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The Secret to Making Your Dreams Come True

Wishing and visualizing is not enough to make dreams happen.

By Lucy MilanovaPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
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Photo by JimboChan on Pixabay

We all have dreams. Some of them are a bit blurry, but the rest is very clear, vivid and significant. They confront us whenever we allow ourselves to daydream - contemplate where we'd want to be and what we'd wish to be doing.

For most of us though, a vast majority of the dreams we have only stay dreams. They never become anything more than wishes.

And the reason why our dreams don't come true is that we don't do anything to transform them into reality other than wishing for it.

You see, wishing is not enough to make dreams happen, because they don't come true through wishing, but doing.

But how to make our dreams come true and what does manifestation - embodying our wish into reality, has to do with it?

First of all, if we are serious about making our dreams happen, we need to clarify what is it that we truly want. And whether we actually want it so much.

1. Clarify your desires

Start by asking yourself this: 'What is it that I am dreaming of? What would I want my life to look like? What would give me joy to experience?'

Once you come up with the answers and a list of wishes, you want to make sure that they're not just a spur of a moment, but something substantial to build upon.

There's one super-efficient coaching technique for this.

You'd need to find your ''Big Why''. You need to have a good enough reason why you want something, otherwise it'd never manifest as you'd not invest your time, energy and resources to making it happen.

So, first, look at your list of wishes, and pick one that's an utmost priority for you. Observe it by asking yourself this:

If this is what I want in my life, why do I want it? (The reason why.) How do I see this happen? (The intention.) What do I want to achieve by this dream happening? (The goal.) How should it benefit me? And would it benefit me? In which way? (The purpose.)

If what you dream about connects a good enough reason why, your intention, goal and purpose, then you found your 'Big Why'.

Now explore your answers. Do your answers - the reason why, the intention, purpose and the goal feel right, good enough? Does the dream have big enough why for you? Do you have enough motivation to start pursuing it?

If you do, then this dream is worth pursuing as your initial drive and motivation is key to kickstart the process. If not, then it probably isn't what you truly want. Or, you may need to explore whether there's not an inner limitation (limiting belief) that's not allowing you to dream and picture living that dream.

2. Align your thoughts and feelings

Another helpful aspect to focus on when you're aspiring to not only follow but achieve your wishes and dreams is to align your thoughts with your feelings.

Yes, we need to feel good and positive when we think about what we want to achieve and as any negativity around the subject creates a blockage in our energy field that closes the door for the opportunity - basically anything good that can happen around the subject.

For instance, if you want to get a promotion badly but your focus is on a.) feeling terrible about your current situation and position, or b.) the lack of that promotion in your life at this point, or c.) on how everyone else around you is getting a promotion and you are not - rather than focusing on how you want to work towards yours, you're not going to help it.

You're not going to help it as what you're creating around you is an energy of scarcity, disappointment, unfairness and hurt - not the energy of abundance that would put your dream into motion. And by feeling bad about the subject, what you'd experience in your life is just a reflection of your own feeling - you'd feel even more deficiency, frustration, sadness, unfairness etc.

You need to focus on what you want and believe that it's possible and achievable. Envision yourself and how would your life look like if you already have and achieved what you're looking to achieve. How does that make you feel?

Align your vision with the good feelings.

And keep a practice of evoking those feelings in yourself whenever you think about this subject. Don't focus on how you're lacking 'this' now, think and feel into how amazing a life is where that dream is your reality!

3. From awareness and belief to action

It's important for you to know what you want, why you want it as well as how to achieve it. And believe in what you want to achieve.

At the same time, knowing something and believing in it is not enough to change your existing situation.

The concept that pure awareness is enough to transform our behaviour or to put something into practice was disapproved by psychologists a long time back. It's also called the G.I. Joe Fallacy that was based on a wrong belief that 'knowing itself is half a battle won.'

Knowing is just about one-fifth of the battle won , a mere 20% of success marking a beginning of the journey rather than the end of it. The remaining 80% is your action, dear friend.

Without getting ourselves to do things, our knowledge and awareness are useless.

Photo by Judith Scharnowski on Pixabay

I'll spend a minute to prove this point.

Let's look at smokers. Most of them have the awareness that smoking (tobacco cigarettes) is bad for health, thus bad for them and so if they continue, they'd start developing serious health issues and are more prone to other illnesses as smoking affects our heart, lungs, blood circulation, bones, stomach, mouth, eyes, skin, reproduction and fertility.

A list of illnesses associated with smoking is truly long and involves heart disease, lung diseases, diabetes, COPD, chronic bronchitis, certain eye diseases such as eye cataracts, problems of the immune system, loss of sense of smell and taste, as well as an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, brain damage, including several cancers etc.

Now, smokers don't need to be told this by anyone, they see it portrayed right in front of their eyes every time upon opening a new pack of cigs. I talk about the horrendous images of cancer cases in advanced stages.

Does knowing and even seeing the consequences - keep people away from smoking?

No, it doesn't. And the reason it doesn't is that the knowledge itself is not enough for a person to change.

You need to know first and believe that what you're pursuing is possible. You need to see the purpose of it, and trust that it's going to be given to you.

But then, the most important point comes to play. The one that differentiates winners from losers.

4. Doing is achieving

So, how to get ourselves to act on what we need to and want to do, however, we somehow lack self-belief and confidence, or just the initial courage to unglue ourselves from the place of procrastination and fear?

Here's my coaching tip for you.

If you do know what you want and you also know what it requires of you, but the task itself scares you as it seems too big to imagine, too big to grasp and handle. Then there's one simple brain-trick for you to make it less overwhelming, more realistic and achievable for your mind. And that's dividing a seemingly big activity into smaller task portions and chunks of time.

For instance, if you wish to start writing from the scratch, or painting after years of no creativity, hand-crafting, exercising regularly, or doing a long business/ educational course online, then start by giving yourself to it for a very short time a day - let's say 5 to 15 minutes, to begin with. Don't push yourself into this by spending a lot of time on it at the beginning, making it an hour from a zero. It may scare the hell out of you and your mind and discourage you from continuing.

Start on a very low key and gradually develop the habit as well as the interest of doing it by adding up the time slowly. Five minutes to five minutes and you'll soon be on an hour per task a week or even more!

Ten minutes for language learning a day is an hour in a week! That's always better than doing nothing when you scare yourself off with too much initial commitment and time obligation.

Plus, if you start low, you are developing your interest slowly and giving yourself the time to get used to the new routine and to enjoy the activity rather than pushing yourself through it by force as it were work to be done rather than what's giving you joy.

Another tip for achieving by doing is to start brainstorming about the activity in your mind before you start actioning on it. Do it by writing down all that is now on your mind when you just think about it - the task, dream, project. What you've been thinking about it all along, what it encompasses and what has to be done for it.

Once on paper, it's more real already. Its form has changed from being an idea on your mind into a draft vision that's now embodied on an actual paper in writing and you'll suddenly see it differently - more clearly.

You'll start thinking of it differently and more creative thoughts and ideas will come to you about the subject, naturally. You'll keep expanding it further. And further with any new step you take.

And then, it's about all about consistency and focus to make sure you continue to walk towards your dream.

Summary

I found, from my personal experience as well as that of my clients that wishing for something to happen is not enough. However, acting to make it happen is one thing that makes all the difference.

And so, if you do want your dreams come true, first you need to look at them carefully and find your 'Big Enough Why' - motivation required to pursue them. When you do, the next step is to align your thoughts about the dream with your feelings. Picture yourself as if you already achieved whatever you're looking to accomplish to make it more believable for your mind and then feel into it deeply. Feel into the bliss, joy, happiness, satisfaction and peace this dream coming alive would give you.

Once you've done that, it's time to start doing - working to make it manifest into reality. That's by slowly picking up the little pieces. Brainstorm in your mind about the dream, create a vision, then put your ideas on paper and watch them develop progressively. Start investing your time and effort into it - slowly, little by little, day by day, task by task, and you'll see your dream growing big, until one day, it will eventually come alive.

So, where are you at now? Are you ready to start making your dream come true?

By Mike Swigunski on Unsplash

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About the Creator

Lucy Milanova

✎ Self-Development, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Inspiration Writer | Londoner | Creative Entrepreneur | HR Consultant | Transformation Coach💡 www.lmcreativesolutions.com

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