The Definitive Guide on Achieving Your Dreams

Glen / 39 Comments / February 25th, 2009 / Subscribe via RSS

Start my own business? Check. Work from home full-time? Check. Travel the world while I make all my money online? In progress. I was 17 when I started my first company and it’s now at 19 that I’m working from home full-time; and let me tell you this…I absolutely love it.

I often talk about how you should just go out there and do what you love, announce that life is too short to be stuck in a dead end job and even scream from the rooftops about every single person deserving success. Based on this, it surprises me I’ve never put together a guide on how you can actually achieve your dreams, until now.

As you can see, I’m currently in the progress of working on another goal of mine, my ultimate desire, and that is to be able to live anywhere in the world while staying connected to my ‘job’. Eventually the only resource I hope to need is an internet connection, and I’m well on my way.

Based on this rather large aim, I’ve been putting together a specific and ordered strategy to help me get where I would like to be. It’s definitely not that I don’t believe in myself, I just think an ordered system and a lot of focus is the most effective way to turn my dreams into reality. I noted down the main steps that have helped me achieve my other goals in life, and this time is no different.

Well, except for one thing. This time I’m putting my strategy out there to the world and I hope you can use it to help you propel yourself from your current situation to the one you’ve been dreaming about. Dream no more: I promise that if you put the following steps into action then you WILL achieve whatever dreams you have. Providing, of course, that they are actually possible (if I could help make you fly then I wouldn’t be sitting here typing this).

“Why do you make it sound so easy?”

Sorry if my response is obvious, but, it is easy. Think about this – even with all the amazing weight loss information out there in the world, why do so many people still struggle to shed the pounds? Of course, there are a number of possible answers for that including:

• Having the goal for the wrong reason
• Not following a proper action plan
• Not recording any metrics and becoming de-motivated
• Letting other aspects of life get in the way

I know there are some medical issues that literally stop some people from losing weight, but 99% of the time when people fail to meet their goals it is through some area of lack on their part. I don’t want that to sound like I’m better than anyone else, definitely not; I’ve failed to achieve the majority of my goals in life. That isn’t because they weren’t achievable, that’s just because I either didn’t plan properly or I didn’t put my plan into action.

The guide I’m going to share, when followed, can produce massive results, every time. I say that it is easy because if you stick to this plan then you can achieve whatever it is you want to achieve. You can make it as difficult as you like for yourself, but it needn’t be the challenge you think it is.

Enough of the intro, let’s kick off shall we?

Achieving Your Dreams

This post is going to be long and it’s going to be detailed. If you don’t have time to read it now I recommend you save it and come back to it later. If it is even too long for that, then that probably means that either a) you underestimate how important following your desires are b) you don’t know what you desire or c) you’re focusing on the wrong ‘dream’.

Make Sure You’re Focusing on the Right Thing – No matter what any of the other points in this post are going to say, if you are thinking of a goal that will no longer interest you in the next few months then this article won’t be of any use. First things first, you need to make sure you have your goal in order.

Some of us are lucky in that we instinctively know what we want to achieve in life. I wasn’t one of those people but I certainly have a clear idea of where I would like to be in the next year. There are a few simple questions you can ask yourself to see if you’re focusing on something you care about:

• Would you still do it for free? If your dream is to be a writer, then assuming money doesn’t exist in this world, would you still do it?
• Is it for you or someone else? Sadly, it’s often parents or peers that change what we want to go for in life. Make sure your dream is of your own making, not something you want to achieve to keep others happy.
• Is this just for your Ego? There’s nothing wrong in wanting a mansion, but I believe the funds to own a mansion should be generated by doing something you love, not doing something as a means to an end. If your dream is in the form of a material possession, make sure it’s not thought of as the magic pill to bringing you happiness. It won’t.

If you passed those tests it’s likely that you’ve found yourself a true desire and you should move onto the next steps. If those tests made you re-evaluate what you want, I suggest you read this article.

Make Time to Work on Your Plan – By this I don’t just mean being organised, but I’m also referring to actually performing the actions to make your dreams a reality. First of all, you need to have a clear idea of where you want to go, and what it is going to take to get there.

If your dream is to become a professional basketball player, then you need to look into joining clubs that get scouted and improving your skills on the court. If your dream is like mine and you want to make your income online, then you need to look into the likes of affiliate marketing, consulting and ad based websites to see how you can earn your money.

When you’re lying on your death bed, you won’t wish you spent more hours in the office

- Robin Sharma

Secondly, you need to make sure you can complete your tasks. It’s no use wanting to earn a living online if you can’t dedicate time to research, testing and action. This is why I made sure to include a ‘dream checker’ as the first point here to make sure you are going for what you want. Put simply, you need to make time available to do what you need to do.

Some tips on getting more time include:

• Waking up earlier
• Simplifying your current life situation (delegating tasks)
• Cutting out time wasters like TV or useless web browsing

If you do have the time then great, if not then you really need to make the time available. If this seems like too much, ask yourself how badly you want your desired outcome.

Rid Yourself of Limiting Beliefs – It’s possible that some of you are saying “I know what I want to achieve but I really don’t think I can”. A mindset like this, whilst common, is going to delay your progress massively if not stop you in your tracks altogether. Limiting beliefs have no place in the mind of a successful person. I think you’re successful, they have no place.

You’re so successful in fact that you’ve made it through life all these years. And now, you’re going to reap the rewards by showing yourself and others what discipline mixed with ambition can achieve. As I’ve once said…You Are Enough. It’s not that you need more of this or more of that to achieve your goals; you actually need less. Less social conditioning, less mind clutter telling you that you can’t do it and less criticism on yourself. You are enough to achieve your dreams, that’s my guarantee, or your money back.

The most important thing to realise is that you own your self limiting belief. It is a mind-made object and it is not real. Therefore, you can turn your thoughts to a more positive attitude, which will in turn change your outlook and actions. You can only hold one thought at a time, if you are going to think (you don’t have to) then at least make your thoughts positive.

It is of course possible that along your way you will face challenges. Do not see these challenges as a ‘sign from god’ in order to stop what you are doing. No…see these challenges as a filter for all the people who don’t want this as badly as you do. Appreciate them.

Pick Behaviours to Turn into Habits – It is said that it takes around 3-4 weeks for a behaviour to become a habit. Therefore, applying effort to consciously do something for less than a month should imprint that action in memory so you don’t even have to think about doing it in future.

Look closely at your plan for what you need to do to achieve your dreams. Whether it is work out more on the basketball court, spend more time improving your skills in hopes of promotion or anything else, work out some behaviours that will help overall. It is the small steps you take which will contribute to the whole and have the biggest effect.

Personally, each day make sure I write at least one blog post, focus on building blog traffic using specific methods and interact with others online. Some of these behaviours weren’t easy to implement, but once I did them consciously for a decent period of time, they became habits. See what you can focus on that you could turn into a habit that will help with the overall picture.

Reverse Engineer the Success of Others – Unless you are highly creative, it’s very likely that someone has had the same dream as you one day and they’ve managed to achieve it. Simply put: find out who they are and find out how they did it. The results and ideas here are very likely to rid you of your limiting beliefs (if you have any) and also offer you new ideas that you can implement into your own journey.

When starting to make money online, I didn’t put up a site and just hope I would make money. No, I joined internet marketing forums, looked at how people were earning a decent income and replicated certain ideas. Of course, I put those ideas into my own mission, which involved creating a site that I’m very passionate about (Hint: the one you’re reading right now).

A bit of research online should help you find people who’ve managed to achieve their dreams; from swimming with dolphins, becoming a professional musician or even just being able to travel the world. It’s likely that someone has been there and done that, and you can benefit.

Keep a Journal of Successes and Failures – I’ve been involved in internet marketing for over 3 years so I already have a feel for what works and what doesn’t. However, there was a time where I had to note down what was working and what wasn’t so I could focus on the things that did work and become more efficient.

If you are veering off into a unchartered territory in terms of achieving your dreams then I recommend that you keep a journal to record what helps and what doesn’t. I believe in the pareto principle which says that 20% of your efforts are going to give you 80% of your results. If you have limited time to work on your goals each day, you need to know which tasks should take priority in order to get the best results.

Additionally, your log can also work as an indicator of your progress. If you are gaining momentum on your journey then it will be clear by looking through your old entries to see where you were compared to where you are now.

Visualize Your Outcome on a Daily Basis - I wouldn’t offer advice that I haven’t tried or implemented myself, and whilst this might sound ‘New Agey’, it definitely works for me. In Google Docs, I have pictures of things that inspire me to achieve my goals. So for example if my aim is to make money online and be able to travel then I would have (which I do) pictures of amazing places around the world that this new freedom would allow me to visit.

If your dreams are to attract more relationships then you could have pictures of groups of people enjoying themselves. If your dream is to become a public speaker then you could have photos of inspirational people giving speeches and so on, you get the idea.

Each morning, for about 2-3 minutes, I visualize myself having already achieved my goals and living the life I want to live. This works well because it conditions our mind to focus on the things that we want in life and not on the things that we don’t want. It’s similar to when you buy a new car and you start seeing the same make and model everywhere, we start looking out for it. Give visualization a try and see how well this works out for you.

Stick to Your Plan

I’ve made this point into its own heading because I believe it to be the number one factor to success in terms of achieving your dreams. Look at this in terms of people wanting to lose weight, I highlighted that there are adequate resources out there to do so; just most people still fail at being able to do it.

Success is largely a matter of holding on after others have let go

Not having the right information is unlikely the main cause of the issue, the opposite is probably true where the information they have is fine, it’s just that they don’t stick to a plan to lose the excess fat. The same goes for your mission. It doesn’t matter how fine-tuned your plan is, you must be able to stick to it for as long as it takes.

Your dreams aren’t going to happen overnight, but you shouldn’t want them to either. Achieving your dreams is as much about the process as it is about the end result. Don’t rely on the end result to make you happy; I’m never one to be negative but it’s possible you won’t achieve your goals. That isn’t saying you can’t achieve your dreams, I’m just saying that you might be hit by a bus tomorrow so don’t waste one second doing things you don’t love.

I love writing new articles, I love being creative and looking into the numerous ways I can put my passion into words. If I woke up tomorrow with one million pounds, I would still be checking my PluginID dashboard the next day to see if there are any new comments. The words here should point you in the direction of achieving your greatest desires and I believe every one of you can do it. Enjoy the end result but also enjoy the journey.

Life is right here, right now. It’s all just about what you make of it. I would say “Good luck” but you don’t even need luck. Just remember: make a plan and stick to it. If you remember nothing but that then you can still fulfil your goals.