Our Dreams and Goals - Where would we be without them?

Dreams
Ask yourself this question, "What would I do if I had unlimited, time, money and resources?"  Go ahead and think about that for a moment, even jot a few things down.  I'll wait while you do that........

Well, what did you come up with?  Would you sail around the world?  Trek through the desert on a camel?  Write a book?  Stay at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto? (These last two are some of mine) Think of the simplest things and the wildest things you could imagine.  Dare to dream!

When you write your dreams down they are more tangible.  You get them out of your head and on to paper.  Keep a notebook handy so you can write down new dreams as you think of them or scratch off the ones you realize.  Imagine that, having a dream fulfilled.  Have you had that experience?  Didn't it feel great!?  What if you had a list of dreams and, while moving through your days you were able to find opportunities to make some of those dreams come true?  I've had that experience.  My husband and I did this exercise of writing down our dreams list.  On my list was to see a NASCAR race.  So, Stan knew that this was on my list and when the opportunity arose for him to buy tickets to a race, he was able to do that.  He wanted to help me realize one of my dreams!  Well, on his list was to visit Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to visit the grounds where the Civil War took place.  Also, he wanted to visit the Smithsonian Museums in Washington.

Well, while mapping out the geographical route to my dream, Bristol, Tennessee, he realized that if we headed East instead of straight South, we could realize his dreams and visit Gettysburg AND Washington both on the same trip. 

If we had not written down our dreams lists, neither of us would have known what the others dreams were and we would never have likely had those dreams come true. It really was an incredible experience.  We shared our dreams and had opportunity to make them happen.  What an empowering experience.  Now, not all dreams will work out that way.  One of my other dreams is to rent a mansion in California for a week or even a month.  Will that ever happen?  Not necessarily so, but it is a wonderful dream and you never know if that kind of opportunity might come along!

Goals

Now what about our goals?  We can meld our dreams into actual goals. 

The formula for setting goals is as follows:

S - specific
M - measurable
A - attainable
R - realistic
T - timely or tangible

Make your goal setting very specific - decide on the goal, for example, find a new job.  That is a pretty general goal.  Get more specific - I will find a new job by June 1.  Then set specific targets - I will visit all of the businesses in my desired work location and distribute resumes and cover letters to them all within two weeks.  After one week of giving out the resumes I will follow up with a phone call to the businesses to see if there are any questions or missing information that I could provide.  Then you can gauge how well you have accomplished your goal.  You have a timeframe, you have specific tasks and you can measure your progress along the way. 

Go ahead, give it a try.  Pick something that you want to accomplish and use this method to work through accomplishing this goal and many others.

Our dreams and goals are a large part of who we are and add to the quality and value of our lives. We own our dreams and we shouldn't allow others to take them away from us - which I have done and I know many others have as well.  Come back to you and your dreams.  They don't cost anything and they don't take up space.

Dare to dream!

Until next time,

Val