5 Ways to Make Your Dreams Come True

Having a dream is a wonderful thing. It inspires hope and joy. I still get chills whenever a snippet is played from Martin Luther King Jr.’s incredible “I Have a Dream” speech. Numerous quotes about dreams abound from captains of industry like Walt Disney (“If you can dream it, you can do it.”) to Sir Richard Branson (“If your dreams don’t scare you, they are too small.”).

Chances are good that you have a dream, whether it is a long-term desire or a newly minted goal. However, just considering your dream is different than making it come true. I’ve found that there are some steps you can take to make your dream a reality.

As announced earlier, I finally brought my decades-long dream of writing a book to life with the recent publication of Free and Clear: Get Unstuck and Live the Life You Want. In that experience, I pinpointed five practices that can be applied to any dream you hold – personal or professional – to help bring it to life. They include:

1. Become specific. 

Narrow your dream down into a manageable goal. Perhaps your dream is to work in a profession that helps others. That is certainly noble – but it is also quite broad. Become more specific with how that could take shape and form. Perhaps helping others translates into working in the medical field. You were impressed with how great the team was that cared for your dad during his hospitalization. After thinking about it, you’d like to pursue nursing yourself. Focusing more intently on a specific direction allows you to make a plan about the next steps. In this example, it may involve having informational interviews with nurses about their day-to-day experiences, considering what additional education may be needed, saving money to fund that career transition and more.

2. Get help.

No one is an island. Getting help, whether that is practical advice or emotional support, can be critical in making your dream come true. I have a full-time, C-Suite job, y’all, and spent whatever free time was left writing this book, conducting interviews, and researching content. So I needed assistance from some smart people along the way. Amy Burton Storey, who is an amazing “book therapist,” helped me determine the best way to get Free and Clear published. I chose a terrific hybrid publisher, Wonderwell Press, based up on their incredible expertise. The editor I worked with, Jessica Easto, was nothing short of fantastic. Jodi Hersh of Orange Star Design helped with my website and email marketing, while Marie Incontrera and her team amplified my social media presence.

3. Be persistent. 

You know how I learned how to write a book? I wrote it, and edited it, over and over again, until it was good. In his fantastic book Outliers: The Story of Success, author Malcolm Gladwell refers to something called the “10 000-hour rule.” He noted that it takes 10,000 hours of intensive practice to achieve mastery of complex skills and materials, citing the example of Bill Gates with computer programming, and how the Beatles honed their talents playing at small bars in Germany before becoming one of the best rock bands of all time. Whatever your dream is, it probably will take time and practice to master the skills, transition or other factors needed for it to become a reality. Be persistent in seeing it through.

4. Celebrate milestones. 

If the process of working on your dream is a never-ending grind, the joy around it can diminish. Break your dream down into micro-steps that are manageable and when you achieve each one, pause to celebrate. Savor that win in some way that is meaningful to you. Maybe it means popping the cork on a good bottle of champagne, a fun dinner with friends or getting outside for a walk after being chained to your desk for weeks. Plan a special reward to commemorate that achievement. Celebrating in this manner will increase your positive resonance and momentum, giving you more gusto to tackle the next steps ahead.

5. Pivot as needed. 

I finished writing the first draft of this book in February 2020. Started looking for a literary agent and bam, the pandemic shut everything down. It stopped me dead in my tracks.

At first, I wondered why anyone would care about my book when it felt like the world was going to hell in a handbasket. Then after about six months, I realized that getting unstuck was more important than ever in our new reality.

So I went all-in making it about life after the pandemic and rewrote it. When I started working with Wonderwell Press though, they said that focus would date the book to a moment in time, and I needed to transform it into a more eternal process of getting unstuck. My heart sank when I heard that advice, because I knew it was spot-on and would take a heck of a lot of effort. But I pivoted again and now, today, am really happy with those results.

How have you made your dreams come true? What was the one step that yielded the biggest impact?

If you have been feeling a little – or even a lot – stuck these days, check out my “What Kind of Stuck Are You?” Quiz to gain more insight on what may be holding you back – and what to do about it.

Looking for a step-by-step process to help you get unstuck and stay that way for good? Check out Free and Clear: Get Unstuck and Live the Life You Want. It is chock-full of helpful tips, easy-to-use tools and inspirational stories of individuals who overcame obstacles against the odds.