Steve Jobs said that you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards, in retrospect.
I love that because it means that we’re not going to know each and every step to take toward our dream- before we get there. We take the first step, then the second step. And, each subsequent step we take shows us what the next step is. And, when we reach the goal…the dream, we can easily look back and say “Wow, look at that!"
Do you want to good news or the bad news first?
I’m going with the good news, because that’s what I would choose if someone asked me.
The good news is you're ready.
Could you fail?
That depends on how you define failure. Sure, you could take the most logical steps toward your dream and discover part-way down the road that you aren’t as excited about your dream as you originally thought. What’s wrong with that?
Nobody ever said you couldn’t take a right turn, or a left turn, or dare-I-say a U turn. It’s said that Edison made 10,000 attempts to create the light-bulb and when he was asked how he continued after so many failures, his response was - “I never considered them failures, I considered them feedback.”
So, let’s take the term failure out of our vocabulary and instead consider the possibility that - whatever happens is feedback. Fear wants you to have all the facts. For some reason we think we need to have all the steps laid out before we can decide to go for the dream. We erroneously think we have to have a sure-fire plan in place. But what if you don’t? What if the only thing you need to know are these three things:
Where you want to end up (your dream)
Where you are right now (your starting point)
And, the first step you know you can take
Alright, now the bad news.
The bad news is that you’re going to have to ask for help. Oh no!
Take a breath.
We’ve been taught – from who knows where – that in order to be successful we have to do it on our own. We’re not allowed to ask for help. We’re adults, after all. If we ask for help, we must be weak, incompetent, a fool, a child.
Excuse me?
Just consider for a moment that this assumption is bogus. That it simply is not true. We don’t have all the answers and we’re not supposed to. Getting help means seeking out people who are just a bit higher up the ladder than you, who’ve seen things you haven’t seen and experienced situations that can help you bypass some pitfalls.
People who have ideas you haven’t considered. This is also why successful people have a Coach in their corner. Someone who doesn't know their history so they have no reason to worry about whether you can achieve what you've set out to do. Someone who believes you can achieve whatever you put your mind to, no matter what dream you have envisioned.
Fear is going to be a player in your life. You'll occasionally doubt yourself. And you'll sometimes worry about…well, lots of things. What you learn in DreamBuilding are the tools to become stronger than fear, doubt and worry. They still get to come along for the ride but they don’t have to run the show.
As the brilliant author, Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) says:
"Fear is going to come along for the ride. Make sure it sits in the back seat. And never, ever let it drive."
