“If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing
you have to do is wake up.” — Anonymous

We all have dreams, and I don’t mean the kind we have at
night.  They can be anything from swimming the Atlantic
Ocean to winning the lottery to receiving the Nobel Prize
to learning a new language.  There are as many different
dreams as there are people…times ten.

While dreams might be ephemeral in themselves, there is one
real fact about them, and it is embodied in the quote at
the top of this article.  While a dream MIGHT come true by
accident or some happy combination of circumstances, to
MAKE a dream come true, we first have to wake up and DO
SOMETHING.  Simply sitting around waiting for a dream to
come true is no more effective than hoping to win the
lottery because someone gives us a ticket.  While that
scenario could play out in real life, most lottery winners
had to first actually buy a ticket.

However, just as buying a ticket, or a lot of tickets, in a
lottery does not guarantee our success; life does not
provide us any guarantee that we will achieve our dreams
just because we start doing the things that will probably
be required to get us there.  On the other hand, just as
our chances of winning the lottery improve with the number
of tickets we are able to buy, our chances of achieving our
dreams grows as we take more steps towards our goal.

Some steps that can be taken include setting goals towards
the accomplishment of our dream, learning and refining
skills that might help us, enlisting the aid of those who
might be in a position to help us, and, perhaps of the most
importance, persevering in our quest.

GOALS:  We humans are goal-oriented creatures.  Just as we
are more likely to arrive at a physical destination if we
know where we are going, having goals allows us to have a
path to follow to the accomplishment of our dream.  Once we
have set goals to guide us, we will begin to notice events,
information, and people that can aid us.

SKILLS:  We cannot become a champion runner until we learn
to walk first.  Once we learn to walk, running may come
naturally, but running in a championship manner is
something that has to be learned and practiced.
Additionally, a champion in almost any field has to learn
other skills or talents which complement the attainment of
the dream.  Turning to sports once more, our championship
runner will have to pay attention to nutrition, get the
right amount of sleep and rest, and may need to learn
exercises not specifically linked to the sport but which
will improve performance.

OTHERS:  Many times, we will be able to find coaches or
mentors who can help guide us on our path, just as a runner
may need a coach who knows about the training required to
compete at a professional level.  Others may simply provide
a shoulder to cry on when we are down and certain that
there is no way we can ever succeed.  Some coaches or
mentors can be found in books, by the way.  If you are not
sure how to get to where you want to go, read the
biographies of a couple of people who did make it.

PERSERVERANCE:  There are many, including myself, who say
that one of the most important factors in success is simply
the good old ability to stick to it, no matter how rough
the road or far away the target is.  Almost every field of
human endeavor is replete with stories of those of ordinary
skill and intelligence who reached the apex of their field
just by not giving up.

Since I began this article with a quote, I will leave you
with three:

“Eighty percent of success is showing up.” — Woody Allen:

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t
work.” — Thomas Edison:

“Ah, nothing is too late, Till the tired heart shall cease
to palpitate. Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles Wrote
his grand Oedipus, and Simonides Bore off the prize of
verse from his compeers, When each had numbered more than
fourscore years.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from
Morituri Salutamus

—————————————————-
Donovan Baldwin is a Dallas area writer. He is a University
of West Florida alumnus, a member of Mensa, and is retired
from the U. S. Army. You can find more insights on
motivation and other self-improvement topics at
http://web-home.ws/self-improvement/ .

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 11:06 am and is filed under Motivation, Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.