You Have The Power To Chase Your Dreams: Here Are Some Practical Tips For Doing It!

Do you constantly feel unhappy, struggling to cope with life’s challenges, or feeling stuck where you are? Worse still, trying to find a value for what you do but you don’t seem to understand? Here are a few things that have helped me turn my life around!

“Unhappy Past” vs. the Current “Work in Progress”: You have the power to change it into “Success”!

Stop Worrying

Don’t let worry trouble you. Just like the pandemic turned the world upside down, there is nothing we can do about what has happened. So, let it go! Worrying causes stress. Research shows that there is a tremendous impact of stress on body function and those who work or live in stressful environments have a higher likelihood of being sick and unhealthy. Practice consciously the art of “not worrying”.

One way to do this is to find some quiet time in your day — a few minutes all to yourself. Consider immersing yourself in prayer or mindfulness meditation. For meditation techniques, using apps can guide you through the process. Listed below are some top meditation apps available online.

• Calm
• Insight timer
• Headspace meditation & sleep
• Ten percent happier meditation
• Buddhify
• Unplug, and
• Simple habit

If you aren’t an app-friendly person, you could turn to good old YouTube for help!

Start Planning

Write down all that you need to do for a day and follow your list faithfully. Apply this same concept to your goals and what you want to achieve in a month, 3 months, 6 months, and so on. Writing down your goals is the best way to remind yourself to achieve them.

How do you do this? Create a vision board and write down all your goals on it. If you are a mobile person, then download planning apps — a basic note app can also help! Other advanced options include:

• Google planner
• Serene
• Todoist
• Things 3
• Any.do
• Trello

Another way to do this is to set yourself alarms and phone reminders.

Prepare Your Vision Board

A vision board lets you place your goals in one place. Consider this board as a visual representation of what you want to achieve in your life. You must be able to look at your vision daily. The idea is to remind yourself daily of your vision and work towards your goals.

How to create your vision board? Here are the steps I followed that helped me achieve my goals in less than a year!

• Get A DIY board/sheet (a journal, cardboard, or a whiteboard will do!). I used a big whiteboard.
• Think of what your life has been so far. Are you happy or sad? Draw a picture or find a picture cut out from an old magazine and paste it onto your board. Draw a big red cross over it if you’re unhappy with what you see (I did!)
• Next, think about all you want — anything you’re dreaming about! (a job that makes you happy? A soulmate to spend the rest of your life with? Or following your passion?)
• Write this onto your board and find a picture for it (in my case, I drew it all in colorful markers). This picture should inspire you, and awaken in you all positive emotions when you see it!
• Number your goals in order of what you want to achieve first (regardless if you get them in that order)
• Look at your board each morning you wake up, work towards it and tell yourself that you’re going to achieve it.

Note that only looking at your vision board without working towards it isn’t going to yield results. To achieve what you want, you must work hard for it. The vision board is like an aid to each vision point.

Focus On Your Goals

Once you’ve realized your goals, you must focus on them. Get rid of any distractions and put aside all negative thoughts. Focus means chasing what you want as your life depends on it (even if it doesn’t!).

“Focus on the possibilities for success, not on the potential for failure.”

— Napoleon Hill

How to focus on your goals? Simply remind yourself of them and why you want your goals so badly. Glance at your vision board and tell yourself the advantages of achieving your goals. For example, if you want to land a high-paying job, the advantage of a high-paying job will be your paycheck!

Make A List Of Your Blessings And Pin It To Your wall

Count your blessings and write them down on a numbered list. Place this in a place where you can see it every day. Date your blessings if possible! Sometimes we need to remind ourselves to be grateful for what we have, because being grateful means staying happy. The fact you’ve made it this far in life (no matter what stage you’re at right now!) is proof of your blessings. Remember the wise saying:

“Work hard, do your best, and leave the rest to God!”

— 2 Timothy 2:15

Working hard with an honest and humble attitude attracts many blessings to you. Although this sounds very biblical, this is true for all who work hard. Everything falls into perspective and hard work always bears good fruit.

So, count your blessings, write them down and write when they came to you (if you can!). In this way, you will remind yourself of how blessed you are. That’s the biggest reason for you to work harder and chase what makes you happy.

Find What Makes You The Happiest

Is it possible to turn your happiness into a way of life? For instance, if you love doing certain things that make you happy, can you pursue those frequently? Or maybe turn your passion into your career? Find what makes you the happiest, and find ways to frequent your happiness or turn it into your way of life.

I have always enjoyed writing, and I wanted to write for a living. I made up my mind to complete a few courses to learn new methods to perfect my writing skills. Someday I’d like to become a successful writer. I am doing all I can to build my writing career. If you love something and you’re passionate about it, can you do something bigger with it? Can that be life-changing for you? Take some time to think about it.

Create An Action Plan To Follow Your Happiness

Let’s talk about an action plan for achieving your goals. This is the most important step because if you don’t make a plan and follow it, your dreams will most likely remain dreams. An action plan is like a roadmap. It tells you the path to your goal. For example, if you’ve decided to build a new life in a new country. You will have priorities and fixed goals to accomplish, and so, for this, you will set plans such as finding a new home, job, etc. You will prioritize your immediate needs over those you must achieve in the future.

An action plan has your short-term and long-term goals listed. It also has details on how to achieve your short-term and long-term goals. Let’s say your short-term goal, in this case, is to land and find a job in your field and your long-term goal is to work in a senior role and eventually buy a house in the new country. You’ll list all the steps you’d take to accomplish each, including any little details that help along the way. Come back to your action plan once in a while and track your progress.

Give Yourself Deadlines And Stick by Them

Your action plan must have deadlines. Your goals should be achievable and you must be able to set deadlines to achieve them. If for some genuine reason, you can’t achieve them, it is fine to push them a little further. However, taking your deadlines seriously depends on you. And here’s why I say if anyone can change things for the better, it is YOU. Only YOU have the power to turn around your life.

How to stick to deadlines? Simply follow your action plan and be serious about it, as if that’s all you ever wanted!

Don’t Give Up Halfway Through!

When you’ve decided to do something, do not give up halfway through. You can’t be a pessimist about your own goals and happiness. You have to try harder when it gets hard. This is the best advice I would give myself if I had to go back in time. Giving up on your dreams because it seems impossible at that moment is the most foolish thing to do. I’ve done that in the past, but I’ve learned from it and that’s why I am sharing this in a blog post today.

When something does not work out for you, try alternative ways. If someone turns you down, find another person who can help. In the world we live in, we have many people who will put us down (being extremely mean, negative, jealous, and very discouraging!) but we also have the kinder ones who go out of their way to help (simply because they love helping you!). Eventually while trying hard, you’d find these messengers of God somewhere along your way. Please! Never, ever give up on what you want the most, no matter how bad the surrounding negativity is. Ask for help and you will get it. If there’s any way to seek help, it is only to ask. You aren’t losing anything either way? Are you?

Never hesitate to ask. Perhaps the help you need is just one question away?

~Lee-Anne D’Costa

Keep Persisting

“Persistence is the key!” Well, this is true! It is the key to achieving all your dreams. When something fails, find something else that works for you. This will lead you to where you want to go. It is the exact same as saying don’t give up.

Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about.

— Winston Churchill

Keep trying hard till you succeed in getting what you want the most. In this way, you can make your dreams come true! Yes, even you who at the moment feel that this may not be true. I did it and so can you! If there is any help I can give you, please reach out to me. I’d love to be one of your God-sent messengers to help you!