change everything for you.

Are you ready to start taking action on your dreams? Schedule a one-on-one strategy session here.

Crossing Your Own Career Chasm

It is the all-consuming question that every human has asked, in one form or another - “What is it that I truly want?” or “Where do I want my career to end up?” Not only have I heard this hundreds of times, but I have asked myself it many times in many different seasons of life. There is this nudge inside everyone pushing them in a certain direction. Whether that is towards the arts, entrepreneurial endeavors, building a family, travel, or running after a career, whatever your heart is pulled towards matters. Another common thing I hear is people doubting their desires in life. There is an overwhelming belief that desires, or passions, should be stuffed down and ignored in order to succeed. This is a lie. Many believe that what they really love should be a side hobby, only invested in from time to time, and that they must work in fields they dislike in order to make money and feel successful.

So, today I want to talk about your positive mind. How positive are you that you know what you want, and that you will get it? Are you aware of how you feel on a subconscious level about your life as a whole? Do you look at your life with the belief that you deserve what you desire - or do you believe it will be a disappointment? And even if you lean toward positivity and assurance of knowing what you want, you may still be asking, “How do I get there?”

Think back to infamous scene in Indiana Jones The Last Crusade. He’s standing at the edge of a cliff, his map has brought him there. Looking out to where he needs to be, and the deep chasm between the spaces, he begins to doubt. Had he gone the wrong way? How was he supposed to surpass the chasm between where he is and where he needs to be? But he knew that he knew that he knew where he was supposed to be. So his faith helped him make the impossible choice, to take a step into the empty airspace over the chasm. Surely, he would fall to his death...wouldn't he? But as soon as he stepped out, a rock appeared. And then another, and then another. Together, the rocks made a bridge for Indiana Jones to get where he needed to be. Where he knew he was supposed to be.

Are you so certain that you were made to be somewhere specific that you would take that kind of risk? Here are a few key questions you can ask yourself on this journey:

1. What do I really want?
2. Do I believe I can attain that?
3. How open am I to receive what I want?

You truly come to recognize what you desire out of life by growing your positive mind. None of us would achieve goals if we constantly had thoughts like, “I could never do that.” or “I’m not smart enough to get there.” or “No one will support me.” And yet, we often have subconscious thoughts very similar to this.

As Dr. William Larkin says, “There is no sense in finding a new job or a new relationship if you take the same discontent with self and the same unrealistic baggage to the next destination. Sometimes you just have to do that to learn, but most of the time, it’s really not necessary and an enormous waste of time and resources.”

If you’re still unsure of yourself, take a look at this.

Recognizing your desires and playing to your strengths will offer you a lifetime of fulfillment and aliveness. Combining your true desires with belief and openness can lead you there.

For more strategies on how to play to your strengths at work, read more here.