Dreams are the stuff of, well, dreams. Visions of adventure, accomplishment, education, glamour, and the like float through our collective conscience like bubbles in champagne. And this gives us a reason to improve, to strive for something higher, be that a new car or a better life. And it’s possible to realize those dreams when you take action to make them happen. How many young people have returned to school to complete a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree they had abandoned, or perhaps never started? Or the high-school dropout who looks around one day, and realizes the only way he can create a better situation is to buckle down, get that GED, or beyond, and begin to put foundations under those old dreams he now sees as goals. Because taking action is the only way to get there. No one can do it for you, but you can enlist the help of friends and family to help keep you on track, and remind you of your goals you sometimes forget when facing the daily challenges of life, of what needs to be done, to pick up the kids after soccer practice, keeping the house clean and in repair, and so many other necessary ‘distractions’ that can divert us from driving towards that goal on a daily basis. The getting up early, the staying up late, using your commute to practice your songs in the car, of learning Spanish in five-minute bites of your day. It all adds up. Fifteen minutes of writing every day, no matter what, adds up to an article very quickly, and a novel over time. Taking the opportunity to speak Spanish with friends and co-workers who speak the language during a break is a great way to keep moving forward, potentially falling on your face with incorrect phrases, but learning all the same, and maybe picking up some of the idioms every language has, but are difficult to teach. And finally, of having a spouse, a friend, reminding you of what you’re reaching for, and why.
Doesn’t it all sound great? A dream, with a plan, taking action to make it happen, even enlisting others to keep you on track, and you’re on your way to paradise. Life, however, has a way of intervening in even the best laid plans, and suddenly we find ourselves thinking, ‘if only I had just….’ And that ellipsis is filled with the excuses we create to keep ourselves stuck. And then we justify those excuses. But the fact remains that if you want to run the New York Marathon, you’ve got to put in the miles on the road. Get up early, or stay up late, if that’s more your style, run before washing the dishes, the car, or whatever other ‘necessary’ thing needs to be done. Not after. Because it doesn’t get done, and ‘after’ the car is washed and put away, you’re probably not thinking about lacing up your shoes and hitting the pavement. Making ‘deals’ with ourselves might be one of our worst ways to accomplish things. Having a team, or a tribe of people who support you, and best of all, keep you accountable is probably the best. That’s one of the reasons checking in with a sponsor is so effective in 12-step programs dealing with addiction. If you know you have to check in with someone, to whom you’ve decided to be accountable, it’s a little easier to say no to the distractions; a convenient ‘excuse’ if you will, to allow you to pursue a better alternative to not chasing your goal. After years, decades really, a couple decided to lose weight using a tried-and-true method, by doing it together, and checking in with each other constantly. It didn’t happen overnight, and there were some slips, but in less than a year, both had shed the unwanted weight, and had created a new bond by keeping each other on track to better health. The point is that however we do it, we need to create ‘community’ for ourselves: our spouses, girlfriends/boyfriends, co-workers, online groups will help us to keep the momentum, and help us get closer to our goals. No matter how strong our personal willpower, we can justify anything as humans, good and bad, and at some point, ‘willpower’ crumbles and we’re left with excuses.
So, find your way of being accountable, to someone else, whoever that might be, because without action and forward movement, goals will remain dreams. They might be pretty dreams, occasionally tempting us to make them into reality, but it’s what we do that makes a dream a goal.