Get Started on your Dream, No Matter What

As we continue toward my friend Gayel’s “finding50” around the world [see earlier posts], we are being confronted with our own belief systems, and those of others. It is seemingly getting more complicated, with more crew involved, and thus the ‘need’ for contributions by investors and sponsors. As external advice and expansion of the plan comes through, we seem to be losing flow, ease and simplicity.

Maybe it was because my father was married 10 times and had a ‘complicated’ life full of self-made dramas, but I seem to have developed an awareness-antenna if things get complicated or the dramas start to come.

To me, life truly is simple. It is about the choices we make on this day, today. It is about respect and a long and patient effort at self control for our greater good, and the good of those around us. It is also about conquering the reactions and learning to breathe. It is understanding what we want, and then walking calmly, but boldly toward it. My life experience has shown me that others do not know what is best for us, and we are each responsible for our independent dreams and goals.

Two distinct life-changing experiences proved to me that sometimes you have to live your dreams even when it doesn’t make sense to those around you. One was my first parachute jump. We had a large group of people at my work talking about it and we said “yes, let’s do it!”. As the chosen date came near, more and more people suddenly didn’t have the time or the money – the two most common reasons that stop people from what they really want. Finally the time came to book and pay, and I was the only one left. It was a 3 hour drive and I really wanted to do it, so I went anyway. After a 5 hour training it began to rain and the flying club stopped all jumps that day. I booked for 3 weeks later, and this time I came with my mother, stepfather and boyfriend, all celebrating with me as my fan club! It took hours of waiting and finally my turn came. The photo my mother took afterwards says it all, my HUGE grin as I came back through the fields carting a heavy parachute. Almost (yikes!) 30 years later I still rate that experience as one of the top FIVE in my life – right up there with swimming with the dolphins and having my children.

The other experience, can you imagine, changed the entire course of my life, because I met my future husband on a Contiki tour of Europe and we fell in love. Before that trip I had two friends who said, “yah, let’s go to Europe!”. Then, it all became too hard for them. I KNEW this was a now-or-never time in my life. I went to the bank and borrowed $2000 (the bank manager spent the entire time telling me about her wonderful European holiday) and saved a little cash for spending money. It was an awesome experience even aside from meeting the man of my dreams and having our first date – a gondola ride in Venice.

To fulfill one of your dreams is a deep, satisfying feeling of accomplishment that no one can explain. It makes the next dreams possible, because you have pushed through the resistance; from you and from other well meaning people.

To achieve your dreams is simple; set them, then continue to walk toward them, no matter what. Find a way through or around any obstacle that comes up. Be unstoppable in embarking on your plan. Get started without getting stopped by the details. Take care of the first steps and you will find that the completion takes on a life of its own.

Please, I ask of you, just get started, no matter what. Then at least you’ll know that you walked all paths of your life. You can almost always go back, even if things work out differently than you expect.

Just before my stepfather died of cancer at 63 years old, he and my mother were discussing their happy life together, and he told her he had no regrets from anything they did, no matter how it turned out. He said he ‘couldn’t take it with him’ and any regrets he had were from the things they didn’t didn’t do and the dreams that died with him, untried.

Make Your Dreams REAL, now.

Abundant adventure to you,
Lori