Thinking smal-L —> B-ig Thinking
Everyone should have a dream, something they strive for, somewhere they want to be. What’s yours? Do you really want your dream or is it a romance and a fairy tale that you talked yourself out of a long time ago?
I’ve been thinking about dreams and goals. I’ve figured out that only three roadblocks keep dreams and people apart. All 3 are things that we think and what we do because we think them.
If I tell you what they are, would you change the way you think to chase after that dream of yours?
3 Ways of Thinking smal-L
In order to change the way we think, we have to know what we want to change. The thinking in question here is the way we discount our own abilities — the way we think ourselves to be small, smaller than we really are. We focus on the things we lack and talk ourselves out of our dreams because we
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Lack confidence and the character of a winner. We think only other folks get to have that brass ring, that great idea, that warm place in the sun. We see their winning and not the work that they went through to get there. So we think it’s luck and not in our cards. We don’t push, don’t persevere, don’t question and test, and stay the course.
Lack of money. The road to the dream we want requires investment of time and effort, maybe education too, all of which translates to m-o-n-e-y. We don’t want to risk what little we have on a dream we don’t believe.
Lack of knowledge or comfort. We have to do things we don’t know how to do or do things we don’t like to do — We stand facing things they didn’t teach us in school. There is no path set before us. It might be talking to lawyers or finding clients. It could be learning how to book ourselves into a music venue and all of the steps in getting our first CD made. It would be so much easier if our dreams came with a built-in assistant and a teacher.
Those three Ls talk plenty of people out of perfectly wonderful dreams they’ve had.
3 Ways of Thinking B-ig
We can replace that kind of thinking. We don’t have to make ourselves small. With a shift in the way we do things we can remove all three of those roadblocks. By focusing on the things we’re going toward, we can talk ourselves into our dreams, if we
Build a plan on facts and information. We can research how other folks got where we want to go. Thinking bravely enough to test our dreams isn’t a problem, as the dream becomes a possibility.
Barter when we can’t buy. That’s what the pioneers did, and it worked quite well for them. We’re in a world of cottage industries again, and again folks are bartering services to get to where they need to go. If we look around us with creativity, we’ll see have skills and opportunities to help and promote others. We can use them in trade for skills and services that we need. It’s surprising how easy it is to do.
Bank on our support system. Be a learner. Be a friend. Find the folks we know who have done the things we’ve never done and who like to do the things we don’t. Almost everyone likes to be generous when they can. If they can help, they most likely will. If not, often they’ll tell of others who might be available. Friends do those kinds of things.
I didn’t say it would be easy, but anything worth having is worth an investment. We are talking about our $Million Dollar Dream here, aren’t we?
Would you be willing to change three things to get there? Some folks do.
I’m one who’s doing all three right now.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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See the Thinking Outside the Box series on the SUCCESSFUL SERIES PAGE.