Steps To Creating Your Dream Life
“A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work. – Colin Powell”
What’s Your Passion
Back when I went to high school, I, being a girl, was put in accounting and typing classes by my high school counselor. I was never asked what I really wanted to do with my life. If I had been asked, I’m not sure I could have told them.
The day after graduation my parents and I packed up our two cars and an RV and headed for Sunny Southern California. My dad had begun to have lung problems with the cold weather in the Black Hills of South Dakota and needed a milder climate.
My parents were on task, seeing that I was enrolled in a Christian college in Costa Mesa, CA. That’s where their responsibility for college ended. I had to get a job, which my high school classes prepared me for. I was working in an escrow office soon after my arrival. Then, it was up to me to work and show up for classes to get that college degree.
I had no idea how to even navigate the college system. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I had no idea what I was good at. I didn’t know what I might like to do. The only thing I knew about was typing and accounting. My parents, who had never gone to college, were also unprepared to help.
I opted out of college, got a job, and got married. Hopefully, today’s parents and high schools are preparing kids to meet these challenges more than they did 40 years ago.
But are we preparing kids to find what they are good at? Do they have any idea what their passion is?
Dream Life
Are you struggling to find your dream life? If your deepest desires were fulfilled, how would your life change? What would you do differently? Have you developed the goals for your dream life?
Many of us have an idea of what our dream life looks like. Some of us have created the goals but don’t quite know how to start moving in that direction. Others of us have struggled for so long that we have lost our passion or our motivation.
In the later years of high school and definitely in college we are taught skills for a craft, trade or profession. But we are not taught how to design and implement our dream life. We are not taught how to live our lives on purpose.
It may seem like your dream life is out of reach, but with a little planning and effort, you can be back on the path and decide the next step.
Do you feel like you’ve lost control of your life? Don’t underestimate your power. You can make the changes to create the life you’ve always wanted. Perhaps you are allowing life to happen because you aren’t really sure what you want. If you don’t live with clear intention, you don’t really know what you want or how to achieve it.
Let’s find your purpose, your passion and design your life with clear intention.
Purpose – A Clear picture of what you want
If you had a choice, what would you want your day to look like?
Take a few minutes. Relax in a quiet place where you can do some visualization. Are you ready?
Picture in your mind the things you really enjoy and love to do. It could be a hobby or something else. It could be something you don’t get much time to do.
Ask yourself what you would like to spend your day doing? Can you visualize you doing this all day every day? Why? (Write out the answers to these questions)
Identifying the things you really like to do helps you identify your God-given passion and purpose in life. It may be something you’ve never tried before.
List Your Talents
What are you good at? Can it be implemented into your daily life? Your hobbies and talents don’t have to be the same. A talent is something you are great at. Many times you can use your talent in a job.
I always thought it would be great to be a writer. I loved to read, but had not written anything, even a diary, except in high school.
Yes, I was good at my job in office management and eventually computer programming, but over the years I became very tired of the same-ole-same-ole. I longed for something creative, something different than what I had done for years.
When I went back to college and got my Master’s Degree in Psychology I wrote a case study like a novel. I had so much fun and my professor loved it. So, here I am writing blog posts.
Who Do You Admire and Why?
Is there someone you really admire? You look at them and wonder what it would be like to do their job all day. This doesn’t mean that you would do exactly the same thing, but the qualities this person has maybe an inspiration to you in finding your passion. They can give you an idea of what your life could look like and how you would feel if you had a similar life.
If You Only Had A Few Months To Live What Would You Do With Your Time?
This question is rather drastic, but it can help you narrow down what is really important to you, what your true passion is.
When time is limited you focus more on what is really important to you in life. This could open up new ideas for you to think about. It could help you determine your true passion in life.
God has a divine purpose for each one of us while we are here on earth. Part of finding God’s purpose is to find your passion. God uses your passions and talents in his purpose for you. After all, he gave you your talents and your passion.
As you go through this process of finding your passion, pray. Ask God to show you what his will is for your life.
Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
What Do You Need To Do To Make This Happen – Baby Steps First?
I trust that at this point you have a clearer idea of your purpose and what your dream life looks like. Now, you need to design a plan to achieve your dream life by using your answers above.
Set An Objective
When you define an objective, where you want to be in a year, five years, ten years, you begin to take ownership of your life and where it is going. Make the objective as clear as possible.
Visualize what you will be doing and what it will be like when you reach your objective. Write down how you feel or draw a picture if that’s your thing. You might create a collage of magazine photos. Add your ideas.
Set Small Targets
What is the first thing you need to do to move toward your objective? What’s steps can you take today and tomorrow to start moving toward your objective?
Write it down in a journal or create a vision board. If you don’t know how to design one, look it up online.
Keep Track Of Your Small Steps
What will you use to keep track of your progress? How will you determine important milestones and how will you celebrate them?
Conclusion
As you journey toward your dream life, you will encounter doubt, fear, self-limiting beliefs, insecurities, and other negative beliefs and feelings. There will be people in your life who won’t understand. They will give you their negative opinion.
Don’t allow yourself to be influenced by negativity from yourself or someone else. Don’t listen. If you listen it may convince you that what you want is impossible. You will get discouraged and won’t take the necessary steps to succeed.
Yes, you will make mistakes. You will try things that just won’t work or you see they won’t fit into your overall vision of your life. That’s okay. Make any necessary changes and/or adjustments to your plan then keep going.
You might find that the vision board you used or the software you used to design your goals didn’t work well. Change it. Find something that will work. The main point is to keep going. It may take a little longer than you planned. That’s okay. Keep going.
