Find out why not making it to your dream can be better than achieving it.

The problem is that we judge each other more for failing than for not trying in the first place.

Crazy, eh?

When we feel called to set ourselves a major life challenge – whatever form that may take – it’s easy to become obsessed with achieving this incredible feat.

The problem is that our constant focus on the goal means we often miss out on the journey.

Getting ready for the challenge of a lifetime

For the last 6 months, we have been training, planning, re-planning, trying not to panic and generally getting stressed about our epic “walk-60-miles-in-a-day” challenge. Without intending it, our weekends were eaten up by practice walks, our evenings were taken up by discussing strategy and planning for contingencies and we don’t remember the last time we just had fun, without feeling guilty about not training… Life was passing us by.

It means that if we miss our goal by even the tiniest of margins, we feel like a total failure. We lose our sense of perspective. What we achieve might be incredible and life-changing, but because we didn’t do all we set out to do, we think we failed. We judge ourselves. We beat ourselves up. We assume others will judge us. That’s a pretty icky place to hang out.

Because we think we failed, we can’t see that what we achieved was still amazing.

We give ourselves a hard time and add the experience to our “I’m rubbish” justification file!

But that’s not what life is about.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have goals and dreams. Just the opposite! Goals and dreams can drive our motivation and act as a sign-post, to guide us on life’s path. Without dreams, we would most likely stagnate and never achieve our full potential. Having a clear goal and putting all your efforts towards achieving it can be an amazing experience, especially if that goal is a real stretch.

The problem is when the goal or dream takes over – or when you feel obliged to continue persuing the goal, even if it no longer fits with who you are. Then we’re at risk of getting attached to the end result being exactly as we have imagined.

Anything else then feels like disappointment and failure. That’s where the pain lies.

Only my condemnation injures me. Only my own forgiveness sets me free.

A Course In Miracles

When I dropped out of our group challenge after “only” 50km (30 miles) with a knee injury, I felt devastated. I felt I was letting the team down. I felt like a failure. I felt like I had achieved nothing. The fact I had repeatedly pushed myself through pain and exhaustion barriers towards the end of the previous 50km counted for nothing.

I had failed.

Waving them off to continue their challenge is one of the hardest things I have ever done. I felt like months of preparation and training had been wasted.
But deep down I knew that continuing would only make the knee injury worse, potentially repeating the cycle that led to me needing knee surgery, 10 years ago. Back then I injured my knee, but kept going on a mixture of pure determination and pain killers. I wasn’t going to repeat that experience.
Plus, given the challenge’s time constraints, we had all agreed that anyone seriously slowing the team down would withdraw, to allow the rest of the team to finish within the time limit. So that’s what I did.
But I still felt terrible.

Reaching for your dreams involves going downhill, as well as up!

Reaching For Your Dreams

Try not so hard;
Instead, allow life to flow through you,
Unfurling magically
As you let go and trust.

If it hurts, you’re out of flow;
Resisting, forcing your will.
The journey is not without detour,
But the flow is beauty.

When we are 100% focused on a certain outcome, we are also at risk of blinkered repetition of past mistakes or staying stuck in old behaviours.

Heading down a chosen path is often about giving ourselves the chance to learn and grow, integrating life lessons, rather than about reaching the intended destination.

The joy of life is in celebrating the beauty of every moment; not waiting to celebrate until we have done something “worth it”.

And every breath can become a cause for celebration, if we are using our life for the greater good of all Beings, making the most of our gifts and living life to the full.

For some, that will mean pushing themselves beyond their limits. For others it will mean knowing when to stop.

Only you can ever know which is the right choice for you.

You are a wonderful person, with your own set of unique gifts with which to serve the world.

You are capable of achieving your dreams and making a difference to the lives you touch.

But by focussing entirely on that dream, we’re at risk of the magical moments of everyday life passing us by.

It is only by celebrating every step of our journey – including difficult choices – even when life takes us on a detour – that we are really alive in each moment. That is the true path to happiness.

Sometimes we create expectations around our goal that mean we end up forcing ourselves towards it, missing the signs for a path that might have been more fulfilling.

Sometimes, as time passes, our goal or dream no longer fits with who we have become. But our dogged attachment to the outcome blinds us to this and leads to inner conflict. Our deeper wisdom is trying to tell us we’re heading in the wrong direction, whilst we stoicly insist on maintaining the previous course.

Sometimes, particularly with a large, publicly declared goal, it is our projected fears about others’ expectations that keep us going, long past the point of realising we’re off-course. We’re too worried about what other people might say.

As a society, we criticise people for changing their minds or admitting they were wrong.

And we want to do everything we can, to avoid that criticism.

Knowing when to stop, even when that’s letting go of your dream, is a very brave act.

Pendella Buchanan

Sometimes we reach our dreams, just as we planned. And that’s an incredible achievement.

Sometimes we have to reach into our hearts and have the wisdom to change our direction, making difficult choices.

Sometimes the going can get really tough...

I felt so proud of everyone else in our team - they all did their 100km. Incredible. But I needed to get to the point where I could feel proud of myself for not making it.

It took me a while to be able to let go of my feeling of “failure”. And, since I was beating myself up, I unsurprisingly attracted people around me to pass judgement and reinforce my feelings of self-loathing!

Then, when my perspective widened, I was able to see that I hadn’t failed – I had succeeded – albeit in a slightly different dream.

As a team, we had walked 350km between us. We had raised nearly £3,000 to help save and change lives. We had all pushed ourselves to our respective limits. We had all supported each other to the best of our ability.

Only when I was able to feel at peace with changing the parameters of my goal was I able to return to any sense of inner peace about the outcome!

Maybe more of us would feel brave enough to reach for our dreams

if we were less scared of how “society” might react if we don’t reach them.

I find it so sad how many of us don’t dare to dream, for fear of failure.

Failure lies not in falling down.
Failure lies in not getting back up.

Chinese Proverb

Are you ready to reach for your dreams?

Sometimes we learn – and can teach – more by stopping than continuing.

And my learning from all this?

That my dream (yes I still have them!) is to dedicate my life to inspiring others to reach for their dreams and to help them figure out how to feel happy, wherever that journey takes them.

If you have a dream that’s burning in your soul, what support could you ask for today, to help you reach for it?

And which baby step might you take, right now, to move you forwards on that journey?

Want some moral support? Join our Facebook group http://www.facebook.com/beyondalchemy to share experiences & ask questions!

Find out why not making it to your dream can be better than achieving it.

The problem is that we judge each other more for failing than for not trying in the first place.

Crazy, eh?

When we feel called to set ourselves a major life challenge – whatever form that may take – it’s easy to become obsessed with achieving this incredible feat.

The problem is that our constant focus on the goal means we often miss out on the journey.

Getting ready for the challenge of a lifetime

For the last 6 months, we have been training, planning, re-planning, trying not to panic and generally getting stressed about our epic “walk-60-miles-in-a-day” challenge. Without intending it, our weekends were eaten up by practice walks, our evenings were taken up by discussing strategy and planning for contingencies and we don’t remember the last time we just had fun, without feeling guilty about not training… Life was passing us by.

It means that if we miss our goal by even the tiniest of margins, we feel like a total failure. We lose our sense of perspective. What we achieve might be incredible and life-changing, but because we didn’t do all we set out to do, we think we failed. We judge ourselves. We beat ourselves up. We assume others will judge us. That’s a pretty icky place to hang out.

Because we think we failed, we can’t see that what we achieved was still amazing.

We give ourselves a hard time and add the experience to our “I’m rubbish” justification file!

But that’s not what life is about.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have goals and dreams. Just the opposite! Goals and dreams can drive our motivation and act as a sign-post, to guide us on life’s path. Without dreams, we would most likely stagnate and never achieve our full potential. Having a clear goal and putting all your efforts towards achieving it can be an amazing experience, especially if that goal is a real stretch.

The problem is when the goal or dream takes over – or when you feel obliged to continue persuing the goal, even if it no longer fits with who you are. Then we’re at risk of getting attached to the end result being exactly as we have imagined.

Anything else then feels like disappointment and failure. That’s where the pain lies.

Only my condemnation injures me. Only my own forgiveness sets me free.

A Course In Miracles

When I dropped out of our group challenge after “only” 50km (30 miles) with a knee injury, I felt devastated. I felt I was letting the team down. I felt like a failure. I felt like I had achieved nothing. The fact I had repeatedly pushed myself through pain and exhaustion barriers towards the end of the previous 50km counted for nothing.

I had failed.

Waving them off to continue their challenge is one of the hardest things I have ever done. I felt like months of preparation and training had been wasted.
But deep down I knew that continuing would only make the knee injury worse, potentially repeating the cycle that led to me needing knee surgery, 10 years ago. Back then I injured my knee, but kept going on a mixture of pure determination and pain killers. I wasn’t going to repeat that experience.
Plus, given the challenge’s time constraints, we had all agreed that anyone seriously slowing the team down would withdraw, to allow the rest of the team to finish within the time limit. So that’s what I did.
But I still felt terrible.

Reaching for your dreams involves going downhill, as well as up!

Reaching For Your Dreams

Try not so hard;
Instead, allow life to flow through you,
Unfurling magically
As you let go and trust.

If it hurts, you’re out of flow;
Resisting, forcing your will.
The journey is not without detour,
But the flow is beauty.

When we are 100% focused on a certain outcome, we are also at risk of blinkered repetition of past mistakes or staying stuck in old behaviours.

Heading down a chosen path is often about giving ourselves the chance to learn and grow, integrating life lessons, rather than about reaching the intended destination.

The joy of life is in celebrating the beauty of every moment; not waiting to celebrate until we have done something “worth it”.

And every breath can become a cause for celebration, if we are using our life for the greater good of all Beings, making the most of our gifts and living life to the full.

For some, that will mean pushing themselves beyond their limits. For others it will mean knowing when to stop.

Only you can ever know which is the right choice for you.

You are a wonderful person, with your own set of unique gifts with which to serve the world.

You are capable of achieving your dreams and making a difference to the lives you touch.

But by focussing entirely on that dream, we’re at risk of the magical moments of everyday life passing us by.

It is only by celebrating every step of our journey – including difficult choices – even when life takes us on a detour – that we are really alive in each moment. That is the true path to happiness.

Sometimes we create expectations around our goal that mean we end up forcing ourselves towards it, missing the signs for a path that might have been more fulfilling.

Sometimes, as time passes, our goal or dream no longer fits with who we have become. But our dogged attachment to the outcome blinds us to this and leads to inner conflict. Our deeper wisdom is trying to tell us we’re heading in the wrong direction, whilst we stoicly insist on maintaining the previous course.

Sometimes, particularly with a large, publicly declared goal, it is our projected fears about others’ expectations that keep us going, long past the point of realising we’re off-course. We’re too worried about what other people might say.

As a society, we criticise people for changing their minds or admitting they were wrong.

And we want to do everything we can, to avoid that criticism.

Knowing when to stop, even when that’s letting go of your dream, is a very brave act.

Pendella Buchanan

Sometimes we reach our dreams, just as we planned. And that’s an incredible achievement.

Sometimes we have to reach into our hearts and have the wisdom to change our direction, making difficult choices.

Sometimes the going can get really tough...

I felt so proud of everyone else in our team - they all did their 100km. Incredible. But I needed to get to the point where I could feel proud of myself for not making it.

It took me a while to be able to let go of my feeling of “failure”. And, since I was beating myself up, I unsurprisingly attracted people around me to pass judgement and reinforce my feelings of self-loathing!

Then, when my perspective widened, I was able to see that I hadn’t failed – I had succeeded – albeit in a slightly different dream.

As a team, we had walked 350km between us. We had raised nearly £3,000 to help save and change lives. We had all pushed ourselves to our respective limits. We had all supported each other to the best of our ability.

Only when I was able to feel at peace with changing the parameters of my goal was I able to return to any sense of inner peace about the outcome!

Maybe more of us would feel brave enough to reach for our dreams

if we were less scared of how “society” might react if we don’t reach them.

I find it so sad how many of us don’t dare to dream, for fear of failure.

Failure lies not in falling down.
Failure lies in not getting back up.

Chinese Proverb

Are you ready to reach for your dreams?

Sometimes we learn – and can teach – more by stopping than continuing.

And my learning from all this?

That my dream (yes I still have them!) is to dedicate my life to inspiring others to reach for their dreams and to help them figure out how to feel happy, wherever that journey takes them.

If you have a dream that’s burning in your soul, what support could you ask for today, to help you reach for it?

And which baby step might you take, right now, to move you forwards on that journey?

Want some moral support? Join our Facebook group http://www.facebook.com/beyondalchemy to share experiences & ask questions!

How many of us know who we actually are, let alone who we want to be?

Any why does it matter, anyway?

Well, living the life of our dreams isn’t about “stuff”, though stuff (material things) may be part of the package.

It’s about an attitude, a mindset, a way of being.

It’s about getting back into the “here and now”, to truly appreciate what we already have and anticipate where we are going. It’s not about living in the past or dreaming of a future where we will finally give ourselves permission to be happy.

Living the life of your dreams is about allowing yourself to feel happy, whatever is going on around you.

For most of us, that can feel like a massive leap, so let’s take this slowly.

How often have we told ourselves:

Are you waiting to be happy?

I’ll be happy, when…

… I get that promotion / my boss leaves / this project is finished.

… we have paid off the mortgage / car loan.

… the kids stop whining / my partner does what I’m asking.

… I get those new shoes / that faster car / the smartphone.

… I lose 10 lb /look more like that supermodel.

Why are we giving away our right to be happy right here, right now?

All our power is being held by some future event, over which we may or may not have any influence. That puts us straight in the position of powerless victim, which is a tough place to be, if you want to feel happy.

Why do we give away control over our happiness to other people or external circumstances?

Because it’s a habit. That’s all.

And habits can be changed.

Even the strongest addiction can be released. Not convinced? Check out the article: “How Long Does It Take To Break A Habit?”

It’s almost impossible to feel happy, if we’re spending all our time mulling over regrets about the past or preoccupying ourselves with worries about possible futures.

Incidentally, Esther Hicks defines worrying as: “creating a future you don’t really want” – so true!

How can we start to release that old habit, of giving away our happiness?

Here are three things you could do now to reclaim your happiness:

1. Get out of the drama
   Most of our unhappiness is caused by the drama with which we surround the events of our life. We’re experts at projecting the story, rather than opening our eyes to the truth.
   If you’re thinking about something and it’s making you irritated, you could stop for a moment and ask yourself this questions:
   “What’s the simplest Truth in all this?”
   Answer that question honestly and you’ll be racing back up towards a more neutral emotion, from which it’s easier to move on to step two…
2. What am I enjoying, right now?
   This question does two things:
   • It brings you back to the present moment, back from stressing about the past or worrying about the future.
   • It helps shift your awareness from what’s wrong for you to what’s going well for you. Fast-track to feeling happier.
3. Get yourself a happiness-theft radar!
   Train yourself – moment by moment – to spot when you’re giving away your happiness – when you’re allowing someone or something else to decide when you can be happy.
   It doesn’t take long to get really good at this.
   Of course, you can still choose to allow it to happen; to give away your happiness. But then at least it’s your choice, rather than an unconscious script you were running on auto-pilot!

Is it time to reclaim your right to feel happy?

These three steps are an excellent start to getting back in the driving seat of your happiness, which is the very early stage of Living The Life Of Your Dreams.

Are you ready to move towards living the life of your dreams?

If you’d like to come with us on this journey, make sure you’re getting the updates, every time we write a new article (Living The Life Of Your Dreams RSS feed) or join us in our Living The Life Of Your Dreams Facebook group, for moral support and some fun!

Can’t wait to have you join us!

With love,
Clare

A lovely friend of mine, Joan Klink, has a saying:

Don’t dream your life; live your dreams.

And I reckon it sums up pretty accurately where most of us spend our time.

Was following your dreams too dangerous?

When we’re young, we can put a lot of energy into our dreams. But if they don’t turn out quite the way we had hoped, we quickly get demoralised.

Then, as we “mature”, we teach ourselves that it’s easier just to get on with life, rather than “wasting our time” with frivolous things like dreams. We’re scared that living our dreams will be “difficult” or get in the way of our “real life”. So we give up on them.

So we reach our last breath with more regrets about the things we didn’t do, than about the things we did do.

Is that how you want it to be?

Or are you ready to take the first step towards living the life of your dreams, right now?

Are you willing to take the first step on the journey towards living your dreams?

Want to know the secret of how to get started?

The first step towards living the life of your dreams is…. drum roll… surprising simple:

Decide who you want to be.

Living the life of your dreams isn’t about “stuff” – though an expensive car and beautiful home might be part of it. It’s about being who you truly are.

If you live a dream that forces you to be someone who you’re not, then you won’t be happy.

That’s not just a promise. It’s a guarantee.

Living the life of your dreams is about becoming who you really are – deep down inside. Then you can make the subtle changes in outside world to reflect this. That’s where the “stuff” comes in.

But unless you get your “inside” sorted first, the “stuff” won’t bring you any joy.

Are you ready to live the life of your dreams?

So are you ready to get started? I mean, are you really ready? Ready to put in the time, practice and commitment it takes to release the conditioning of the years and move towards your true happiness and sunshine, fulfilling your dreams?

Want to come on this journey with me? I’m here to guide you along the way. Over the coming months, I’ll be bringing you a route-map that can take you, step-by-step, through how to live the life of your dreams. Interested?

If you’re up for it, then make sure you’re getting reminders each time a new “Living The Life Of Your Dreams” article is posted.

You can do that via:

our Facebook Group – see the fan box on the right or use the Facebook icon to go there now (all the posts will be listed there)

or by bookmarking this Living The Life Of Your Dreams tag and popping back regularly.

I look forward to travelling with you, as you move towards the life of your dreams.

With love,

Clare