How To Make All Our Dreams Come True
Now that we have our dreams and are armed with hope, we can begin to achieve them. Today, I want to introduce my simple, foolproof plan to fulfill every one of your dreams. It doesn't matter if the dream is as big as becoming an astronaut who travels to Mars or if it is as simple as seeing a band perform when they come to town in a few months. This strategy works for everything, and it will undoubtedly work for you. So here it is: Make a plan, stick to the plan, ALWAYS DELIVER!
Now you may recognize that from the movie Storks (a decent amount of this blog will definitely consist of me just sharing my favorite books and movies). In the movie, the main character accidentally creates a baby and must deliver her to her parents before any other storks find out. The storks have gotten out of the baby delivery business and into packages since it is a much easier cargo to ship. The main character is one of the top deliverers for cornerstore.com, and his motto is "Make a plan, stick to the plan, ALWAYS DELIVER!" The always deliver portion is always yelled because everyone loves the grand finale, whether it's a firework show, graduation ceremony or achieving a dream.
I watched this movie during my first year of college when one of my roommates introduced me, and from that time forward, that motto has been my guiding principle for achieving anything and everything. I know that it sounds simple. That's because it is. The best way to achieve our dreams is a simple path, but that doesn't mean it will be easy. Simple means that it's not confusing. Easy means there is little effort involved. Achieving our dreams will take everything we've got. So let's break down what this actually means.
Step one is to make a plan. We will probably spend the most time on this process going forward because we will never truly finish creating a plan. We will always gain new knowledge, experience and connections that will require changes to our plan. We will constantly encounter new obstacles to overcome. While some of these obstacles simply require sticking to our plan and pressing forward, others will demand that we return to the drawing board.
Honestly, this step will probably be the most fun. I know actually achieving the dream will be the most exciting part of our journey, but planning requires a level of vision that allows us to see our dreams come true before they ever do. When we have that level of clarity, our dreams becoming ours just feels right and we get to celebrate once again because we knew we would reach that day all along.
The planning is the nitty-gritty of what we are going to do. When we first discover our dream we have the joy of a new beginning, and with that comes an excitement to learn everything we can about our dream. Think about how obsessed toddlers get with things, whether it is dinosaurs, trucks, planes or anything else. I remember my cousin could identify every construction vehicle we drove past, and the most I could ever do was point out a dump truck. I learned what an excavator was from reading books to him because, at that point in his life, every book, show and toy was construction themed.
That level of obsession and knowledge is something we have all experienced in our lives. We may not have felt that since our toddler days, but our desire for knowledge about exciting things has always had a pull on us. Just think about how many weird and random podcast topics we listen to purely out of a desire to learn just a little bit more. We will use so many tools when it comes to making a plan and even more when it comes time to revise that plan. Planning will always be the essential first step if achieving our dreams.
But our plans alone are worth almost nothing. We must take action; that is where step 2 comes in: stick to the plan. This is the most crucial step out of the three. You may be inclined to think that the plan is the most essential part, but remember, as George Patton said, "A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week." Activity will trump talent every time. It matters not how complete the plan is or how skilled the executor of that plan is; someone with overwhelming tenacity and persistence will always hit their goal.
That's what step 2 is all about. This will probably be the most tedious and brutal part of achieving our dreams. Sticking to the plan is when we encounter a wasteland of grind. It's where we truly have to master the mundane of whatever dream we are chasing. For example, I have officially completed one month's worth of posting on the blog, and now I am struggling. I am preparing for some travel and realizing that I need to have two weeks' worth of posts ready to go, but I have no clue what to write. (Remember, I am in the grind and being completely vulnerable with you.) As you will, hopefully, see over the next few weeks, I figured it out, but I have entered a grind period. The excitement of launching my website has faded, and now I enter the monotony of practicing the same principles every week. That's not to say that I won't enjoy what I'm writing. That doesn't mean I won't find topics that inspire me or that I can't wait to share. It just means there will be days when it feels like the only thing I am accomplishing is sitting on my couch trying to figure out what to write.
That's what chasing a dream is about, though. There are plenty of exciting moments, but for the most part, achieving a dream is all about ensuring we put in the daily, weekly and monthly activities necessary to achieve our dreams. Whether it is a daily word count for a writer, weekly exams for someone going through medical school, or monthly quotas for sales goals, we all will grow tired of practicing the same thing on a consistent basis. But, we cannot grow weary in well doing. Step 2 is the most essential piece of achieving our dream because it is only by remaining consistent on the hard and boring days that we can actually achieve our dreams.
Then, we get to the fun part. Step three is ALWAYS DELIVER! This is when the dream comes true. You keep pressing forward until everything that you've dreamed about is yours to hold. This step is obviously the most fun, and I want to share everyone's dream victory stories here, but it is the last step. We can only reach this point by sticking to our plan with so much perseverance that our dreams have no choice but to come true. Our dreams have made us a promise that they will come true in our lives if we put in the work; now it's our turn to keep up our end of the bargain, so let's work together to make a plan, stick to the plan, ALWAYS DELIVER!
