How to make space for your dreams

We all live busy lives. They’re packed full with to-dos, responsibilities, jobs, businesses, things we need to take care of on a daily basis. It’s easy to get stuck in a routine that keeps little room for change. And when dreaming big is concerned, change is what we’re after.

In my coaching practice, but also in my life in general I come across a lot of clutter that keeps so many big dreamers from achieving their dreams. The thing is, if you’re going after your big dreams you need to make room for them to come alive. And that’s where I see a lot of people get stuck.

If you dream about more free time to spend doing what you love, but you keep binging on Netflix every chance you get, you’re not making space for your dream. If your big dream is to become a writer, but your desk is so cluttered that even a post-it note won’t fit on it, you’re not giving your dream a chance. That’s why making room for your dreams to come alive is so important.

How do you make room for your dreams?

• Make space

Space is a broad concept. Sometimes for our dreams to come alive we need to make physical space for them, like in the example of the cluttered desk above. Sometimes the space we need to make is less literal, like a change in the way we spend our time, or a mental uncluttering so we can have more room to think, be creative, see things from a new perspective that will help us achieve our big dreams. If you’re not making progress on your dreams, clutter might be the culprit. So look around you, and inside of you for what might take up space and keep your dreams from blooming.

• Let go of what doesn’t serve you

Imagine you’re a bookkeeper who’s big dream is to become a chef. You’re used to finding answers to most of your questions in books, or online. So you set out to learn how to cook the same way – after all that’s how you do everything! Quickly you realize it isn’t working. It’s lonely in the kitchen with just books. Sometimes you’re lost, not sure you’re doing it right or what the result should be.

We’ve all learned to do a million things in a million particular ways. As humans that need to operate in society, keep ourselves alive, make a living, raise families this is an incredible bag of tricks to have. It usually serves us well, and makes our lives easier. The issue with all these acquired ways of thinking, seeing, and doing things is that often achieving big dreams requires a new set of skills, another approach, a different perspective.

That’s why it’s important to check in with yourself regularly, and let go of what doesn’t serve you anymore. Our bookkeeper above clearly isn’t getting anywhere by applying a strategy that worked well for other areas of her life. By checking in with herself she realizes she needs to let go of her books, and find someone to actually show her how it’s done so she signs up for a cooking class. From there she enrolls in a cooking school, earns a degree, starts her own restaurant, and achieves her big dream.

• Focus on how you want to feel

Often the room our dreams need to come alive relates to the way those dreams will eventually take shape. When we have a goal or dream in mind we have a mental picture of what our life will look like once that dream comes true. That mental picture can take up so much space, that there’s little room left for the dream to take on a shape of its own.

Someone dreaming of love, passion, and romance might be stuck on the mental picture that achieving her dream can only be within the unhappy relationship she’s in. By detaching from the outcome – infuse passion in a relationship that no longer works – and focusing on how she wants to feel instead – loved, and wanted – she’s able to let go of the mental picture that it can only happen with her current partner, and create room for a new relationship that can make her dream come true.

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

How to believe your dreams are possible

Have you ever dreamt about something really, really big only to find yourself a few minutes later deciding that you’d never be able to achieve it? If you did, I want you to know that you’re not alone. I’ve been through this with my own dreams, and I’ve helped so many women that experienced the same thing with theirs.

One of the main reasons why we don’t achieve our big dreams, is that we don’t really believe we can achieve them. Of course, the dynamics at play are a bit more complicated than that, but the bottom line remains the same: we don’t pursue what we don’t believe in.

So in order to achieve our dreams, first we need to truly believe they are possible. Here are three tips that I’ve used to believe in my own dreams, and that many clients, and friends have successfully applied to believe in theirs.

How to believe in your dreams?

• Don’t censor yourself

When you dream big it’s important not to censor yourself. Don’t think about how you’re going to achieve something when you’re dreaming about it, but instead focus on what it is that you want. Planning can come later, for if you start questioning the plan at this stage, you’ll never get past your own doubts.

• Visualize yourself achieving your dreams

The bigger the dream, the harder it is to imagine yourself achieving it. One way to help you believe in your dreams is to short wire your brain into believing you’ve already achieved them. To do this you must visualise yourself already there, and keep the picture of your dreams in your mind as much as possible. I love creating vision boards on Pinterest to help me do this. Every morning I’ll do a quick browse through my boards. It helps me remember what I’m going for, and believing that I can achieve it!

• Keep track of small wins

The road to big dreams can be long. Even if you start out believing in your dreams, the longer a dream takes to achieve the bigger the chance you might lose faith along the way. That’s why it’s important to keep track of your small wins. I keep a list close by with all the tiny milestones I’ve achieved for each of my dreams. When I feel doubt creep in I take out my list and I review it. It reminds me of where I started, and how far I’ve come. This helps me to stay motivated, and to keep believing I will eventually get there.

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

How to figure out what you want (what you really, really want)

Dreaming Bigger starts with figuring out what you really want. How else will you achieve it? Of course, this is much easier said than done. I know, believe me, I’ve been there. With a million ideas swirling in my head, stopped in my tracks not knowing how to start, or what to get started with first.

That’s precisely why it’s so important to know what you really want. For indecision is a dream killer. It will keep the most ambitious, creative change makers on the side lines procrastinating instead of taking powerful action. It will make us believe that we can’t do it, that it’s not meant for us, or that we don’t really want it after all (the worst one of all!).

So to dream bigger you need to gain clarity about what you want. There are many ways to do this, some easy others not so much. Below you’ll find 3 exercises that I have my coaching clients do, and that have proven to be successful time and time again.

How to figure out what you really want?

• Write Down Your Ideal Day

Whether you’re looking to achieve big goals in your career, business or personal life write down what your ideal day for each one that is relevant to you. If you want to figure out what career path to follow for instance, think about how you want to feel when going to work, what your environment might look like, what would bring you joy. Don’t be afraid to be specific. The more detailed your ideal day, the more clarity you’ll get about what it is you really want.

• Write Down a List of Things You Don’t Want

I know this may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s often easier to identify what we don’t want instead of what we do want. The format doesn’t matter. It can be a bullet list of things, a journal entry, even a Pinterest board of things that you want less of in your life, career, or business. Once you’ve identified what you don’t want, come up with the opposites, the things you want more of. If you wrote down that you want less time commuting back and to work for example, ask yourself how you’d love to spend that extra time. This will guide you to the things that really matter to you.

• Connect With Your Feelings

The third, and perhaps most powerful tip, is to connect with your feelings. I believe that deep down we know what we want, even if we’re unaware of it. By connecting with your feelings throughout your day at work or at home you’ll get a sense of the things that light you up, and those that don’t. The more you do this, and the clearer you become about what brings you joy, and happiness, the closer you’ll be to figuring out what you really want.

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.