Don’t Just Dream

Dreams are a beautiful thing, aren’t they? They can have the power to change your entire life! 

Dreams only work if you do though. Dreams are just dreams if you don’t ever DO anything to make them become real. So, if you have dreams, that is great! But now you need to start having goals. 

I have always dreamed of wanting to be a singer. I sang quite a bit when I was younger. I loved it. My parents got me a guitar for my 14th birthday, and I started to write songs and play them. I would sing all the time. My proudest moment of singing was when I sang at Carnegie Hall in NYC. It was an experience of a lifetime. 

I dreamed that someday I would be on stage doing sold out concerts and performing all over the world. That dream was my happy place. However, I learned that I didn’t love the work that went into singing and performing as much as I loved the dream. I loved taking the pictures (see insert) more than I loved the dark, long hours. It takes hours and hours of practice to get your fingers calloused for the guitar. It takes hours to perfect your vocal cords and to be able to hold your pitch. It takes a lot of hard work. Work that I didn’t love doing. Confusing right? Like, I wanted to be on stage singing but I did not want to do the work it took to get there. 

I’ve also dreamed of having a smoking hot bod. You know, like the ones we see on TV where the girl comes out of the water with her perfectly toned abs and no jelly roll in sight?! Like that. I wanted that. But I did not want to do the work to have that. I did not want to put down my slice of pizza and get up and go to the gym. I was perfectly happy on my couch with my pizza and jelly rolls. 

I started to piece together that even though I had these nice fluffy dreams, they meant nothing if I wasn’t willing to actually work for them. What is the point of having dreams but not going after them? That is when I realized the importance of doing versus dreaming. 

When I started doing things, my dreams started to kind of become a reality. Not the previous dreams I just mentioned, but the new dreams I had for myself, like starting a business and getting in better shape. I started writing out goals that were attainable and one goal leads to another. Before you know it, you have your dream in front of you. 

I had my dream of owning my own business for a while. I just had no clue what I wanted to do or how I was going to do it. I discovered cryotherapy, realized how much it helped me, started helping other people, and then started a business with it. I also wanted to get in better shape and lose weight, so I started eating healthier and hired a trainer. I already feel so much better that the number on the scale doesn’t bother me as much as it did before. Because I am DOING it. I’m not just dreaming about it anymore. 

Dreams mean nothing without a plan. They are completely useless. You have to have steppingstones that build up to your dream. But if you don’t lay down the first stone, you won’t ever reach your dream. 

There’s an old story from a book (and for the life of my I cannot find the title of that book anywhere) that is about a man who is hiking and looks up to the top of the mountain. He feels defeated because that mountain seems so far away. He feels like there is no way he can make it to the top of that! His buddy agrees, yes that mountain is so far away that you can’t even see it. But, he asks, can you see your next step? 

So, even though you probably can’t envision how you are going to be standing at the top of your mountain, your dream, just yet, but you can see the next step you have to take. You can see the next choice you need to make to start laying those steppingstones. 

For me and my business, I had to start finding new marketing ideas to reach more clients. I had to switch from doing everything on paper, and get an online system to help me. I had to create a website to help people understand what it is that I actually do. Once I started doing all those things, my business started to grow. For my health, I had to pencil in time in my calendar to work out and meal prep. Yes, I actually write that down and block off time in my day to make that a priority. Meal prepping takes a lot of work and requires a lot of time. Working out also requires time. I had to start scheduling that in so it stopped being one of those things I would tell myself that I’ll do “tomorrow” but I never actually did. It was on my calendar, so it had to get done. 

Once I found my dream, my true actual dream of what I want for myself, I approached it so differently. I quit fantasizing about “what if that could really happen” and I started to get to work on making that happen. For example, hitting the gym. I know I still have a lot of work to do, but I know that by summer I am going to look and feel so much better than I did last summer, because I am putting in the work. It is no longer just a dream. 

Dreams do have the power to change your whole life, but it is the goals that get you to create that power!! 

So, my dear friends, what are your dreams? And what are the stepping stones you are going to start to laying down to help you achieve that dream? Get after it, honey! You're running out of time. 

Happy trails, 

Em