We have a goal, aspiration or desire that we wish to execute on, we begin to attempt it in all its glory but with the blink of an eye it seems as though you have given up.
Our goals are terrifying, they can eat us alive and drag us through the dirt, but they are manageable with the correct thought process. I hate to break it to you, but it’s time to think smaller. That’s right, in order to dream big you must think very, very small.
Most often, when we begin to focus on our aspirations, we have grandeur and idealistic views of what we expect, we focus on the end product which isn’t a bad thing, but then we stay there, paralyzed on how we are going to get from our current spot to that vision we keep replaying in our head. In order to begin to chip away at the path ahead leading to the vision in our minds, we have to take the first damn step. Your inability to look at directly what is in front of you is holding you back. Your vision becomes unobtainable because it is as though you are looking so far ahead at all the branches and trees in the road, the bears and the animals in the way, that you can’t see clearly enough to simply look down and move your self just one foot ahead. There is an immediate ground under you which can be gained right now, the tree in the road will be there when you get to that point, and the bear, animals and other obstacles, but this isn’t your problem in the current moment. As it stands right now you do not need to remove the tree, fight the bear or come in contact with any of the other obstacles you envision in the form of terrifying amounts of work. Today, right now, all you have to do is take a single step forward. After you take your step forward, look back up and see the vision, then quickly look back down and see what is in your way at your feet in that moment. After a while, the vision will be so ingrained into your memory and soul that there will be no reason to look up, you will keep your head down, and suddenly, after climbing over the obstacles presented directly in front of you at the present moment, you will end up at the finish line through absolute consistency.
The key is in the word “present moment” to be present is to be aware and to be aware is to be conscious, to be conscious is to understand, and to understand is to know, all while “to know” is “to do” …as long as action is applied to the knowledge. I know that is a lot to unpack but the premise is to be in the now. Dreaming big isn’t a problem in itself, I encourage it, our nation was founded on it. Dreaming big can fuel our soul and give us something to contemplate which is bigger than ourselves, however, in the same instance it can rob us of hope if the vision is not followed by a present action.
It is hard, most times, to accept that in pursuing our biggest goals, there is sometimes very little which can be done right now and because we have to wait on someone else or are bound by a date or time, we tend to look up and stare into the eye of the beast which is our grand vision. When a running back in American football hits a gap, we see that he most often lowers his center of gravity and looks slightly down as he braces for impact. This is our natural reaction in the physical state and yet when we are moving towards our goals in the metaphysical, it is as though we have tunnel vision, we keep our bodies straight postured and focused only on the grand portion of our goals, and suddenly we are leveled. By being in the now we can begin to identify the necessary steps needed to take action towards our goals, we can begin to process what the next step looks like rather than the final product.
Most often, people look at their goals as linear from A to Z, they only see the start and the finish, yet those who are most successful will tell you it is even smaller than A to B, rather it is essentially lower case “a” to uppercase “A” and then to lower case “b” and so on. The goal becomes a manageable and fun process when all you have to do is take a single step instead of making instantaneous leaps and bounds. At this point, the vision simply becomes the next task, while the multiple tasks combined are your vision in physical form. It is easy to imagine the most popular coffee shop in town named “The Grind” thriving with hundreds of returning customers, it is really difficult to create blog which nearly no one will initially read. It is very easy to fathom the fame and and glory on the football field, it is very difficult to wake up at 4 a.m and eat before your workouts.
The grand visions themselves require no direct work, there is nothing you can do right this second to make your grandest vision appear before you, you must complete a series of monotonous and trivial tasks with attention to detail over and over again to make it happen. “What if my goal is to win the lottery?” even lottery winners must have taken a step off the beaten path to purchase their ticket, a trivial action must take place over time in order for you to reach these milestones. These trivial actions must be completed to the best of your ability over extensive periods of time and requires deep levels of patience obtained only through trying and trying again, getting knocked down and standing back up.
There are other barriers you will find along your journey which are not external, these barriers are undoubtedly the more difficult to address and they are your internal barriers. The physical barriers for example, paper work or social interaction, can be gained by simply deciding to move forward, however, the more difficult barriers from an internal source such as self doubt and limitations are enemies which cannot be fought physically. An internal battle must take place which only you can fight, it can’t be done by others but it can be helped through advice, at the end of the day it is up to you solely though. These internal sources of deprivation are the slowest to correct in order to move on too, unfortunately, and to address them and understand them as much as possibly needed to move forward it requires a deep recognition of ones own thought process and toxic characteristics.
Chipping away at your internal road blocks day by day by halting your self-limiting and negative thoughts right in their track are the hardest part in moving forward in your highest aspirations. We do not like to admit we are addicted to our negative beliefs or wild and untamed thought processes which never allow us to move beyond basic survival based consciousness. They are addictive because they promise a life of comfort and ease but it is just an illusion, it is no easier to start a booming business than it is to get up every day and go work for someone else just to get a paycheck & live penny to penny by. The addictive aspects of your negative characteristics are not in the actual “process” of your day to day schedule then, because the process is still difficult, but rather it is addictive in its promise that you won’t have to risk anything you’ve already gained in you immediate life.
You are guaranteed in these negative thought processes the ability to go back to the same home, eat the same food, with the same circle of people around you (affecting you profoundly), and remaining motionless in a world constantly in motion in every meaning of the word. The negative thought processes strangling you as they chain you to normalcy, guarantee that you will never lose anything if you continue to do the same thing day after day, and they promise safety, yet there is a hole in our soul that so many of us ignore as we fiend for the addictive thought process which keeps us the same day after day. The hole in our soul begs you to step up and step out into the unknown, to learn something new and to experience all there is to experience.
Like a lighthouse calling the ships to the harbor, your soul knows exactly what it wants and what it is called to, yet the addictive & negative thought processes which promise us comfort and consistency most often take precedent because it feels temporarily good. Over time these addictive thought process will leave us jaded as we fight quiet internal battles with our self until the day we die as to why we never decided to step out into the unknown and experience the beauty of creating with our minds all that we wish to have in the world and see in ourselves. Taking the journey isn’t difficult to begin though, it requires only that you take the first step.
For Gods sake, take the first step.
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