January 28, 2008

Dreams and Deadlines

I’ve been writing, as I often do, about Goals. And until last weeks’ course (my 21 Awesome Results course) I didn’t realize that I had left out a key phrase – it’s become a slogan. Here it is: A Goal is a Dream with a Deadline.

Sounds cutesy… But last week, I suggested to a client – in seeking a new career – that she should look at what she loves. “I love dancing,” she said… And then said she would love to open a dance studio… And then said, “It’s always been my dream. ---But I couldn’t do that.”

After some back and forthness, I asked her to consider making that one of her goals. And I saw that many of us often suppress our most cherished dreams – that we’d rather keep them as dreams than dare to go for them – as if the possibility of failing to achieve the goal would kill the dream.

But even failing to achieve the dream opens new territory… discovering support systems, discovering hidden resources…Discovering new dreams.

It’s now one of her goals. She overcame habitual fear, and her joy at actually going for it after years of hiding it is transformational.

Useful Quotes

The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.
Anais Nin

 The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward
Amelia Earhart

 I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain

 There is nothing like a dream to create the future.
Victor Hugo

Creative Corner

Michael Lipp

I Dare You
I dare you; I dare you;
I double dog dare you
No. I won’t make that challenge;
I’ll spare you.

You don’t half to climb that mountain
and slide back down.
You don’t have to jump and fly
from that plane and into that cloud
You don’t even have to
speak to all those people,
to that whole crowd.

All you ever have to do
Is simply give away your dream
And make it real

 I have four blogs:

Creating Today - A daily journal on creativity
Contributing Coaching - Creating New Futures
Blogging for the Reading - Making a Difference in how we Create
Michael's Articles - articles that don't fit anywhere else.

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