In the pursuit of dream chasing, we always start out giving it 100%. We are fully committed. We create habits that allow us to further our goals. We make plans and timelines. We tell people about our vision and grand plans. We are feverishly committed and dedicated to seeing it through. We are ready to kick some ass.
And then it happens.
Things evolve.
We get complacent and maybe even bored.
Our dreams and goals tend to take the back burner to life when things get stressful or demand our attention.
Before we know it we have lost sight. We’ve gotten off track. We might even begin to make excuses or procrastinate as a holding pattern starts to form. Bad habits replace the good ones and all of a sudden our dreams and goals can start to fizzle along with our follow through and motivation.
It happens to everyone. In fact, it happened to me just recently as I celebrated 7 years of sobriety. During a time that I should have felt so accomplished and happy, I couldn’t help but feel confused and puzzled a bit. I began to question so many things including my dreams and visions for the future.
As you all know, I even took a step back from the blog as I sorted through a lot of what was coming up for me. I plan to write a lot more on the challenges I’ve been facing, but what struck me this week was sharing in how I learned how to stay committed to my dreams. I’ve talked to so many people lately and I feel we can all relate to this at some point in our lives.
6 Ways To Stay Committed To Your Dreams
1. Sometimes commitment is a process of recommitting.
What I’ve been realizing, especially with sobriety and recovery, is that my commitment to this lifestyle and my dreams around it is a constant recommitment. Every single day I have to make the decision to stay connected to my decision to live the sober life. Some days that proves easy and others it takes everything I’ve got.
As I celebrated 7 years to that commitment, I questioned if it’s something I want to do forever. I battled with this, but at the end of the day, this lifestyle is the best one for me and it has become the backbone to helping others with my coaching and writing practice. I ended up nailing down what I would call a recommitment to it and in that moment I understood that commitment is a continual process of recommitting, over and over, and staying true to the dream you once envisioned. Hard work and steady commitment are the cornerstones to making your dreams a reality.
2. Remembering why you started.
Part of recommitting entails a thorough reflection of why you started. At one point in time your dream and your commitment to it lit a fire inside you. It is your duty to keep fanning the flames and to constantly allow your initial motivation to pull you forward. Never lose sight of why you began the journey you’re on. Remind yourself of all the amazing things you saw for your future when you set out to make your dreams and goals come true.
By reconnecting to the infancy stages of your dreams, you put your imagination back into the mode it started in. By reminiscing in this space, you put your mind back into the state it started in and usually it is here that you can find inspiration and motivation to resurrect your commitment.
3. Envisioning what it would feel like to quit.
This exercise was so incredibly powerful for me. I imagined what would happen if I gave up. I played out scenarios with a very good friend of mine and this helped me to see that I was being foolish at even the thought of quitting.
Run through how you would feel, what you would turn your focus to, how you would explain it to people, the pros, the cons and give it a full, detailed inspection. Try quitting on for size. See how it makes you feel.
This was a huge turning point for me. I was filled with a sense of “hell no,” as I played it out in my head. This reignited my drive and made me hungry all over again. It delivered me to a definitive answer and that was that there was no way I would not keep going. If you try to imagine yourself quitting and you are met with resistance, therein lies a very commanding truth that will reinstate your commitment on it’s own.
4. Harnessing your power and not forgetting your magic.
I realized had been doubting myself: my dreams, vision and goals while allowing negativity to creep it’s way in and make me forget who I am as a person and the incredible gifts I have been given.
I was in a yoga class and I nailed handstand. I held it solid. As I was upside down and I felt the pose stick, something came over me. I felt my power again. I felt my magic. I felt my inner bad assery. Right then and there I became empowered as if a light switch came on inside of me. I stepped into the light and harnessed my power again.
When you tap back into the magnitude of the life force inside of you and remember you are a magical miracle in action, you are instantly filled with energy, creativity and confidence that will carry you and your dreams forward. A shift occurs when you take a hold of your power and it is then that the path you once saw becomes so much clearer again.
5. Understanding the vision you once had.
Just like the process of envisioning quitting and what it would feel like, it’s also important to bring yourself back into the vision you once had. Get intimate with it again. Feel around in the vision and try to see what it looks like to accomplish your goals and to meet your dreams in reality. What will it feel like when you reach them? What will it look like? Where did you lose sight of it? Are there people in your life that are not supporting your vision that maybe you need to distance yourself from? How can you make your dreams high definition again?
If you can still see it and feel it, then you must fight for it. You’re never given a vision without the corresponding abilities to see it through. No matter how much life, your mind or other people try to get in the way or convince you that you don’t have what it takes. Remember the vision alone is strong enough to give you everything you need. God doesn’t plant seeds of dreams in people without also giving them the seeds of greatness to fulfill them.
6. Pause and be still to allow your dreams to speak to you again.
This step is crucial. When you get still and quiet, your dreams have a chance to speak to you again. Your spirit moves in stillness and can communicate the best with you when you slow down, press pause and allow the voice to come through to you. In my own pause, I returned to a place where I could allow my intuition to unfold very naturally. I prayed. A lot. I let my mind wander down all these avenues. I let my dreams become reacquainted with me and fell in love with them all over again.
In these moments of pausing and being still, things may shift around. Your dreams may take different shape, you may hear that pursuing them isn’t a fit for what you truly desire deep down anymore or maybe a new dream is born. And this is all ok. The purpose of taking a time out is to allow yourself to get clarity on what it is that you truly want. Dreams and goals can evolve. You can realize that it’s time to start a new journey or move in a new direction.
Giving yourself time to hear what is trying to come through is what counts. You may just find that all you had to do is reconnect with yourself to let your dreams and motivation resurface to take the lead again.
We all have hopes, dreams and a purpose for this life. It’s so important to stay committed to what makes you come alive. Your needs and passions may change over time and that may mean your dreams do too, but at the end of the day being committed to yourself, your happiness and what lights you up is ultimately the space you will flourish in.
Take time to check in with yourself once in a while, especially if you are feeling disconnected, to understand how to stay committed to your dreams. And then commit to them (again if you must) and throw yourself into what matters most to you.
Be a boss, give it all you’ve got and get back to being unstoppable. This world needs more people riding hard for their dreams and spreading their light, inspiration and gifts to others.