7 Steps How To NOT Give Up On Your Dreams

Whenever you give up or change your goals, you fail. Not because of the problems, the challenges, or the hardships, but because you choose to give up. And in this guide, I’m going to share with you the 7-step framework of how to NOT give up on your dreams.

The journey to success is not an easy one; it takes a lot of courage, and you will have to go through a lot of setbacks, rejections, and tough times and take a lot of actions before you can finally reach your dreams.

If your dreams are easy to achieve, you are probably shooting for the ceiling and not the moon. Success requires tremendous effort, but the results are well worth it.

And one of the main reasons people fail to achieve what they want is they give up. They throw in the towel, and they quit.

Some people switch plans. They change from one goal to another. They abandoned what they initially started and venture into something new.

For those who switch plans, most likely, they are not going to achieve anything significant as well.

This is because it is NOT that their dreams or their goals don’t work, it is them that do NOT work and persevere long enough until they see the result.

It is not that the market you venture into isn’t profitable. It is because you are NOT working hard enough in the market.

The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. The grass is greener where you water it.

Therefore, the problem is not with what you do; the problem is you.

Every successful venture requires hard work and action. Without putting in any real effort, you can never achieve the outcomes you want.

No matter whether you are a teacher, a student, a doctor, a businessman, a writer, a blogger, or an athlete, success requires you to go through tough times and take massive action before you can rise and become extraordinary.

Thus, to achieve your goals and reach your dreams, you must learn NOT to give up. And here are the 7 steps on how you can do that…

1. Understand that failure and setbacks are inevitable

It is said that failure is the mother of all successes. If you have never tasted defeat, you have never truly won.

We celebrate success because we know we achieve it through failures and setbacks. If success comes to you easily without any effort, you will never appreciate it.

When do you learn to appreciate something the most? The moment when you lost it. The same goes for success. You will appreciate it the most if you have gone through failures and setbacks.

Bill Gates once said that success is a lousy teacher because it seduces people to think that they can’t fail.

There will be no success without failure. They are the 2 sides of the same coin, and you just cannot get away from either one. It is either you experience failure, or you experience the joy of success.

Hence, please understand that failure, setbacks, and tough times are unavoidable. You cannot have the sunshine all the time. It will rain, but once the rain is over, the sun will come out again.

This is what we call life.

You will definitely experience setbacks and failures, but if you endure them and if you embrace them, once they are over, success and good times will come.

It is a cycle, and it is life. You just cannot run away from it.

So, tell yourself that going through failure and setbacks are very normal. And without them, you can never truly be successful.

Understand this: Failure is NOT the opposite of success. Failure is the factor of your success.

When you fail, you learn. And when you learn, you become better, and the more successful you will be.

Read: 3 Fundamental Principles How to Turn Failure Into Success

2. Success is a journey

The second step is to understand that success is a journey. And your journey does not end here.

The final chapter of your life is not written yet, so you still have the chance to bounce back and take action again.

A lot of people thought that when they fail, they lose. It’s the end. No, it is not. When you fail, it indicates that you are just going through a speed bump in the journey.

You did not really fail. It is just a learning curve. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure or that there’s no way you can do it.

If you fail now, it does not mean that you will fail again in the next attempt. Therefore, you do not have to give up on your dreams.

And you are not conditioned by your past results either. If you are bad in accounting or managing your business, you can learn, or you can just outsource or delegate the task.

There’s no such thing as being born a loser or not good at something. Yes, you may not be very skillful in doing something, but if you are committed, you can learn and improve.

What you lack in talent can be made up with desire, hustle and giving 110% all the time.

Don Zimmer

Success is a journey, and you can learn the skills to get there. Do you think Michael Jordan was born with superb basketball skills? Not at all, in fact, he gained the skills through daily practice and constantly perfected his move.

Michael Jordan was once rejected by his high school basketball team. But he did not give up on his dreams. In fact, that inspired him to train and work even harder than most players.

The winner was not born; it is through deliberate practice and constantly improving the skill. Do you think that Lionel Messi got all his skills naturally? Here’s what he said:

It took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success.

Lionel Messi

Remember, what truly matters is the journey and who you become along the way that counts.

If you want to be a successful writer, then become a writer and do what a writer is supposed to do, just write.

If you want to be a businessman, then be and act like a businessman. Do what a businessman should do, manage your business and run your business.

If you want to be a successful singer, just sing. Learn to sing, train to sing, and be ready for the opportunity that will come to you.

It is not easy, but you have to make the journey fun and the results worthwhile.

Read: 3 Compelling Reasons Why The Journey Matters More Than the Destination

3. Remember why you start

Third step: constantly remind yourself why you started in the first place.

So why do you start? Do you want to be successful? Why do you want to be successful? What are your dreams and why do you want to accomplish them?

Remembering your purpose is one of the most powerful ways to stay connected with your dreams and have your dreams motivate you every moment.

Do you know that people who have strong and emotional reasons to achieve their dreams usually are the ones that did?

Without a strong purpose, you will lose motivation and want to quit every time when you face rejections and failures.

You can tell from people who smoke. I have heard stories of why people successfully quit their smoking habit, and usually, their reasons are very emotional.

Imagine when you visit the doctor, and he tells you that if you continue to smoke, you can never live past the next 3 months, what would you do? You will stop smoking no matter what, right?

You will never touch a cigarette ever again. Why? Simple, the purpose has become so strong and so emotional that you will do whatever it takes to stop smoking.

And this is exactly what you need to do with your dreams. Find strong and emotional purposes for why you want to accomplish them.

When your reasons are strong, they will drive you and motivate you when the tough times come.

Here’s what you can do right now. List down all your reasons why you want to accomplish your dreams and achieve your goals. List down as much as possible and make them as emotional as possible.

Read through this list every single morning before you start your day. You can add or amend your list, or you can even choose to write them every day.

Whatever you do, make sure you remind yourself of why you started in the first place. Your reasons will become the fuel that drives you through all the setbacks and failures.

If you need more help on this topic, I suggest you read this best-selling book from Simon Sinek, Start With Why…

4. Focus on the positive

The next step you need to take is to imagine all the good things that come along when you achieved your dreams. What are the successes you will receive? How your life will change?

• Are you going to be richer?
• Are you going to have a million dollars in your bank account?
• Do you want to change your car?
• Do you want to buy a house for your mother?
• Do you want to bring your parents for vacation?
• Do you want to bring your family to travel around the world?

What are the good things that will come to you if you accomplished your goals and dreams?

This is often referred to as the pull motivation.

You use the positive association with your dreams to motivate you. Ask yourself this question, “What would you be, do or have when you achieve all your dreams?”

Imagine all the amazing things you are going to be, do and have if you reach your dreams right now.

Just close your eyes and imagine. What are the good things that will come to you?

Make it as fun and exciting as possible.

• Do you want to race camels in Egypt?
• Do you want to drive and race Ferrari in Abu Dhabi?
• Do you want to own a yacht?
• Do you want to travel to the most exotic location on Earth?
• Do you want to bring your lover to the Bahamas?
• Do you want to visit Vegas?
• How about taking 2 months vacation to explore China?

The key is to make these as fun and as exciting as possible. You want these things to pull you, to motivate you toward your dreams.

Now, list down all the great things that you are going to get if you achieve your dreams and accomplish all your goals.

Write down on a piece of paper and go through it whenever you are down or feeling like giving up.

Read: 31 Ways How to Make Life More Interesting and Exciting

5. Imagine the worst scenario

On the contrary, you can use the worst-case scenario to motivate you as well. Imagine all the bad things that you are going to experience if you fail to accomplish your dreams.

For example, if your dream is to build a successful business, imagine what if you fail? What if you don’t take action and fail to produce the results you desire?

Imagine that you have no money to pay the bills. You have no extra money to spend or to eat better meals.

What if your friends and colleagues going to look down on you? Imagine you can’t own a new car and has to settle for a rusty old car. Imagine you have no accomplishment to show to your children.

Imagine that your car has been repossessed and your house has been foreclosed. Imagine living life like that for the past 10 years, so are you going to let it be? Or do you want to change?

This is called push motivation. You want to use your fears to push you into motivation and take action.

There are only 2 things that will motivate you, pleasure and pain.

And you have learned about motivation through pleasure in the previous step. So now you should know how to use pain to drive you too.

By combining both pain and pleasure, you will be pulled toward the good things that you want and be pushed by the things that you do not want to happen in your life.

Again, make a list of all your fears and failures that you do not want to happen. Review the 2 lists of pain and pleasure from time to time.

Imagine what would happen if you give up and quit. Imagine what would happen if you fail to live your dreams, is this what you want?

Read: 10 Great Ways How to Overcome Your Fear of Failure

6. Everything takes time

Next, you want to understand that everything takes time.

Success requires time, and for you to accomplish your dreams, it is the same. This is called the Law of Gestation.

Do you know that babies will stay in the womb for about 40 weeks before they are finally born into the world?

And dogs have a gestation period of about 58-68 days, while for an acorn to turn into an oak tree takes more than 8 months?

The same goes for your business, your success, and your dreams. They have a gestation period too!

This is why people often say that success will never come overnight. Rome was never built in a day, and Richard Branson did not become a billionaire business tycoon running Virgin Groups in just a month.

It takes time for things to mature and become a reality. So, how long do you think your dreams are going to take for them to become reality?

I hope I have answers to this question, but I do not. Everyone’s dreams are different and what we do are different too. We take different actions, and we get different results. Thus, the gestation period for your dreams will be different than mine.

I first learned about the Law of Gestation from John Assaraf, the New York Times best-selling author and also one of my favorite success mentors. I suggest you learn from him too. He has a web class coming up. You should attend it and learn how to change your brain and change your income.

It does not matter when your dreams are going to come to you, what truly matters is for you to understand that success requires time. Everything takes time.

Just like Lionel Messi said, it took him 17 years and 114 days to become successful. While there’s no exact number, you just need to work on it.

If you are not producing any significant results right now, it is totally alright. As long as you make sure you are taking action and are moving forward toward your goals and dreams each day.

And the best part is that you don’t have to take huge action to succeed. All you need to do is to commit to the Rule of 5 and start taking 5 actions every day. And within a year, you will have accomplished 1825 small victories.

This is what it means by starting small. You dream big, but you start small. And you have to persevere until you reach your dreams.

7. Press on and keep pushing forward

The final step is to press on!

So, what if you fail? It doesn’t matter, just press on and keep doing until you achieve what you desire.

This step is all about being determined and putting 100% commitment to what you want to achieve. Make the commitment that you will never give up or quit or switch plans until you get what you want.

Always remember this quote below:

When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.

Alexander Den Heijer

It took Psy more than 12 years to release the hit song, “Oppa Gangnam Style” which shook the world. It took Colonel Sanders more than 1,000 rejections before someone finally accepted his secret recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken. And it took Thomas Edison more than 10,000 attempts before he finally invented the light bulb.

All these great people shared something in common. They continue to press on even during the toughest times.

They are determined, and they are committed to their dreams. They never give up, and they never quit.

Simply because they know that when they quit or the moment they give up, they lose. As long as they never give up, they still stand a chance to make it and reach their dreams.

“A winner will never quit, and a quitter will never win.”

You have to press on no matter how tough the situation becomes. You have to understand that it cannot rain all the time. Rain will somehow go, and then sunshine will come.

You just need to press on until that moment. You just need to say NO and move forward.

Read: 31 Easy Ways How to Get Motivated and Pump Up Yourself

Conclusion

These are the 7 steps you can take so that you will NOT give up on your dreams and goals.

Remember, always remind yourself about your purpose, use the push and pull motivation technique to drive you, and press on until you produce the result you want in life.

Let me know how these 7 steps help you in your journey to success. Are they useful? Share your opinion in the comment section below.