Are you a Dream Builder or a Dream Squasher

     Are you a dream builder or a dream squasher?

     Growing up did your parents tell you to go after your dreams or did they tell you all the reasons why your dreams would never happen?

     When your kids start dreaming of what they want to do or be, do you foster that enthusiasm or do you talk them into something easier or more “realistic”? 

     What is “realistic”?

     Why does it hurt to dream impossible dreams?

     “I don’t want you to get your hopes up.” We’ve all heard people say that one, right?

     Why not? Because we might actually achieve our goals and be successful? And if we don’t, we learn and grow from it in ways we never would have from any other means? 

     Do any of you out there have a child who has an amazing dream? It's a huge dream. They want to be a pro football player or a professional soccer player or they want to sing in the opera or they want to own their own business some day or they want to be a doctor; something amazing that you know is going to take a lot of time and effort on their part. Have you ever squashed those dreams because they’re inconvenient or too much work, too hard and you don't want them to struggle? So you tell them not very many people succeeded at those things or you say things like “it’s too hard” or “just be the best player you can on your team, don't worry about being a professional player”. Or do they say I want to get up and practice in the morning before school and you say, “Oh, no. You need your sleep” or they say they need to stay up late and practice their presentation for DECA club tomorrow and they stay up until midnight. 

     We want our kids to be successful but when it comes down to having to support them by taking them to practices or meets or paying for their lessons, we decide it’s not worth it and try to talk them out of it. 

     By doing this what are we teaching them?

     Are we telling them that what they want is not real or do-able? Are we making up excuses just so we don’t have to take them places?

     Are we convincing them that they want to play the piano instead of play football because it’s safer? 

     I use to be guilty of this. I use to tell my daughter that if she wanted to stay after school for track practice she would have to find a ride because I didn’t want to have to be inconvenienced to make another trip to the school. If I couldn’t make it to a meet I would make her catch the bus back to school. I tried to talk her out of early morning cross country practice because I wanted to sleep in instead of taking her. 

     Do we do these things to hurt our children? No. We just don’t see the dream and catch hold of it with the burning desire or passion that they feel. But we should. We should want to see that fire in their eyes, that passion driving them to new heights. Foster that drive that pushes them to excel. When we don’t, we cause them to be mediocre, we cause them to stop dreaming and become more “realistic”. There’s that word again. 

     We need to build them up as well as their dreams. Bucket lists should be a requirement. When we don’t have big “impossible” goals, what are we shooting for? Realistic goals. Those are fun. Nothing funner then aiming low. 

     “It is better to aim high and miss than to aim low and hit.”
     - Les Brown

     Why? What does that really mean? If we are always shooting for goals that we know we can get, then we never have to stretch and grow. Where is the fun in that?

     Our goals should be just far enough out of our comfort zone that we can’t reach them in our current state. This causes us to have to grow and stretch and reach beyond what we currently are in order to reach them.

     “We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”
     - Albert Einstein

     “Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results.”
     -Albert Einstein

     If we do nothing and change nothing then everything has to stay the same. Is this a bad thing? Some might say “no” that that is fine and not a big deal.

     I think that we have become a complacent people who have lost the vision of big dreams and are settling for average, mediocre and easy goals that neither cause us to change, grow or move beyond our comfort zone to the uncomfortable zone where growth really begins.

     How can we change this?

     Start small and slowly stretch yourself with goals that are just beyond your current abilities, that cause you to think just a little bit differently, that cause you to act just a little bit differently, because doing this causes growth.

     Here is an example: I had a goal to make $2,000 in a month. I had to open up my mind to how I was going to do that. I had to listen for opportunities. I had to cause my brain to think about it and come up with a way. I had to start thinking about money differently. Once I did all of these things opportunities presented themselves in ways I wasn’t expecting and I had to be okay with that. My husband and I were approached by an old friend who happened to sell life insurance. As we explained that we already had life insurance he offered to look at our plan and offer his thoughts if we were interested. We took him up on the offer and it turned out that he could save us money so we switched. By doing this we were sent a check for just over $2000.

     Some people would just say that was just a coincidence and disregard it and think that they didn’t “earn” $2000 more that month so they hadn’t reached their goal but because I was starting to think about money differently I was able to see that I had in-fact met my goal and in-turn set a new goal of a higher dollar amount of $3000 and generated that and up and up and up. Don’t limit yourself just because your goal is met in an unexpected way. A goal met is an achievement, celebrate it and set a new goal. Keep moving forward by setting new goals that slowly move you up to a lot bigger goal.

     My new goal is to generate $40,000 in a month. I have slowly built up and up until I am were I am now. This didn’t happen overnight. Try a couple of years. But the fact of the matter is, you can do it too! One step at a time. The biggest thing that blocks people is that they look at that $40,000 in a month and think that there is no way, it’s impossible and then they don’t even start. Start with generating a $100 in a month if you need to, the amount isn’t the important part, it’s the fact that you start changing the way you think about money and then keep moving forward.

     This task of thinking about money differently will become your first step in becoming a dream builder. Don’t squash it and tell yourself that things will never change and that it’s to hard. Keep building and when you look back, as I do, you’ll see that first money goal achievement and then the others that follow it and you will be surprised at the distance you have become. The most important part to being able to see the growth is taking the first step.

So, go and take your first step!

Here’s to your success,

Lacey Platt

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