What’s Your Big Dream?

The other day I read this blog post by Danielle LaPorte and it got me thinking.

What’s YOUR big dream?

What do you dream of happening in your life? What would you ask the ‘life fairy godmother’ to wave her magic wand and give you? If there were no limitations, what would you do? Do you want to write a book? Move to the beach? Make a million? Be 100% healthy? Start a business? Surf a huge wave? Be an artist? Make music? Dance? Live in a castle? Pay off your debts? Be on the stage? Swim with dolphins? Go to space? Have an animal farm? Eradicate poverty? Get educated? Fall in love with your life?

Whether your big dream will change your life or the whole world, I hope you are nurturing it, loving it and moving towards it…and I’d love to hear about it!

And don’t forget, this is what I do! I help people move their big dreams into reality, so if I can help you, get in touch!

Love

Donna.x

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Thinking Big, Dreaming Big

Here’s the last post from the Wire blog:

So, Carrie asked me to do a blog post for you guys on “Thinking Big” and “Keeping Moving Towards Your Big Dreams”. These two subjects are really close to my heart as they are the reason I am a coach! One of my favourite things in the world is getting to the centre of what drives people, what they are passionate about, what they love and where they want to go…and then helping them to get there. Delightful.

So let’s start with thinking big. You may have heard of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely), and although this is sensible and logical, it is also BORING! When I take my big ideas for my business and run them through this method of goal setting, I lose most of the OOMPH behind them. Business plans have the same effect. They take the inspiration out of your ideas and make them tedious. Thinking big won’t always get you to be Mistress of the Universe, but thinking small DEFINITELY won’t, and being realilstic, logical, sensible cuts your ‘big ideas’ down to a size that has no juice left for you! Bleurgh.

So let’s talk about SMILE goals instead (I just made this up by the way!) – does your vision for your business make you Smile? Does it have a touch of Magic about it? Is it Inspiring to you? Do you have Lots of enthusiasm for this? Does it give you Energy? If yes, Woohoo! Go get em Tiger! If not, what is your biggest vision for your business? To find that big vision, try these exercises:

Imagine that you have a time machine and you can go 5 years into the future – everything has gone better than you ever expected…what has happened in your business?

Sandy Grason of www.sandygrason.com suggests you set a timer and try the writing prompt “Your Perfect Day” – what would that be like? What would your perfect business day look like?

What is the best you can imagine for your business and your life? Don’t worry about the ‘how’ for a moment, just allow yourself to dream big.

Spend a bit of time thinking about what your big vision would be. Most of us only allow ourselves to think about modest goals…and most of us are capable of achieving far greater. Many people believe that if they don’t have big dreams, they can’t be disappointed. Unfortunately, when we keep ourselves small that disappoints us more than trying and failing ever could. And the joy is in the journey – it really is. If you have a big dream, a big vision, a big idea, you will grow and learn and develop so much you won’t be able to recognise yourself! Whether you reach that big goal or not. I was once told to set the goal of being a millionaire. Not for the money, but for what I’d learn along the way.

Get a vision that excites you! Get a vision that delights you…in fact, I say ‘get’…but you already have that big vision inside you. Let it out. You wouldn’t have it if you couldn’t do it. Ok, it is possible that you may not reach your ‘big vision’…but you just might! And you may well get a lot further than if you stay safe, stay small and stay sensible, realistic, timely, blah! And maybe the reason you don’t reach that big vision is because along the way the big vision changes – mine has changed beyond recognition in the last 5 years. I’m glad I never got my 2005 version ‘big vision’ because it sucked! My 2010 big vision however, ROCKS!

Now, once you’ve got your ‘big vision’, how do you achieve it? There are 3 vital parts to achieving a big goal: 1. Be flexible 2. Keep a sense of humour and 3. Keep moving. The first two are important – I can guarantee that there will be days you think you’re never going to get there, days when things go horribly wrong, days when every door seems to have shut in your face, days when you doubt yourself, days when you wonder how the beep you’re going to do this. On those days, you will need flexibility and a sense of humour!

Clients often feel there is something wrong with them or their big vision because it’s not as easy as they thought it would be. Unfortunately in my experience it never is “easy”! When we see people who have achieved great things, we almost always gloss over the fact that they have worked for 20 years to get where they are, or the sacrifices they had to make to get where they are, or the days they thought they couldn’t do it. And let me tell you that everyone who has achieved something great had doubts, bad days, crises of confidence and moments (sometimes thousands of them!) of failure. It is not ‘just you’.

The difference between those who get there and those who don’t is the 3rd vital part. Keep moving. Step by step by step by step by step by step. Breaking your next move down into baby steps and moving. For example, creating a website might be a next move…but it is more than one baby step!!!! To break it down, you might say step 1 is brainstorming what you want your website to be – a brochure, a lead-catcher, a force to be reckoned with? Step 2 might be writing the copy for the home page. Step 3 might be deciding on the names for the other pages. Steps 4-12 might be creating the copy for those pages. Step 13 might be to find a web designer (or this might be step 1, depending on what feels right to you).

50 steps later, you have a website. And you’re ready to take the next step. Most people get stuck because they try to take those 50 steps in one stride, then fall flat on their face. An absurd and unrealistic undertaking! This is one of my achilles’ heels (I have many!) – I try to get way ahead of myself, and then just end up falling behind. But when I remember to decide the next baby step and do that, then decide the next baby step and do that, I make progress. I stay flexible, I keep my sense of humour…and every now and again I remind myself of that vision that makes me smile, has a touch of magic, inspires me, gives me lots of enthusiasm and energy – and that big vision pulls me forward into the next steps.

You cannot climb a mountain in 2 leaps – it takes thousands of small steps. This may be disappointing to the impatient among you (like me!) but actually it should be encouraging – you keep putting those small steps together, keep flexible, keep a sense of humour and you will conquer that mountain!

Love

Donna.x
With thanks to Carrie of the Blonde Marketing Goddess and Wire for featuring me! xx

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

The Process of Life

I have lost count of how often people have said to me “I’m not there yet” – as in “I’m not Queen of the universe yet”, “I’m not a gazillionaire yet”, “I’m not filling my potential yet”. Who is? Everybody has more they want to achieve, more they want to do, and it often doesn’t matter how much they have done and achieved, there is still another mountain to climb.

Everyone’s life is in process. Step by step by step we move towards what we want…and as we get closer, we discover that we want something more, something different, something else. When I started out in business, my ambition was to earn a decent living from one to one coaching. Now that vision has expanded to include an entire “empire” I’m working towards!! (See www.thefabulousformula.com for the inspiration for that ‘empire’!)

And I have no doubt that in 5 years time, my vision and ambition will have changed again. It’s a process. And by following that process, you discover sometimes that you don’t want what you though you wanted. You discover sometimes that there’s even more ambition once you get a little way along the path. And you discover sometimes that you’re on the right track.

In these days of speed web-browsing, speed food, and speed dating, we don’t want to wait, we want world domination NOW DAMMIT. Unlucky, because it’s a process! And if you ask me, that’s the fun of it – achievements don’t mean so much when there’s no blood, sweat and tears left on the path to them! Lol – you know me better than that – instead of blood, sweat and tears, make it fun, laughter and growth…

If you have not achieved everything you want in this life yet, why not give yourself a little bit of a break? It’s a process, you’re working on it, you’ll get there – I know you will. I believe in you. And if you want some help along the journey, get in touch with me to find out how coaching can help you to get clear about what you want, enjoy the journey more and set out the steps in front of you for you to take.

Enjoy the process!

Love

Donna.x
PS Did this post ‘speak’ to you – leave a comment and let me know what you’re thinking

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Aiming High, Aiming Low

I came across this quote recently “the problem for most of us isn’t that we aim too high and miss, it’s that we aim too low and reach it”. Many people are afraid to dream big because they feel they will be disappointed if they miss their goal. And yes, there can be lots of disappointment when you’re going after something big. Often it feels like your dream is still a thousand miles away, and sometimes you wonder if you are ever going to make it.

But there is also a great deal of joy in going for something big and exciting. It is a lot of fun to go for your dreams. There is enthusiasm, passion, laughter, adventure, growth, connection with people you never would have met otherwise, learning you would never have had otherwise. You often find out how much you don’t know about the journey you’ve embarked on…and then you get what you need to know!

If you don’t even bother aiming for something big, life is a drudge, a series of small disappointments that add up to a life of quiet despair. Now, call me picky, but I would much rather have the chance of failure than the certainty of misery and feeling like a failure anyway for not going for it. And remember that your big dream is just that – YOURS. It doesn’t have to be what someone else would think is ‘big’…it’s just what you want for your life when you start to dream big.

So, if you were going to just think about dreaming big, what big dreams might you have? leave me a comment or contact me and let me know. You don’t have to go after that big dream, but you might want to!

Love

Donna.x

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.