Self sabotage versus achievement.
Diana Robinson
Do you believe in you?
Not "do you believe you exist? but "do you believe that you can do the things you really want to do?" You can, you know, but you need to go about it in the right way. This is an extraordinary world, and extraordinary things do happen, but, for the most part, after we have decided what our dream is we have to buckle down and make it happen. If you don't believe you can, you are very likely to sabotage yourself before you even begin.
What are your sabotage voices saying?
...that your dream is too big a task to achieve? Haven't they heard that if you can imagine it you can achieve it? ...that you don't deserve it? Whose voice from the past or present is telling you that? You deserve everything that you can get without hurting or climbing over other people. ...that only other people can get that far? What makes them so special? You need to realize that you, too, are special. You are unique! You ARE the only one of you in the entire world, and you have a combination of gifts and experience that NO ONE else has. Appreciate those gifts, that experience, and let them lead you to your dreams.
...that you could achieve it if only all the other day to day tasks didn't get in the way, but they do? Perhaps you do need help here. Most of us need assistance in prioritizing, pruning back what is not really necessary, getting other people to pull their weight. It's okay to ask for help, go ahead. (You might even try a coach.)
...that you're too old? Too young? What kind of a dream is it that would hold you back on such a basis? I've read that Grandma Moses started painting in her 80's --- she became a famous and successful artist. People go back to college in their 70's and 80's. They start new and successful busineses in their 60's. How can it be too late for you? As for too young... if you can do it, then you're not too young, unless you still need someone to sign legal papers for you.
It is true there are some dreams that are not realistic. I was not born in the United States, so I could never become President of that country... fortunately that has never been one of my dreams. Again, at my age it is highly unlikely I would be accepted into the military... Oh darn!
Get Real!
But seriously... there are pie-in-the-sky dreams and there are realistic dreams, and sometimes the line between them is not where we tell ouselves it is. If there is no way we could achieve a dream, then we do not have to face its challenge, to be prepared to work for it, maybe to decide what we will give up in order to achieve it. Maybe it's just easier to say we'd never be able to do that anyway, and then to turn on the television and reach for another potato chip. But I've never heard of anyone on their deathbed whose last words were that they wished they'd watched another television show or eaten another potato chip. Unachieved dreams are another thing entirely.
A couple of months ago I mentioned the book "Unstoppable" by Cynthia Kersey. One of its brief vignettes tells of Legson Kayira, a teenager from Nyasaland. Legson's dream was to get a college education in the United States. He set off on foot to walk the 3,000 miles to Cairo, in hopes of getting to the USA from there. He was barefoot, possessed a five-day supply of food, a small ax, a blanket, and two books. He had no money, no contacts, no visa, no boat ticket. He knew the names of no American colleges, but he knew what he wanted to do. Believe it or not, he made it, arriving in the United States over two years later. Eventually he bacame an author and a profesor of political science at Cambridge University in England.
If he could make so remote a dream come true, what is holding you back? What techniques might be helpful? We can become clear about exactly what the goal is. (Did you notice is has changed from a dream to a goal? That is because we have started to give it legs. We are developing an action plan, and it is having a plan of action that changes a dream into a true goal.)
A procedure that can serve us well as a preliminary survey of our dreams is one used by Empire State College, a part of the State University of New York where I got my bachelor's degree. As a first step they would ask what students wanted to be diong in 5-10 years time. Then what they needed to do or to learn in order to achieve it, and how far along that path they had already come. That last is important, because it helps us to see that, wherever we are, we are not starting at ground zero. We have already started along the path (Legson had learned to read and speak English). Even more important is the process of breaking the ultimate goal down into small steps. None of us can imagine ourselves doing everything that is needed to reach a major goal. Indeed, when we begin we often have no idea of all the steps that will be needed to bring us to that goal. But we do know that we can learn. We can sketch out the first steps, confident that, as we take them, new vistas will open up that will show us where the road leads next, and what obstacles we will need to overcome. Then we can know what we need to do, or to learn, next.
"Despairing is basically joining what you abhor." Jewel. For those of you who do not know, Jewel is a young pop star who often waxes philosophical in her songs. The above quotation came from a magazine interview, and it caught my attention. She is right. When we despair, we allow whatever is causing our despair to win. We stop fighting it. By not fighting it any more, we become its ally, directly or indirectly. Determination is the opposite of despair, and it can lead us through times of near-despair into triumph.
