It is a wonderful thing to dream, but it’s an even better thing to act upon those dreams. Throughout my life I’ve dreamed of a certain lifestyle, certain freedoms and the chance to do the extraordinary, but it wasn’t until after college that I realized dreams were just realities waited to be acted upon. This realization changed my life, up until about 21 I’d always assumed that you could dream but life happened to you regardless. This couldn’t be further from the truth and as I ‘wake up’ more and more from the fog of ‘the real world’ I see that your life can be as big as you dream it but your dreams can only be as big as you are willing to act upon.

This is actually reason for celebration, it means you don’t have to wake up everyday and think ‘what will life hand me today’ instead you can literally happen to life, all it takes are baby steps. The way I act upon my dreams is three fold, I’ll explain my ‘action plan’ below:

1. Quantify the dream. Don’t say ‘I want to be rich and happy’ you must find ways to measure how rich and what ‘happiness’ looks like. So when you have a dream immediately put it onto paper and force yourself to quantify it. Now ‘I want to be rich and happy’ turns into ‘I want to have $100,000 in the bank in 2 years and I want to have met and married my dream girl’.
2. Map out the dream. So now that you know what ‘rich’ and ‘happy’ look like you can start to draw a plan (the more detailed the better) to get there. If you are driving somewhere you’ve never been you’d be a fool to not have a map (or mapquest) so why in life if you are heading towards a goal you’ve never achieved before would you leave the specifics to chance? It’s foolish, and more important it’s laziness masking itself with titles like ‘carefree’. So now assess your life as it stands, say you are working a job that pays $12 an hour part time, you aren’t going to get to your monetary goal this way so it’s time to change course. Develop an action plan based on what you like to do and what could possibly bring in extra income, then follow that plan to the T. What helps me is reading success stories, it not only inspires you but helps get your creative juices flowing about the hows of your specific goal. Secondly you want to meet and marry your dream girl, well if your single right now – or not with your dream girl – you’ll have to change course fast. Start meeting new people, go to a match maker, check out a dating site, ask your friends to set you up and actively search out the girl of your dreams vs. waiting on ‘chance’.
3. Live the dream. Now as you act every day on these goals it is time to live ‘as if’, this means reminding yourself all the time of what your life will look like in 2 years and why you are going for those goals. It means not worry about finances or finding the right girl anymore because you know deep down in 2 years time you’ll be there. Thinking as if is a vital part of reaching your goals but must be paired with quantification and mapping out your dream… if it isn’t you aren’t ‘living as if’ your delusional

Now it’s time for you to act, comment below on at least one of your dreams and quantify it. In a month or so come back and reply with any progress you’ve made, this social pressure alone will help you push yourself out of your comfort zone and into the land of the living. It is time to seize your dreams, it’s time to stop moping and stop making excuses – nothing is impossible when you pair an ardent dream with incredible action.

I remember my first real outdoor rock climbing experience at the Delaware Water Gap. On that very first trip, it had rained earlier in the day and the rock face was still wet and even muddy in some places. This was a completely new experience and well outside my comfort zone. I am actually a bit scared of heights.

I started off pretty easy and began to get excited as I climbed. I must have climbed about 50 feet before I came to a section that seemed impassable. I was holding onto this one spot with everything I had. The rock was wet, and it felt like I could fail at any moment. I thought there was no physical way I could achieve the next move to continue climbing. It required me to lift my left leg up while extending out and then standing up on a ledge to my left that was at chest height. All I had to do was get my foot up on that hold, and then reach for the next hold above it. But to do this required letting go of the rock face. Right now, I was comfortable and safe., but this move would put me in a vulnerable position. If I didn’t do it right, I would miss and fall, which was still terrifying even though I was hooked into a rope and harness.

I struggled with this fear while holding onto the rock for what seemed like an eternity. I can’t do this, I thought.  Thoughts of fear and failure raced through my mind over and over. I even thought about just giving up. Look how far I already came today, I thought to myself, This is a good start. Then I started to think about my vision, and the promise I made to myself. I wanted to climb to the top,  to be able to say I had done this. I wanted to be able to say I was a climber, and I focused my mind on the end goal and got up the courage to do it.

With all those positive images running through my mind, I put my leg out and made the move, reaching for the next hold above me. It is hard to describe, but it was amazing. I did something that I was convinced was impossible for me to do. Something that had seemed so impossible, so outside of my comfort zone and difficult for me, what looked so far away and so dangerous, turned out to be a very easy move.

The danger was real. Yes, I could fall several feet, even hooked in and with a person on belay. Yet knowing all this, I was still afraid to fail, that I could still be injured. The fear in my mind was multiplying the risks in my reasoning. Only when I suppressed it, replaced it with my vision, and focused my attention on my goal that I got up the courage to step outside of my comfort zone.

That day, I did step outside of my comfort zone, and I grew a little. I became more confident in my abilities. Not just in rock climbing, (I am still a very new rock climber) but my confidence in myself was increased. I realized I had the ability to overcome.

Every one of us has so much potential inside of us. We just have to push ourselves outside of where we are comfortable.  When you get outside of your comfort zone, you will grow.

1. BECOME PASSIONATE
   If you are really going to change your lifestyle and start LIVING, then you are going to have to become passionate. No more straddling the fence there, Buster. It is time to commit to your dream, to that vision of how you want to live.When I became passionate and put real emotion behind my dreams, I went from that guy who was always going to do something, to the guy who HAD DONE SOMETHING.

   I’m sure you have heard people say that you need to find what you are passionate about and then pursue it. That’s great for finding a way to make an income, but if you don’t have passion for very much, you won’t achieve anything beyond that. You need to become passionate about the vision of the life you want. Do you want a new red sports car? Then get passionate about it.

2. START READING
   The lazy man of mediocrity sits in front of his TV and absorbs. There is a reason it is called the “Boob Tube”. If you want to grow and live a successful lifestyle, it is time to start reading and educating yourself. I never really liked to read, but my mentor always told me it doesn’t matter if you like to read or not, you just need to do it. Commit to read at least 30 minutes a day.But what to read? Check out my book list here for starters. Also, start seeking out websites and blogs on what you’re trying to achieve.  Not only do I read books on entrepreneurship, personal development, finances and investing, but I also read blogs on these subjects.

   But that’s not all, I read travel blogs and magazines too, because that goes back to step 1 and fuels my passion for how I want to live my life and what I want to do.

3. STOP COMPLAINING
   Seriously, stop complaining about your boss. Stop complaining about your spouse. Stop complaining about the government and everything else you whine about. Do you know who complains? LOSERS COMPLAIN. If you make up your mind to stop complaining and only notice the positive around you, you’ll notice a huge improvement in your attitude and in the circumstances of your life.
4. START DOING
   Doers get things done. Don’t wait for other people. Get out there and take action! Stop waiting for lady luck and make it happen yourself. It is that simple. If you want to change your life, then you are going to have to start taking action. That’s how I did it, and that’s what you need to do.Idleness will lead to nothing.
5. GET OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE
   If you are comfortable where you are at you will be stagnate. The only thing in nature that is stagnate is a swamp. Everything else is either growing or dying. So what are you doing? If you want to grow, you will have to get outside of your comfort zone.I learned this while rock climbing this summer, hanging onto the side of a cliff a thousand feet up, going well outside my comfort zone. Every time that my mind wanted to give up, I’d push myself and find that I was capable of more than my mind wanted to believe.  Every time that I retreated and failed to push myself, giving up, I have regretted.For example, if you are afraid of being around a large crowd of people, then you NEED to hang around a large crowd of people until you are comfortable. You grow the most when you are outside your comfort zone.
6. START LIVING
   Quit your job if you have to. You only get one life. Why waste your life? You need to start living! Start doing some of the things you dream of doing. You don’t have to do all of them at once, and maybe some of them require you to be more well off. Start small and work your way up towards your goals.Trust me, you aren’t living while working in a cubical 60 hours a week hoping for the weekend. That is not what we were created to do. That is not a life.

So that’s it. If you want to live an awesome life start there. I’ll share more insights as time goes on.

This is not just an ancient proverb stuffed into an old book, it is a reality of life. A well thought out vision defines where you want to go and what you want to achieve. It is more than just setting some goals and writing them down. It is a clear mental picture of how you will live, how you will accomplish those goals, and what life will be like when you get there.

Think of Martin Luther King, casting his vision of a day when whites and blacks would sit down at the table of humanity together, equal. His passion, his drive were complete evidence of his clarity of vision. His clarity of vision was shared before thousands, and it moved those masses to change this nation for the better.

Having a clear vision provides meaning to the day-to-day challenges and setbacks that make up the rumble and tumble of real life. When times are tough, vision usually is the first casualty. We take our focus off the vision and look at the circumstances around us instead. When you lose sight of the vision, don’t be surprised if you lose most, if not all, sight of your goals. When this happens, you not only fail to accomplish them, you are stuck right back where you started from.

Think back to a race of people who were bound in slavery for generations. Along comes one man, claiming to be a prophet of God, asking for the people to believe in the freedom and promised land given to them. The people believe, especially after marveling at the plagues and curses that come down upon their masters. Countless trials and adversities are faced, and each time that the people moan and complain, losing sight of the vision, they are given another chance. Forty years later, they arrive at the Promised Land. But wait! There are dangerous enemies occupying the land! Again, the people lost sight. It cost them their lives. They were once again forced to wander the desert for forty years until every person who had lost sight of the vision had passed. It was their children who entered the Promised Land.

Vision is important for anyone considering lifestyle design. If you don’t have a defined vision for how you want to live, you won’t accomplish much.

In the 2004 Olympics, a man named Matthew Emmons was on track for the Gold medal in the 50 meter three position rifle final. He was so far ahead in points that all he had to do was get his bullet anywhere inside the inner ring of the target and the gold medal was his.

As he aimed for his final shot, he prepared himself mentally, paused his breathing, took aim and then fired.

The bullet passed right through the bulls eye. However, there was no tone indicating a hit, leaving Emmons in puzzlement.

It took a moment, but Emmons realized he had hit the wrong target. He had dropped from first place and a gold medal to eighth place with no gold medal.

He took the right shot but had hit the wrong target.

Yet this is true with our own lives. Most of us aren’t even worried about what it is we are aiming at. We’re just trying to make it through the day. I’ve been there, going through the daily grind, just aiming for the weekend, hoping to have enough money to survive and maybe even a little extra to play.

In some cases I’ve aimed at the wrong targets. I’ve put all of my best efforts into things that have no  real value or real benefit to my life. I’ve aimed at the wrong girl, the wrong job, the wrong group of people, the wrong goal. In each case, I gave it my best effort.

I wanted to share the story about Matthew Emmons because it speaks volumes about what we aim our sights on in life. Are you sure you have the right target in sight? Or will you find that you took the best shot, only to hit the wrong target?

What are you aiming at?