The importance of being a dreamer.
When I was young my mother used to say ‘Arthur, you’re just a dreamer’ and it was NOT meant as a compliment.
When I was at school I often got into trouble for staring out of the window. The teacher would say I was just a dreamer and it was NOT meant as a compliment.
Later in life friends would often answer some of my more ‘off the wall’ business ideas and plans for the future with ‘Arthur you’re such a dreamer’ and I don’t think it was meant as a compliment.
They were right. I am, but they were wrong in thinking it was a bad thing – it’s not.
“If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.” – Marcel Proust
Being a dreamer is a good thing, not something to be ashamed of.
“At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable.” – Christopher Reeve
Dreams inspire us. They challenge us, they encourage us and they give us a glimpse of what is possible. Without dreams we have nothing.
“What’s the purpose of living if you don’t go after your dreams?” – Samson Reiny
Be a dreamer – but not just a dreamer.
Obviously daydreaming your life away without taking any action is never going to work. One needs the other.
When I was about 11 years old I was what they called a ‘latch-key child’. As both parents worked long hours every day and there was no one at home after school, I would go round to my Grans house for tea.
My grandad was always sitting at the kitchen table. (I don’t think I can remember him doing anything else).
He would sit there staring out of the window, day in day out, and when I sat down with him his favourite topic of conversation was “when I win the lottery I will do …..”.
He had been saying it for as long as I can remember and of course he died without doing any of them.
I remember a great line from one of the Harry Potter movies in which Dumbledore catches Harry sitting in front of the ‘Mirror of Erised’ and in answer to Harry’s questions Dumbledore replies:
“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live…”
Be a dreamer but not just a dreamer, you also have to be a doer. Dreams don’t work unless you do.
Here are a few ways to dream your way to success:
# Discipline
Dreams aligned with passion, self-belief and self-discipline is a powerful force.
“Discipline is doing things you don’t necessarily like, in order to achieve something you love”.
Remember, success has little to do with education; it’s about self-discipline, a willingness to learn, the ability to keep going when things get tough, stubborn determination and passion.
# Don’t get in your own way
I have said it before but it needs to be repeated, ‘we are the masters of sabotage’ we know it but we just don’t admit it to ourselves.
The truth is that, most of the time, what stops us from being who we want to be and doing what we want to do is – ourselves!
We are the instigators of our own procastination.
We get in our own way all the time. We sabotage our own efforts and we undermine ourselves at every turn.
We create endless obstacles and excuses. We blame circumstance, we blame others, we blame the weather and we blame our lot in life.
# Keep on dreaming
Dream away but with purpose. As Hunter S Thompson once said:
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow!
Dream don’t wish.
# Dream big but start small
Make you dreams achievable. If you want to succeed think big but start small. Small is good.
Often first time entrepreneurs bite off way more than they can chew and they choke. Their dreams fail because they give themselves too much to do too soon.
“No dreamer is ever too small; no dream is ever too big.”
All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day towards their distant vision, goal or purpose.
Finally
Remember: If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.
