What would you be doing RIGHT NOW if you knew your dream life was coming to you?
Imagine you’ve been given a crystal ball that allows you to see into your future with 100% clarity. You step up to it, take a deep breath, and blink twice before peering in. What you see makes you jump back in awe. “OH MY WORD!” you gasp, “That’s what my future looks like?! That’s AMAZING."
What you see inside is the life you’ve only dared to dream for yourself. It’s a life full of joy, love, and meaning. It’s a life full of freedom, fun, and fulfillment. It’s your dream life, plain and simple.
You’ve been given a gift - the ability to believe, with 100% certainty, that your dream life is available to you. What do you do with that knowledge? How do you change your thinking? How do you schedule your day? What routines do you put into place? How do you carry yourself, present yourself to the world? How do you approach your work?
If you really believed you could accomplish your goals and create the life you desire, what would you be doing with your time now?
When I ask women what gets in the way of living the life they desire and chasing after their dreams, they simply tell me: Life. Life gets in the way.
Competing priorities and responsibilities get in the way.
Balancing all they have to do with all they want to do gets in the way.
Juggling their various roles and meeting the demands of work, family, and home life get in the way.
And I get it. I really do.
As women we have a lot on our plates. We’re pulled in so many different directions throughout the day it’s enough to make our heads spin. And so often we attempt to do it all ourselves because it feels easier and it helps us to maintain some semblance of control.
But what if those reasons are just easy excuses for not pushing ourselves?
They make logical sense - there’s literally only 24 hours in a day. When we repeat those excuses to ourselves, we feel better for not sticking to our goals or following through on our commitments.
It’s just not possible.
I’m doing the best I can.
My dreams will still be there when I can carve out more time for them.
But Serena Williams and Oprah and Rachel Hollis and any of the other wildly successful people we look up to only have 24 hours in their day as well. And they’ve managed to create dream lives for themselves, right?
Before you tell me that they’re rich and have all the help they can get, I want you to pause and think where your thoughts go when I bring up the image of a successful, wealthy icon.
More excuses? I thought so.
We make up excuses because we don’t want to leave our comfort zones. Because it’s uncomfortable to change our routines, our habits, and our thinking. Our brains are designed to keep us safe and they do that by convincing us to stay the same.
“We are so attached to the unhelpful familiar that we will spend our valuable, very finite time here on Earth crafting excuses to keep ourselves right where we are, instead of leaping into the glorious unknown and growing into who we’re really meant to be.”
Jen Sincero
We make up excuses for not taking action or rearranging our schedule or giving up some responsibility because deep down we don’t BELIEVE we’re capable of accomplishing our goals. We don’t believe we’re worthy of living our wildest dreams. We don’t believe we have what it takes to create a life of freedom and fulfillment.
Or maybe deep down we believe that if we created the life of our dreams, we’d lose people who wouldn’t get it or us anymore. Or we’d create distance between us and loved ones because they’d feel envious of our new life.
Or we believe that success would change us, make us selfish and greedy. We believe that money is only born from really hard, back-breaking work - work that we don’t have time for so therefore we’ll never be wealthy. Or we believe that if earning money was easy and enjoyable, we’d turn into lazy slobs who stopped caring about making the world a better place.
The point is - our excuses are fueled by underlying limiting beliefs. Beliefs that keep us operating at the same level time and time again.
Our mind keeps us stuck where we are while our heart desires so much more.
Most people spend their entire lives chained to the limits of their mind while ignoring and writing off what’s in their hearts. It’s such a waste. The desires of your heart were placed there by God/the Universe from the time you were born into existence. They’re there because they’re meant to be fulfilled.
“Your desires were bestowed on you when you became your earthly self. They are unique to you, they defined the essence of who you are, and they act as a roadmap for your life.”
Jen Sincero
You can trust your desires. They’re honest and good. Just as you are honest, and trustworthy, and good.
So, let’s get back to the question I asked at the beginning.
If you really believed you could accomplish your goals and create the life you desire, what would you be doing, feeling, and thinking NOW?
What habits would you put into place?
What routines would you establish?
What would you create more of in your day-to-day?
What would you give up or have less of?
Where would you ask for help?
Who would you call on to support you?
It doesn’t matter what your life looks like in this moment. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past, how many times you’ve started and stopped on your goals, or what level of success you’ve achieved up until now. Your age, financial status, education, relationship status, or location don’t matter. You can start taking action towards your dreams TODAY.
“The accomplishment of any goal is the progressive accumulation, or Compound Effect, of small steps taken consistently over time.”
Darren Hardy
Consistent small steps. Consistent routines and habits. Consistently choosing to believe that your dream is possible. Consistently choosing to believe that you’re worth it.
You don’t need that crystal ball after all. You already have everything you need within you to create a life you wake up to and gasp, “OH MY WORD, I can’t believe I’m living my dream!”