This month we have a guest post from Reader's Digest, designed to help you follow through on all those great ideas you have. It can be frustrating when you have all these ideas and you just can't seem to make them happen. Here's a few tips to help you through that and make those dreams a reality.
The reason people often don’t pursue their dreams isn’t lack of ideas. You probably have many ideas on how to take your career to the next level, a business idea, or how to start pursuing the kind of life you want.
What stops us from pursuing these ideas is often a collection of other reasons. You tell yourself you don’t have the money, the time, or the knowledge to go for it.
Although going after your dreams is never an easy thing to do, the obstacles you see in your way shouldn’t necessarily stop you from trying.
You have plenty of strengths to guide you through life and you should discover your personality to understand what you can use as a positive in your quest to make dreams come true.
None of us are perfect; we all share our own set of strengths and weaknesses. Specific qualities don’t define our ability to succeed; it is our ability to make use of our own strengths and weaknesses.
Learn more about yourself. When you are self-aware, you’ll have more confidence because you know how to take advantage of your strengths and how to avoid your weaknesses.
Stop Over-thinking
You should start avoiding constant analysing and over-thinking. You shouldn’t rush into a new business idea, but you can’t keep going through every detail for months either.
Don’t be afraid to do things. Don’t be afraid to fail. The longer you keep mulling over the little details, the more you might lose self-confidence. Once you’ve developed your plan and you have the moment of "this is my plan,” take a deep breath and do it. Don’t start second-guessing yourself.
Know How to Take in Praise
A lot of us fall victim to putting ourselves down. Even when someone tells us our idea is great, we have a little voice going, “Well, I can certainly still improve.”
Don’t be afraid of praise and learn how to give praise as well. Always focus on the good aspects without neglecting the negatives. If you encourage other people’s success, you’ll also receive encouragement to develop and enhance your own ideas.
See Obstacles as Opportunities
Remove the defeatist thinking from your everyday life and stop viewing things as obstacles to your success. You should rather think of them as opportunities.
Feel like you are too busy to write that book, or to send that job application? Use this realisation as an opportunity to streamline your life and to remove things from your life that keep you too busy and that don’t even make you happy.
If you start seeing things as an opportunity to improve your life and a way to learn more about things, you’ll gain more confidence to continue pursuing your dreams.
It is important to stop viewing your own ideas too critically. You need to trust your inner voice when it encourages you to develop your idea further. Don’t be afraid to practice confidence either – you won’t be a master of keeping your cool overnight.
Comments
What are the things that give you confidence, or what techniques have you used in the past to break down barriers and pursue your dreams? Let us know in the comments below.
Alice coaches those who want to change career but don’t know what they want to do instead. She offers Career Coaching designed to help graduates, early to mid-level career-changers, and parents returning to work gain a clear vision of what career is right for them, and how to achieve it. She is also an accredited Coach Supervisor, and host of The Career Change Diaries podcast.
