Dreaming about success and achieving that success are two very different things. Visualizing your dreams can be a powerful tool. Imagine yourself reaching your goals in detail. This makes them feel closer to your heart. It gives you focus and pushes you to work towards what you want. Dreams have deep spiritual and psychological meanings for many. Everyone sees success differently. Some view it as achieving goals; others see it as reaching their full potential. These dreams often show personal growth and the joy of overcoming challenges.
But,
you cannot stop here and keep dreaming. While it is perfectly normal for people
to have dreams and goals, but there is a clear difference between those who
make their dreams come true and those who spend their lives thinking about what
they could have achieved. One of the inherent traits of human beings is having
the drive to be something more, to do something better. This is why there are
many inventors and entrepreneurs, as they see a need or a gap and they do their
utmost to fill it. To fulfill your dreams, you need to become a better version
of yourself. You have to accept some harsh truths that might be preventing you
from reaching your full potential. These are the harsh truths that you need to
hear:
1. You’re the Only
Thing that is holding yourself back
Many
people don’t even make it to Step 1 of fulfilling their dreams because they
stay on Step 0 forever. This means that even before they have made an effort to
reach their dreams, they have already put themselves down or held themselves
back. Many people are just too afraid or do not believe in themselves enough.
Whatever it is that you keep telling yourself, stop, as it’s holding you back
before you even try. Many simply waste time procrastinating on absolutely
unimportant instant gratification issues, which can lead to no achievement and
no lasting glory. Dreaming is good, if you can dream it, you can become it, but
only day dreaming leads to nowhere.
2. Step One is Always
the Hardest
The
journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and it is not easy to
take that step. Even if you have finally psyched yourself up to follow your
dreams, you might find that the beginning is the toughest, most confusing, and
most discouraging step of all. There are a number of reasons for this. One is
that the goals might be too big and therefore, too difficult to plan for and
execute. You have to break them down into small steps and take one small step
at a time. Not only will this make your dream seem more achievable, but you
will also break down that huge goal into smaller and more measurable ones.
Another
reason is the lack of information. You might have a fantastic idea, but simply
lack the knowledge to figure out how to proceed. In this case, it’s very important
to do your research, ask people, observe, and do some small experiments so that
you know what the status quo is and where your idea fits in the big picture. Internet
and AI are excellent tools to help you in this direction and it has given you
geographical neutrality. You don’t have to be in Columbia and Harvard in person
to seek their resources and assistance. If you have a worthy project and an
analytical mind help and resource is far easy to access today than ever before.
3. Great Things Take
Time and Effort
Once
you have identified your main and smaller goals, you need to simply start
making it reality. For example, if you’re developing a programme or a product,
you should be prepared to spend a lot of time designing, testing, creating, and
improving it before you can go further. While our brains are hardwired to lean
towards instant gratification, you can dictate to yourself that your goal might
take much more time and work.
Great
things take time. Whether it is your investment in bonds and stocks, or the
wisdom that you are gathering with age, or the expertise you acquire in your
chosen profession, hobby or sports, your fluency in a new language or your
skills with the violin or piano, they all take time and they all take a lot of
dedicated efforts.
Yashaswi Jaiswal’s story is an embodiment of unwavering determination and the power of chasing dreams. His journey began at a young age when he left his home in Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh, at the tender age of 13. Driven by his unwavering passion for cricket, he embarked on a solo journey to Mumbai, the city of dreams, to pursue his cricketing aspirations. However, his journey was far from easy. Facing immense hardships, Jaiswal found himself living in tents outside the city’s maidans, a stark contrast to the life he envisioned. He sold snacks to meet his expenses but kept on chasing his dream till he eventually established himself as an elite cricketer of the Indian cricket team.
4. Not Everyone Will
Support You
While
those close to you might be your biggest fans, you will encounter many critical
people nevertheless. Some might be discouraging you out of jealousy, but you
must simply accept that you’ll never be able to please everyone. No matter how
good you are at what you do, there’s a certain level of envy that comes with
success. Some people feel the need to set themselves up as the opposition to
your success just because they are jealous of your accomplishments. Your life
will be a lot more fulfilling when you don’t think about what other people say
or think. That does not mean disrespecting a contrarian view point. If it is a
worthy objection, this is the time to counter it, in its infancy, and not when
it has become an ugly monster.
People
aren’t going to like you for working hard and being productive. Do what is best
for you, and show the world what you can do. Not everyone will be happy for
your success. It can be discouraging to have people with negative
attitudes around you when you are trying to make a headway in life. If
such people surround you, you need to change your company. Surround yourself
with a circle of genus, positive thinking, always encouraging people, who are
willing to go all the way to fulfill your dreams.
5. You Cannot Succeed without
Taking Big Risks
You’ll
never be 100% sure that you will succeed, which is why you have to take huge
risks at times. If you wait, you’ll never get started. Unfortunately, in life
and in business, just because your idea makes complete sense doesn’t mean that
everyone will agree and support you. You might have a great concept, but you’ll
never be able to fully predict how people will react to it. A researcher in
India is usually satisfied with a good publication, because till this point
there is no risk or minimum risk involved. The next stage is patent, which will
involve some risk. The next logical step is monetizing the patent, which will
involve even larger risk. But, how else can you succeed?
Jeff
Bezos, a Princeton University graduate had secured a high-paying job on Wall
Street as the senior vice president of hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co. However,
Bezos felt called to entrepreneurship. In 1994, he risked it all by sacrificing
his job in finance to found Amazon, which began as an online bookstore run out
of his garage. Today, he also heads the spaceflight company Blue Origin, and is
the wealthiest man in the world!
6. You Cannot Control
Everything
As letting
go of control goes directly against our modern, industrialized way of living –
we are go-getters, doers, architects of our destiny, build things and make
things happen on our own terms; we don’t wait for anything to happen on someone
else’s terms! The unfortunate truth is that, despite your best efforts, you
cannot make everything go your way. This is especially true when it comes to
other people’s actions and behavior. In these kinds of situations, you just
need to let go and let things happen the way they’re supposed to happen. Of
course, this doesn’t mean that you don’t take action and simply wait for things
to happen, but the art of letting go is vital in managing expectations and
measuring effort.
This
is true from personal goals to international trade, everything will not follow
expected mathematically calculated trajectory. Things like losing contact with
a lunar module even happen to the smartest ISRO glitterati. Trump’s tariffs
have brought tsunami in international trade. These are uncontrollables that we
will have to learn to live with and negotiate from time to time.
7. You Can’t Do It All
No
one can be jack of all trades. Even as an entrepreneur, you’ll need to get some
individuals involved to make your business come to life. For example, if you
want to eventually manufacture a lot of products, you’ll need to work with a
reputable logistics company to find ways to decrease your work and improve
efficiency. When you let go and let other people contribute, you free yourself
up to focus on other more important things as well.
Research
also works similarly – each associate from different speciality contributes
his/her bit and that is invariably better than what would be on table if you
tried to do everything. So, we must collaborate, respect our colleague’s domain
expertise and acknowledge their contribution. While compiling a multi author text book of Plastic Surgery, the only one in English published outside U.S and U.K, we realized the importance of collaborating with the best and the brightest minds!
People
are putting in crazy hours to get ahead at work and then dive into driving the
kids to music lessons, soccer practice, and homework, and off course, cooking
dinner. They also feel the need to exercise and get the six-pack abs or train
for a marathon. It’s non-stop demands that mortal humans can’t meet, and you
are a mortal human, so you will never get it all done. So, whether at work, or
at home, some work has to be delegated.
8. It is Okay to Fail
Failure
gets a really bad reputation because of our drive and desire to succeed.
However, in the history of inventors, the great products came about only after
a number of mistakes and failures. The good thing about failing is that you can
figure out what went wrong and improve it to make it work the next time.
Pacemakers
used to be huge – the size of televisions. Then Wilson Greatbach made
a mistake that revolutionized medicine. When building a heart rhythm recording
device, he pulled out the wrong sized resistor and plugged it into the circuit.
When it was installed he realized it sounded like a human heartbeat. With some
work, he miniaturized the device to two cubic inches. The result was an
implantable pacemaker, which has since saved thousands of lives.
Engineers
Marc Chavannes and Al Fielding created bubble wrap in 1960 in an attempt to
create a trendy new textured wallpaper. This was a total failure, as was a
later attempt to market it as housing insulation. When the wrap was eventually
used by IBM to package a newly launched computer during transport, it
suddenly became an overnight success. Today, few people even realize that bubble
wrap began as an abject failure.
9. Habit versus
Inspiration
While
willpower and inspiration do matter in terms of pushing yourself to accomplish
your dreams and becoming successful, the right habits will influence whether
you’ll survive or not. The important habits of an entrepreneur such as hard
work, discipline, and thoroughness can have a direct effect on your finances
and lifestyles. When you develop the habit, you can continue doing the action
even without thinking twice about it.
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