There were 3 bricklayers working on a construction site. A traveler passed by and asked the first man what he was doing. The first man said that he was laying bricks. When the traveler approached the second man, he asked the same question and the second man told him that he was putting up a wall. And finally, when he got to the third man and asked him what he was doing, the third man told him that he was building a cathedral.
I bet you have heard about this famous parable. The story sends us a very important message, which is that we need to have a vision, or a dream, to live a well-worthy life.
Too many of us have been conditioned by our surrounding that living our dream life is difficult. Being successful is hard.
While it does require hard work and grit to achieve great success in life, this doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful or make your dream life a reality.
Les Brown has a famous line:
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”
If you have a dream, go for it. Pursue it. You don’t have to wait for the perfect timing only to take action because there is no perfect timing.
Many people waited for things to come to them rather than being the ones to act and make the first step.
Remember, you’re the one that is stopping yourself from getting what you want in life. You’re the one who decides what kind of life you want to live.
You can let your fears stop you, or you can get excited by the rewards and the success of living your dream life pulls you.
How you choose to live your life is totally up to you, no one else.
Remember what Mark Twain said?
“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.”
Hence, don’t be afraid to take action. Like I said, if you have a dream, go for it, pursue it, and make it a reality.
Here are 7 steps that can help you make your dream life possible. Take action on them now!
1. Find Out What Kind of Dream Life You Want
Before you can live your dream life, you must first identify what kind of lifestyle you want to have. There is no way you can make the journey without knowing where you’re heading.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens to most people. They have no idea what they want out of life.
They are living life like a lost sheep. They follow the crowd and they do whatever others are doing.
I like how Tony Robbins described life without direction as The Niagara Syndrome. He explained in his best-selling book, Awaken The Giant Within that life is like a river.
Stop Living Your Life Without Knowing Where You’re Heading
When you don’t know what you want from your life, you’re making decisions unconsciously.
Many people jump on the river of life without knowing where they’re heading. And when they come to forks in the river, they don’t consciously decide where to go or which is the right direction that they need to take.
In other words, most people go with the flow. They go wherever the current takes them. They become part of a big crowd directed by the environment rather than their own dreams.
They remain in this unconscious state until one day, they discovered that they are 10 feet away from Niagara Falls in a boat without oars.
At this point in life, it will be too late for them to make a course correction. They are going to take a fall.
Sometimes it is an emotional fall; sometimes it is a financial fall; sometimes it is a physical fall.
Like what Tony Robbins said in his book:
“It’s likely that whatever challenges you have in your life currently could have been avoided by making some better decisions upstream.”
If you want to live your dream life, the first thing you need to do is to find out what you want out of life.
Knowing where you’re heading in life is like having a lighthouse showing you directions. You know where to go. You can make a conscious decision and make the right move to get there.
Read: 5 Easy Steps How To Find Out What You Want To Do In Life
2. Research and Study the Dream Life that You Want
Now that you know what kind of life you want to live, so what can you do then?
You see, we’re living in the digital age where information is readily available at our fingertips. And so you don’t have to figure out how to live your dream life from scratch.
What you can do then is to research your dream life from the internet. You can read books about it. Watch a video about it. Read articles about it.
The key is to find out more information about your dream life so that you will know better about the subject.
First, you don’t have to jump straight into the water to test its temperature. You can learn more about it through research.
Second, most people have no idea if what they want is truly what they want. And the best way to know if your dream life is the right kind of lifestyle you truly want is to research about it.
If you think that your dream life is to own a café selling pies and coffees, you don’t have to quit your job and invest tens of thousands to start the business. You just need to test the water by learning more about the subject.
Third, highly likely, whatever you want to achieve in life has been achieved by someone else. And you don’t have to start from the ground. You can always learn from others to have a jumpstart on your dream life.
Want to be a travel blogger so that you can work anywhere and travel the world? Read how others are doing it and learn as much as you can.
Want to be a real estate investor and build a $100 million portfolio? Read and learn from those who have done it.
Want to lose weight and live a healthy and fit lifestyle? Read, learn, and apply the proven techniques from others who have successfully lost additional fat and stayed slim.
You see, no matter what kind of dream life you are pursuing, there is a good chance that someone else is already living it.
This is why lifelong learning is important.
Thus, do some research about your dream life. The more you understand about the things that you want, the easier you can achieve it.
3. Assess where you are right now
It is vital to assess where you are in life right now if you want to live your dream life.
What is the first thing you will do if you want to lose weight? You weigh yourself.
What is the first thing Google wants you to do when you open the Maps app? It wants you to turn on your location.
You need to know your current standing in order to come up with a viable plan to achieve what you want.
Knowing how you have been doing in life is like understanding your weaknesses and your strengths. It is normal for people to compare with each other.
The thing is that when you compare your weakness to others’ strength, you will feel inferior. It makes you feel bad and that you’re not good enough.
You have to understand that your strengths are unique to you and that you can leverage on them to push yourself further, to achieve much more, and to do better in life.
“You can’t control the cards you’re dealt, just how you play the hand.”
When you understand what kind of resources you have and where you are right now in life, you’re able to make good use of the available resources to achieve what you want.
Here’s a great article you should read:
How and Why You Should Assess Your Life
4. Get rid of all possible roadblocks
The next step you need to take is to get rid of all possible roadblocks that are stopping you.
Along the journey to living your dream life, you will have doubts, fears, and self-limiting beliefs that stop you. Apart from that, there will also be negative people who will tell you what you want to achieve is impossible.
What you need to do is to ignore the naysayers and do what you believe is right. You need to follow your heart. But before you can do that, you must identify them. Find out all the possible roadblocks that stop you and get rid of them.
Sometimes, your friends or family members may laugh at your dreams, but that doesn’t mean that you should stop and let them have it.
Instead, choose to follow your heart. Believe in your dream and try to spend less time with negative people who did not support you.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to make it big in the filming industry, people laughed at his accent and his bulky body. Some even said that his name was too difficult to pronounce and that he would never make it.
Schwarzenegger ignored them all and chose to follow his dream. He believed that he could do it. And he did.
If your dream is to be a motivational speaker but you think that you lack the skill, learn and improve yourself. Join toastmaster club, learn from other successful speakers, and improve your speaking skills.
If your friends are trying to bring you down and laugh at your dream, spend less time with them and put in more time to work on your dream to prove them wrong.
Read this article to find out what’s stopping you from moving forward:
10 Common Obstacles that Prevent You from Succeeding in Life
5. Set goals and make plans
Put down your dreams on paper. Turn your dreams into goals and then come up with a plan to achieve them.
Most people fail to materialize their dream life because they did not turn their dreams into goals and plans. All they do is to just think about what they want, and that’s it.
It may sound a little ridiculous and hard to believe, but when you write down what you want to achieve, you’re actually telling yourself that what you want is important.
People who don’t bother writing down their goals will never achieve them because they simply don’t have the commitment to do so. They’re not determined and this is why their dreams remain dreams.
Dr. Gail Matthews once conducted a study and discovered that when people write down their goals, action commitments, share their progress with others, they are more likely to achieve their goals – as high as 76% more likely.
So don’t just dream about what you want or talk about it, you need to write it down, make plans, and then share your progress with others.
I strongly suggest you read my previous article and follow the methods to achieve your goals and live your dream life:
7 Incredible Goal Setting Strategies To Achieve What You Want In Life
Setting your goals and creating a plan is not difficult. As long as you are willing to follow the right technique, achieving your goals can be fun and easy.
6. Start living your dream life today
At this point, you should have your goals and plans ready, and you know what you need to do every day to make your dream life a reality.
Therefore, start living your dream life today. You don’t have to start big, you just need to begin and start somewhere.
Take the small steps and make progress each day.
If your dream is to be a blogger, start your blog, write the post, publish it, share it on social media, and then more.
If your goal is to buy a big bungalow house for you and your family, do the research now, find out what kind of house you want, what are the sizes, where’s the location, how much do you need, and create a plan to save and be able to own your dream house.
Whatever dream life you want or goal you want to achieve, you can reach it by taking just one small step at a time.
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
All the things started small. Whatever big dreams you have, you don’t have to take big actions or start big, you just need to take one small step at a time.
According to Buffer, one of the habits of successful people is that they started small.
Do you know how Dale Carnegie came up with his ground-breaking book, How to Win Friends and Influence People?
Well, he started off with the principles printed on a card. And then he made it bigger and printed on a leaflet, then booklets, and then articles, and after 15 years, he came up with the book.
You may know about Richard Branson for his Virgin brand, but most people have no idea that he started off with a student magazine when he started.
Elon Musk did not start SpaceX and Tesla right off the bat. He started with Zip2, which was then acquired by Compaq for $340 million. And then he started X.com that eventually merged with PayPal and sold to eBay for $1.5 billion.
As you can see, most successful people did not start off big right away. They started small.
And you don’t have to see the entire journey in order to get to your destination. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, you just need to take one small step.
You will never change your life until you change what you do daily. The secret to living your dream life is found in what you do day-in and day-out.
So commit to taking action each day. Start living your dream life today, not tomorrow.
7. Adjust, review, and recalibrate
As you press forward and make progress, you will encounter many difficulties, challenges, setbacks, and hardships.
But you must not let them stop you. Instead, you must choose to adjust, make changes, review your goals and dreams, and recalibrate your plans to reach your destination.
Many people fail because they give up halfway.
You have to understand that failures, challenges, and setbacks are part of success. They are inevitable.
So you can’t run away from them.
You may face many defeats in life, but you must not be defeated.
The majority of people fail to understand that failure is necessary. They thought that failure is the opposite of success, which is not.
Failure is on the same side of success. You can never achieve great success without failure.
You can only reap the reward after you have sowed. You cannot reap what you don’t sow.
Hardships and setbacks will only make you stronger. In fact, they are there to transform you into the right person and they are meant to build your characters.
Hence, don’t be afraid to fail, to try new thing, and to make changes.
“If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”
Whenever you are not getting the results you want, try again, change your strategy, make a better plan, or do something new. Whatever you do, don’t give up.
Read: 7 Things To Do When You Fail To Achieve Your Goals
Conclusion
Remember the story of the 3 bricklayers? If you want to make your dream life possible, you must first have a vision for it. You need to know what you want in order to attain it.
And I’m here to remind you that whatever kind of dream life you desire, you can achieve. As long as you are willing to hold on to it long enough, be enthusiastic with it, take action, and keep improving yourself to produce better success.
Follow the 7 steps above and start living your dream life today.
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