It’s perfectly healthy to have dreams. When you were little, perhaps you dreamed that you would some day become a professional basketball player in the NBA or maybe a major movie star in Hollywood. Whatever the case, these dreams can provide young ones with hope and direction.
However, it is unfortunately true that most people shouldn’t bother following their dreams at all. Among all the young kids who try out for the NBA or NFL, only a minute fraction ever make the league and, of those who make the cut, only a small fraction manage to stick around for more than a couple of years. This isn’t to put a downer on your ambitions though.
In fact, while I am saying that you shouldn’t follow you dreams, I am saying that you should chase your dreams. When you simply follow your dreams, you will always be at least a few steps behind. You will always be looking at the back of your dream’s head, so to speak. That’s not good enough. You need to surpass your dreams and overtake them.
The only way you can do this is to chase your dreams. As you push harder and harder to run faster and faster, you will (hopefully) make up ground and you may soon be running right alongside your dreams. At that point, you can capture them and realize your success. Following simply isn’t good enough. At some point, you need to lead.
Yes, I realize that goals can be frustrating. You probably won’t achieve them all and you will likely fall short on many more. That’s fact. However, goals (rather than “simple” dreams) can give you a distinct sense of direction and, with the right level of determination and motivation, you can achieve much more than had you not defined those goals in the first place.
Dreams are like wishes and hope. They’re great to have and can be uplifting in nature, but they do absolutely nothing on their own. If you want things to happen for you, then you have to do something about it. Don’t follow your dreams; chase them.
“In fact, while I am saying that you shouldn’t follow you dreams, I am saying that you should chase your dreams.”
Is that a Chinese Koan Michael?
Surpass you dreams, run alongside them, grab them. As you say goals are the way to go. A dream can be realized by attaining a bunch of smaller goals. At some point you forget the ultimate dream and look at the smaller goals. They distract you into doing a better overall job and that dream sneaks up on you. 🙂
If it is a koan, I didn’t know it when I wrote it. 😉
Well, now you can add yourself to the list of master koan writers.
Fall down 7 times, get up 8.