Making your dreams come true: where the rubber meets the road

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What is your most important dream? The first step is knowing what you want. Even if it’s not a final answer, give us your best guess with what you know right now: what would make your life something to savor? What would make you feel like a genius of life-rocking awesomeness? What do you really want to do?

Now, if you only had a year left to live, how could you make sure that happened and you got to enjoy it while you were still here? If you knew you were dying, you would do whatever it took to make it happen. (If not, go back to step 1: what is so awesome that you would make damn sure it happened?)

Well, guess what? We’re all dying. If you make this year the awesome year when your dream comes true and then you’re still around next year, how lucky is that? You have the chance to do your next most awesome thing! Most people never live one year that good, and you get to do it twice!

Living your dreams has been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe it’s because it’s the new year and everybody is talking about how last year went and where they want to go this year. Maybe it’s because my life countdown is getting close to a round number: it’s 16,705 today. Somehow turning over those 100s has way more mental impact than, say, going from 16,752 to 16,751. Gah! Life is fleeting!

Or maybe it’s because an acquaintance of mine was in a motorcycle wreck and has been struggling to stay alive for the past month or so. We think we control our lives, because most days go about how we expect, but you never know when that will change, and you can’t stop it. All you can do is make the most of today.

I’ve already mentioned my dreams and my plan. Actually, the dream has expanded since that post: I was originally just going to take the summer off, but since my trial run, I’m all the more determined not to go back in the fall. Why settle for doing something that’s ok when you could be living your dream?

I happen to work at the school where the bio professor went nuts and shot up a department meeting last year, and what amazed me is that most of the people who were at that meeting were back at work as soon as possible, determined to carry on and rebuild. Three people were killed and three others seriously wounded, and more would have been if the gun hadn’t jammed. After watching their friends die and facing down death themselves, their reaction was, “this isn’t going to stop me, I’m doing to carry on my important work,” so they went back to teaching.

What can you say but holy shit! I have never had a job that I’ve felt that way about. Any near-death experience, and my job would be the first thing on the chopping block, sacrificed on the altar of “I’ve got to stop wasting my time!”

Well, I’ve got to stop wasting my time. The world has aligned itself to make it more possible than ever for me to follow my dream and support myself, right now when I’m ready to do it. Thank you, world–I accept your invitation.

I’ve been working on this for a few months now, but I’ve been kind of half-assed about it and not making much progress. It’s come to the point where it’s time to fish or cut bait. I can either keep messing around and babbling about “someday,” “my dream,” blah blah blah, or I can go all out and make it happen. August 29, I’m back at work or gone forever to do my own thing.

These thoughts were rattling around in my brain when I stumbled upon this: the Illuminated Mind 6-month “Quit your job and do what you love” Coaching program. He’s taking on six clients for individual coaching, and if you’re accepted into the program, he guarantees you will have built a successful small business and quit your job by the end of six months.

What? What?@! Yes. It costs $3000, and normally I’m the type to hesitate and dilemma-ize all over the map about spending $50 for The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself, let alone three-fricking-thousand dollars!!

But you know what? I really want this. I’m determined to make it happen, and I don’t think I could do it by myself in six months, so then I’d have to worry about what if my job didn’t want me back after taking the summer off, or what if they wouldn’t approve my leave of absence in the first place, and I’d probably mess around for another year and keep breaking my promises to myself. (I’ve said every year since I got this job, “next summer, we’re not rotting in that office!” So far, every summer has been spent, you guessed it, rotting in that office.)

Would I pay $3000 to ensure my success in my desired time frame? Hell yeah. So I applied. Right after that, Corbett Barr posted about investing in your success, and although he was talking about a specific product that’s he’s recommending, the things he said are exactly what I’m thinking with this coaching program. If you invest in something that will teach you, help you grow, and help you bring in way more money than it cost, that’s the smartest thing you can do.

And… I got accepted! I’m one of the six! Yeehaw! I’m totally psyched to be working with Jonathan Mead, whose book just inspired me so much. Bring it on! Let’s do this thing!

So that’s me. What awesome dream are you going to pursue, and what are you going to do to make it happen? Go for it!