New Year resolutions rarely come out of nowhere. They tend to be made of the same substance as your dreams. Whether you wish to start working out, start reading more, or finally go to Santorini, the approach of a New Year draws all of these desires to the surface. The hindrances and inhibitions of the past year seem to subside and the future looks to be a clean slate.
New Years resolution often fail. I understand why. In the same way that people think a diploma guarantees a job, people sometimes think that the New Year is composed of some strange magic that propels people into the lives they dream of. However, outside of the fact that the earth has orbited once more around the sun, the New Year is just another day, no more significant and no more promised than tomorrow. So why not move toward our dreams today?
It’s a crime to put your aspirations on hold any longer. Even more to flat out ignore them. Here are some ways to interact with your dreams that increase their likelihood of being realized:
Get to Know Them and "Pen" Them Down
What is it that you want to do? Perhaps you’ve been pursuing medical school since you were fourteen because you were told it was a surefire road to stable income, but you’ve always been inclined to do… something else. Maybe you have no direction. Whatever level you are on, you still owe it to yourself to live intentionally everyday. If you have a goal, it’s time to map out specific objectives you’d like to meet within a set timeframe. Studies show that this practice increases the likelihood of accomplishment. If you don’t have specific goals, then you can have genuine fun planning to engage in new volunteer, travel, internship, and other experiences that will help enlighten you to your purpose. The key is to be specific and to write everything down.
Introduce Them to Others
If you’re like me, you tend to hold your dreams close to your chest, where they are safe from public opinion. However, to embody your dreams, you have to wear them as if they are your reality. When you make your goals known, you become accountable to them. No one accomplishes anything on their own. When you tell people you trust about your goals, you open the door for them to constructively criticize you, cultivate you, affirm you, and provide resources for you in a way you cannot do for yourself. This is not to say you shouldn’t use discretion when you let people into the inner sanctums of your heart, but mentors and likeminded individuals will make fabulous allies on your journey.
Take Them to Breakfast
A good staff meeting at the beginning of the workday helps to orient my mind toward completing all my tasks. The same applies to personal daily tasks. During your morning coffee, have a staff meeting with yourself and your written dreams. The topic of discussion? Your current progress on your goals and all the ways you will make today work for you. Being strategic about adding value to yourself daily is a great way to focus your energy and time on activities that are conducive to your growth. If you keep this up, one day you’ll be leading staff meetings that are much larger than just you.
Visualize Them
Creating a vision board is a great way to exercise your creativity and build something that will reinforce the goals you’ve set by giving your eyes something positive to feast on. Not only do pictures help you to identify and clarify the vision you have for your life, but surrounding yourself with symbols of the future you want causes you to be more inclined to adjust your life to match your vision. In addition to making a vision board, another way to visualize your success is to surround yourself with images of people who are where you want to be. Whether you make new friends, adjust your social media feed, or pursue mentorship, you will always have people worth emulating.
Invest in Them
This part is simple, but it may strain your pockets a little. Investing in your dreams will cost you time, leisure, and comfort... it will probably also cost money. That DSLR you need to take your blog to the next level, the loans you will need to attend college, the software you need to purchase a program, the plane ticket, the domain name, the tripod, the acting class, Rosetta Stone, etc. Whatever the sacrifice, have faith that you and your dreams are worth it and that you will receive ample return on your investment.
