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Success Articles > Believing in Your Dreams-How to Achieve What You Want Out of Life


It is important to live your dream and not your nightmare. My definition of a living a nightmare is, living a life that is the opposite of fulfilled. It is living a life that is not satisfying, and living a life with constant regret and "I wish I would have done that." But I have great news! It is not too late for you to begin to live the life you deserve to live.

One thing that helped me begin to live the life that I deserve to live, was to give myself permission to achieve my dreams. Often a person may feel like he or she doesn't have the right to achieve his or her dreams. This is because he or she has so much other responsibility, spouse, family, work, etc.

But the only thing that mind-set does is put you at the back of the line. This means that you are putting everyone else and everything else before you. Now it is a reality that many of us have other obligations, but the point is to balance your life.

When you balance your life you are still able to fulfill your other obligations, while working on things that are important to you as well. The same energy and passion you put into your other responsibilities, you should also put into something that is beneficial for your future.

So many times we get bogged down with other responsibilities, and before we know it we have stopped dreaming. And have just settled for not achieving what it is we desire to achieve. This is not fair to anyone. It is not fair to those who believe in you, and it most certainly is not fair to you.

It is not just enough to give yourself permission to dream. You have to also give yourself permission to reach your dreams. Everyone has a dream, but not everyone is working toward getting them out of their mind, and into reality. If your dream is just stuck in your mind then it is not helping anyone.

If you think back to when you were a child, were you fired up about your dreams? I know I was. Were you excited, and energized just by the mere thought that you could achieve them? Sure, you were. That was our mind-set when we were children.

We had that "anything is possible" mentality. We thought that nothing was impossible to achieve. We eagerly shared our dreams with others. Even though we had no clue how they were going to happen. We had the faith that they would happen.

Now what happens as we get older? Life happens, and people happen. I mean that somewhere in between being a child who was destined to reach his or her dreams, and adulthood, things have happened in life to maybe slow us down, create a challenge or obstacle, or just caused us to settle for never achieving our dreams.

Another thing that I think happens is people. Yes, people happen. This means the "childlike faith" is no longer there, because somewhere along the road someone said that it could not be done. And we allowed that fear of failure to set in and cause us to be stagnant, and not work toward achieving our dreams.
 
It is sad when we allow people to kill our dreams, destroy our dreams and delay our destiny. I have had my share of naysayers; but I had to make it up in my mind that what God said I could do, overrode what anyone said that I could not do.

That allowed me to develop an unstoppable mind-set. I am empowered by faith to reach my dreams. I don't depend on my own ability, but I let God strengthen me to keep going, not give up, and achieve results.

I have had so many things up against me in life. My mother passed away suddenly, I was a statistic of corporate downsizing so I lost my job, and then seven months later my precious grandson passed away. So I truly know how it feels to have challenges rise up against your dreams. But you have to realize that God created you to live a fulfilled life. He created you to reach your dreams. He created you to persevere, even in the face of adversity.

Many people ask me "How did you do it?" I simply respond, I never let quitting be an option. Now, I didn't say that I didn't want to give up, but I knew that I had to keep going, because on the other side of my pain was my purpose.

As I am writing this article and reflecting back on my life, I know that there is no way that I would have made it if I was depending on my own ability. I thank God constantly that he blessed me to reach my dreams. And I am still working on things that I want to achieve.

I knew that if I didn't fulfill my dreams someone may be missing out on something I have to offer. I knew that if I didn't fulfill my dreams I would not be able to share with others how God blessed me to persevere. So many times our journey is not just about us. But it is about others that we are meant to touch.

It is time for you to unleash your dreams. And yes, I mean unleash. Just because you haven't thought about your dreams lately, does not mean they are not still there. Just because you have them tucked away safely in your past thinking, does not mean that they don't exist.

It is realistic that you can achieve your dream. I believe in you, God believes in you, now you just have to believe in you.

If you have a feeling that there is more to your life than what you are currently experiencing, there is a great chance that your dreams are trying to get your attention. Are your dreams talking to you? What are they saying? Probably "Go for it. You deserve it!" How will your actions respond? Are you going take action and go for your dreams? Or are you going to look back a year from now, still thinking that it is unrealistic that you can achieve them?

If you feel good when you think about your dreams, then imagine how great you will feel when you achieve them! Now, it is time to get started. So take action. You will be glad that you did!