Go for What You Want: Five Things You Can Do Today

There are all kinds of perfectly reasonable reasons to backburner your dreams. You're too old. You're too young. You don't have the right credentials, and it would take forever to get them, anyway. Your family wouldn't approve, your friends wouldn't understand, and your lover would leave. You've got to move to New York City to do it. Or, on the other hand, maybe you have to move to the middle of nowhere to do it. Sigh. Why bother?

And yet that darned idea won't go away. It keeps buzzing around your head, an electro-chemical jolt that seems to be at right angles to a lot of how you're currently living. There's that longing for a career change, or a new set of relationships, or for spiritual exploration; maybe it's a longing to explore your sexuality, to write a screenplay, to take some classes, or to compete in a triathlon.

You can't help thinking about it because every time you do you feel your energy change. Your heart beats faster, and the world seems a more exciting place. Wouldn't it be great to find out what it's like to...? Wouldn't it be interesting to know how you'd feel if you...?

Maybe it would.

Oh, but... you might fail. You might find that you've invested time, emotions, hard work, and money only to be disappointed. You could never make it happen, anyway. You're crazy to even be thinking about it. Yeah, you should probably stay where you are. Do what you're doing. Not say the words. Not take the chances. Keep up with the routines, meet the obligations, live up to the expectations, and settle for the familiarity. That way you don't risk feeling disappointed.

If you don't pursue your dreams, though, how do you spend the majority of your time? Be honest: you spend it wishing you were doing what you aren't doing. Your dreams, and the way you feel about them, don't change. And you feel (don't you?) a little sadder at the end of each day because you know that you might have spent that day feeling something else.

"I'm doing okay," I once told someone who'd given me an opportunity that I'd turned down.

"That's about the best we can do when we're not doing what we really want to be doing," he replied.

I've thought since that those were wise words. Who wants to be "doing okay"? Okay is okay sometimes, but, let's face it, the secret hope that gets us out of bed in the morning is the hope that something amazing will happen during our waking hours. Something that will make us feel passionate, alive, playful, daring, exceptional, buoyant.

A person who spends his or her life postponing dreams until the time is right and things are convenient and everyone will welcome any changes that need to be made will end up on their death bed thinking about the things that could have been. They will look back on lives whose clearest emotion was that of longing, and they will marvel at all the time they spent stifling that longing. They will look back, as well, on lives filled with jealousy, the jealousy of watching other people grow, try things, move on, and learn. They will look back, because of the jealousy, on how much time they spent not liking themselves or enjoying the world.

Hour after hour and year after year of that. Yikes!

Daring to live your dreams may be risky, but it's not, perhaps even in the worst of circumstances, as miserable as wishing you could be doing something else. "There came a time," wrote Anais Nin, "when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

In the past, I've postponed dreams and waited for opportunities instead of making things happen. I try not to do that any more, because I don't like the feelings of longing and jealousy and boredom that I have to live with when I do. I've learned that in living out our dreams, we tune into our highest energies and the best that the universe has to offer. Plus, excitement is a fantastically addictive feeling.

Here are five tips that have been helpful to me over the last few years, especially when I've wanted to make excuses and play it safe.

Try things

You don't know whether you're going to like being a fashion designer or an engineer or a counselor or whatever else it is that you want to do or try or be until you've sampled it. Plunge in. Tell yourself "I'm trying this. That's all. If it doesn't work out, that's okay, but I'll be happier having tried it."

Think in terms of small steps

Brainstorm: how can you get to where you want to go? It's helpful to think of small steps, especially at first (e.g., "buy crochet hook," "obtain a list of local sports leagues," or "research plane fares to Beijing").

These seemingly small steps turn out to be a big deal. No matter how many times, for instance, you end up going to Beijing, you'll always have to learn about the available fares. You begin to realize that the process of achieving your dreams generally occurs by taking one small step at a time.

Look for opportunities

Opportunities are like Russian dolls: open one up, and there's often another inside. You multiply your
chances of success by considering the unexpected.

Maybe you want to become an accountant, but you don't have the money to go back to school just yet. However, you learn that the bookkeeper for a local homeless shelter needs an assistant, and that she's willing to train a volunteer. So you volunteer, and you get some training, and maybe you encounter some challenges for which you have to figure out solutions, and that training and those challenges turn out to be very useful when you do make it back to school and when you do get your first accounting job. That training puts you ahead of the game, but you didn't get it in the way you'd first expected to when you decided that you wanted to see if you liked being an accountant.

These things happen.

Believe in the abundance of the universe

Each of us has a bunch of talents, dreams, personalities, qualities, and experiences to offer. The universe is a big place, and the fact that there are six billion people on the planet means that there are lots of opportunities on this globe (and beyond) that may be looking for you right now.

So see the universe as abundant and filled with opportunity. Appreciate all the good things that are happening for you right now. Doing so will help you to begin to draw into your life what you most want, and maybe even a surprise or two.

Seek out other perspectives, and find ways to give back

Your journey is your own, but there are plenty of people who are living lives similar to the one(s) that you want to live. How did they get there? What do they spend their time doing? What are the challenges that they face, and what do they most enjoy, and what have they learned from their experiences? Their advice and ideas can help you play the game more smartly.

No matter where you want to get to, you won't be able to do it alone. You'll need the collaboration and help of others along the way. Therefore, in turn, help other people get to where they want to go, as much as you are able. Assist someone with their college tuition. Make a phone call on someone's behalf. Offer to mentor. Donate supplies. Share ideas. Give a promotion. Living this way, you'll be amazed at how much joy there is to go around.