Achieving Your Dreams
by Jim Rohn
While most people spend most of their lives struggling to
earn a living, a much smaller number seem to have everything going their way.
Instead of just earning a living, the smaller group is busily working at
building and enjoying a fortune. Everything just seems to work out for them.
And here sits the much larger group, wondering how life can be so unfair, so
complicated and unjust. What’s the major difference between the little group
with so much and the larger group with so little?
Despite all of the factors that affect our lives - like the
kind of parents we have, the schools we attended, the part of the country we
grew up in - none has as much potential power for affecting our futures as our
ability to dream.
Dreams are a projection of the kind of life you want to
lead. Dreams can drive you. Dreams can make you skip over obstacles. When you
allow your dreams to pull you, they unleash a creative force that can overpower
any obstacle in your path. To unleash this power, though, your dreams must be
well defined. A fuzzy future has little pulling power. Well-defined dreams are
not fuzzy. Wishes are fuzzy. To really achieve your dreams, to really have your
future plans pull you forward, your dreams must be vivid.
If you’ve ever hiked a 14,000-foot peak in the Rocky
Mountains, one thought has surely come to mind: “How did the settlers of this
country do it?” How did they get from the East Coast to the West Coast?
Carrying one day’s supply of food and water is hard enough. Can you imagine
hauling all of your worldly goods with you... mile after mile, day after day,
month after month? These people had big dreams. They had ambition. They didn’t
focus on the hardship of getting up the mountain.
In their minds, they were already on the other side - their
bodies just hadn’t gotten them there yet! Despite all of their pains and
struggles, all of the births and deaths along the way, those who made it to the
other side had a single vision: to reach the land of continuous sunshine and
extraordinary wealth. To start over where anything and everything was possible.
Their dreams were stronger than the obstacles in their way.
You’ve got to be a dreamer. You’ve got to envision the
future. You’ve got to see California while you’re climbing 14,000-foot peaks.
You’ve got to see the finish line while you’re running the race. You’ve got to
hear the cheers when you’re in the middle of a monster project. And you’ve got
to be willing to put yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable
until it becomes comfortable. Because that’s how you realize your dreams.
