Last week was a lesson in Manifesting!
OR, another way to put it, a Lesson in Getting YOU to Pay Attention!
And I think it really caught your attention! Which is good, because if you remember, and in my book, DREAM – I Dare You, I make this statement:
“Whatever has your attention has your life.”
Nothing could be truer.
Whatever we focus on… whatever we give our attention to… whatever we look at and think about and tune into long enough ultimately will have our life.
That means, if we’re focused on our fear… if we’re paying more attention to other people’s lives vs our own, more tuned into the news, social media, or the world around us, then no wonder we don’t know where we’re going. It’s no wonder we can’t live in faith. It’s rather obvious as to why we’re not stepping out and making the impossible, possible. Not because it’s NOT possible but because all of our attention and energy is fighting on what it’s not instead of what it could be.
Many of you said… BUT WHAT AM I GOING TO FOCUS ON?
What are you going to focus on?
Ummmm…. Your dreams!
Hello!
You are going to focus on your dreams… you know, the thing that God gave you that He didn’t give anyone else. You know, the thing that you want more than anything… the thing you are probably a little nervous about… the thing you have put on the shelves, oh I donno, for your whole life. THAT. That is what you are going to focus on.
And this was exactly why I wrote my book, DREAM – I Dare You, which, if I may comes out in less than 3 weeks y’all so join the launch by going to TheDreamFactoryandCo.com and signing up to be a part of the launch or text DREAMNOW to 22999.
This is why I wrote this book is because we need your dreams. Heck, YOU need your dreams!!!
When I first started writing this book, I asked a multitude of people what dreaming means to them, I received a variety of responses such as:
It means nothing to me. It’s a pie-in-the-sky approach to life.
I dream, when I sleep.
Get real. Life requires us to work, pay bills, and grow old. I don’t have time for it.
I used to dream … when I was a kid.
Ha. I’m too busy to dream.
I’m living the dream. I think …
I don’t understand the question.
And I can even remember a run in I had with a lady in a public restroom that was the tipping point to this whole thing… I’m having lunch with my mom back in Denver on a business trip, and I excuse myself to the ladies’ room where an elderly woman greets me with a rather negative energy. We almost run into each other as I’m walking in and she’s walking out, so I deem it only fair to greet her, “Hello, how are you?” I ask. And with a somewhat sarcastic response, she says, “Oh you know—living the dream.” At first, I thought, that’s awesome, you go girl, but then I realized that she didn’t mean it in the way I had wished, and in fact, it was a very sarcastic response. I had to know more. I turned around and quickly asked, “May I ask, what’s keeping you from actually living your dream?” Without batting an eye or turning around she said, “Life.”
It crushed me. Here was this lady, at an age where she should absolutely be living the dream, and yet the sadness in her voice and the stillness in her soul was tangible. I thought, if life is stopping her from living the dream, what’s the point of life?
Perhaps it’s not that life is really getting in the way of this lady living her dream, but maybe it’s that she doesn’t have a dream that’s louder than her life to live for!
That’s most of our problems… It’s not that life is getting in the way, it’s that we don’t have a dream that is louder than our life to live for. Why… because we are so focused on the fear or the approval and acceptance other people that we can’t hear our own voice, let alone our own dreams.
In my weekly video, “A Lesson in Dreaming,” I share with a bit on Maslow’s Hierarchy. Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist best known for creating Maslow’s hierarchy, is a “triangle of human needs,” which Maslow charted in 1943 as a set of important requirements for an individual to understand to achieve higher levels of development and self-actualization in life.
The levels of hierarchy start with our basic physiological and safety needs—air, food, water, shelter, clothing, sex, sleep, and protection. Maslow then puts love and belonging (esteem needs)—dignity, accomplishments, and reputation, in the middle of the pyramid. These are all known as deficiency needs, which means once we achieve them, we don’t need more of them to be happier and more fulfilled. Self-actualization—realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, and peak experiences, are at the very top. These are known as growth needs. Too many of us only set our eyes and attention on deficiency-based needs, which is why we never se our dreams actualized in our lifetime. However, the point is to actualize. The point is to bring your dreams to life. The way that we do that is by being cognizant of our deficiency needs while learning how to make decisions from our growth needs, a much higher perspective.
The point is the dream!!!
That means, it’s your job to have a dream so you can throw your whole self at it!
Your dream becomes your VISION!!! It becomes THE THING that you focus on! It’s where you put your attention!
The Bible says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18, KJV).
But as you “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, all other things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33
That means it’s not about waiting to have time to chase your dreams. It’s about making time for your dreams. It’s about living your life in light of THE THING that you were created to do.
“How do we make our dreams come true?”
The simple answer: action.
We do something. The only difference between your dreams and reality is called action.
Here’s what I have found to be true about action, those who say “it’s impossible” or “it can’t be done” typically are those who haven’t tried. Or, they’ve tried once or twice but given up. But those who make the “impossible,” possible, and the “it can’t be done,” done, are those who do something (and don’t stop). That’s the only difference. They take massive action.
Clarifying, verifying, and visualizing your dreams are incredibly powerful practices to manifesting your dreams, but in and of themselves, they will not change your life. You can clarify, verify, visualize, and even strategize all you want, but without doing something about your dreams, there will be no impact on your life. The impetus for change happens when we take action and do something with what we’ve learned. Information is cheap. Applied information is a game changer.
So today it’s about looking past the fear, past the need for approval, and to look at your DREAMS.
The point is the dream, that’s your mission. The point is the vision.
This not a nice sales pitch. It is not just a statement to make yourself look good or for others to think you’re good but to actually BE good…
It takes work. It takes blood, sweat and tears; it takes YOU, nobody else to be completely and unequivocally convinced that it’s possible without needing anyone or anything else to tell you otherwise.
That means STOP LOOKING AROUND YOU AND START LOOKING WITHIN YOU. The answers don’t exist out there.
It’s IN YOU.
You must be so convinced that you spend less time trying to convince everybody else and more time just staying focused on the goal. On THE DREAM.
This is your lesson in dreaming.
