Dreams

First off, what is a dream? It's bigger than just a goal. Dreams are not as specific, measurable or even as realistic as goals. You can consider goals to be the steps along the way. Achieving a DREAM is the FINAL FULFILLMENT of your DESIRE.

I’ve been competing in athletics since I was a little boy. I had many dreams back then. One was to become an expert martial artist. At 17 years of age I reached expert level, started teaching and became a member of an elite martial arts demonstration team. Most recently my dream was to compete in Sasuke in Japan, which is the world’s toughest obstacle course. That is a dream that I did not accomplish, though I was still selected as a finalist.

I want to talk not just about achieving your dreams, but being GREAT while achieving your dreams. Three important things to keep in mind are the PASSION, the STEPS along the way and finally being PREPARED for the UNEXPECTED.

Now I said to be passionate, although it is not necessary, lets look at it this way. You’ve got two football teams that make it to the Super Bowl. One team has a monster for a coach that just screams at the team every practice for the entire season. Then you have the other team that has a great coach that praises and rewards everyone for all the hard work they put in. Both teams made it to the same place right, but which team would you rather be on? I know which one I would. The reason I said it’s not necessary to be passionate is because there are people out there that achieve their dreams but make it more about the end product and less about enjoying the actual journey. I personally would rather be loving the journey and reaching the dream. So don't forget to be passionate in order to be great while trying to achieve your dreams.

So hopefully you see how important it is to have a passion for what you are doing. Lets now talk about the steps along the way.

The very first thing to do is give yourself dates that you want to succeed by. This will help you stay on target. Be very specific; make sure it is measurable and attainable, as well as realistic and relevant with these steps. The journey can be exhausting at times and most people will wait till the end to celebrate, but if you don’t celebrate along the way you can burn out and never even get there. So what you want to do is reward yourself at the end of every milestone.

Finally, be prepared for the unexpected. This is a very crucial aspect of achieving your dreams. Sometimes along the way, it could even be right before you're about to achieve your dream or it could be the first day of the journey, something can happen that occurs as a crisis. It is important to hold onto the vision of your dream because you must see it to achieve it. Things don't always go as planned and many people fail at first. For example Thomas Hearns, the Welterweight Champ of the World with 5 titles all in different divisions, lost his first 10 amateur fights. They were his first fights too, so he had never even had the taste of victory, yet he still had the vision to become the Welterweight Champion of the World.

So remember to be passionate about what you are doing, celebrate your steps along the way and be prepared for the unexpected.

Work hard, but always find ways to make it fun.


-Rick Seedman