Anth Quinn

Few people realise that dreams are a measure of your current potential; I believe that your dreams are a measure of your potential without many of the limits that are currently holding you back.

As babies we are born without limits and we begin to build boundaries around who we are and what we are capable of as we develop.  So in many ways dreaming is a better starting point than the traditional goal setting approaches commonly recommended.

You see, when many people set goals they immediately begin to ask if they are realistic, and then try to figure out the how they could achieve them based on their history and current experience.  The problem with this approach is that you are not your history because as many people have shown you have the power and potential to learn and grow beyond your wildest dreams.

People are generally happiest when they are fully expressing who they are, and people who refuse to dream and insist on dealing in reality, are limiting their success and happiness.

However dreaming on its own is no better. This is commonly manifest in the person who has great dreams they are going to achieve some day, but never actually get down to taking the consistent small actions that will lead to them. This can often lead to a life of stagnation and regret.

So what to do? 

Well, it’s important to recognise that dreaming is only the first part of the process of turning goals into reality. In order to bring dreams into reality we have to get specific and that means setting clear specific goals.

There are two very important reasons for getting specific, the first is that by getting specific you will know when you have achieved this and the second is that clear goals can build motivation.

This second step is often poorly understood and is crucial to building and maintaining motivation.

In order to build motivation, you must set a clear goal and then take a good honest look at your current reality.  Many people refuse to be honest about their current reality because they’ve been told to think positive.

This is a pity because it is in the gap between the goal and current reality that motivation grows.

Remember motivation is never a thing on its own, it’s found in the answer to the question “What will achieving this do for you?” The stronger these reasons, the stronger the tension and these reasons lie in the difference between what you want and where you are.

When you get the goal clear in your mind and then look at current reality you begin to develop creative tension in your mind. Imagine two fingers stretching a rubber band between them. This creative tension can be thought of as stress or motivation.

What many people do at this point is recognise they feel uncomfortable and question how to reduce the tension.  How you choose to do this is one of the key deciders of your destiny!

Some people reduce this creative tension by reducing the goal in some way, moving it closer to current reality, this is the beginning of compromise and frustration.  Whereas the people who refuse to give up on their dreams do the opposite, they hold the goal firm and then the only way for them to reduce this tension is to move current reality towards the goal by taking action.

This metaphor of motivation being like a rubber band goes further too, and explains how to overcome the goal plateau and unveiling the secret of never ending and consistent motivation.

Just suppose for a moment that you have held the goal firm and moved current reality towards your goal by taking consistent action towards your goal.  What happens to the tension in the band?  That’s right it reduces, and eventually it disappears as the goal is neared or reached.  This explains why it is very common for people who have achieved big goals to feel deflated - their motivation has gone.

So what is the secret of never ending motivation?

It’s quite simple, as you approach a goal, set a bigger one - in this way you increase the tension (motivation) and this will pull you straight through your first goal and on towards your next.
 
Imagine you now have a clear goal, are honestly looking at current reality and you’re motivated, what next?

The next steps are quite simple take action, seek feedback, be flexible in your approach and keep going.

What you may be suprised to discover is that achieving your dreams is not what makes people really happy. What tends to make people happy is ongoing growth and development towards a dream that is bigger than them, a dream they will never achieve but with deep personal significance.

In the end maybe living your dreams describes the journey to deeper personal meaning and significance, what you become is always more important than what you achieve.

To quote the Mazda MX5 fan club - The Journey is the Reward

Bye for now,

Anth.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 12:27 am and is filed under Goal Setting, Motivation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.