Even the best of us sometimes feel like nothing is going right.
You make plans, get to work, see signs of progress, maybe even a little success. Overall, your new or preexisting venture is looking good and you have high hopes for the future.
Then something blindsides you. Now tomorrow feels like it’s just not going to get any better. And it doesn’t. And then you slow down, down, down...and start to feel like your dream is falling out of reach.
From the moment you wake up until your eyelids are resting heavily upon your eyes in the comfort of your bed (the only place you care to be nowadays), that spark within you has been replaced by a sort of feeling of pointlessness in everything you do.
It’s during these times that you need to remind yourself that things aren’t as bad or as dark as you currently believe they are and that it will get better. In fact, it could get way better. But you have to wade through the darkness before you can get there.
The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.– Oprah Winfrey
If that sounds like what you’re going through, and you could use a little helpful reminder to keep pushing forward, here are four powerful reminders for when your dream appears out of reach.
1. The past is passed. You can become a new person.
Sometimes, it’s not what you’re going through now but memories of the past which hold you back. This happens, most notably, when things are starting to get really good (a form of self-sabotage).
It’s not the present that looks dim but the belief that we’re going to screw things up again, or that “something bad always happens when I get close” to accomplishing something.
Every great success story could have thought that same way. In fact, many who could have been successful did– and so they didn’t make it.
Don’t believe what you’re telling yourself. The past is behind you and you’re stronger for having gone through it. Today is a new day, start living like it and put the past where it belongs.
2. A clear and powerful “why” can overcome any amount of adversity or self-doubt.
Even the most horrendous tragedies in human history have been overcome by the power of the human spirit (see: Man’s Search for Meaning). However, that spirit must be ignited by a clear and powerful “why”.
Why do you work towards your dream each day? What is it that you want to accomplish? Do you simply want to become enough of a success so that you can continue doing what you love for the rest of your life or is there some great breakthrough, discovery, or achievement you’re working towards?
Whatever it is that you want, it must be clear, so much so that you can taste, smell, and hear it in your mind, and it must be so powerful that it makes you enthusiastic to wake up each morning.
Find your why and you’ll gain the aegis of life, an impenetrable defense against self-doubt and struggle.
3. The challenge is between your ears.
When you’re working towards a great dream, the real arena is in what lies between your ears– the mind.
It would be no understatement to say that everything we experience occurs within the mind as the most important aspect of every experience does in a concrete way.
For that reason, if you work on dominating that arena, empowering your mind with positivity, knowledge, and wisdom, you can overcome virtually anything.
4. The path unveils itself when you least expect it.
It’s normal when setting a big goal to also envision how it will come to fruition.
However, it rarely happens that way.
More often than not, something occurs that bars us from achieving our goal the original way we imagined it, we’re challenged to continue to believe, push forward, and a new path unveils itself.
I’m not saying that I know or that you have to believe that there is something else at play here. However, it’s unquestionable that the world works in mysterious and unknowable ways. The point is, any time we try to act like we know best, or can predict the future, we’re typically proven wrong before being allowed to move forward.
It’s easy to get attached to a particular resolution. But the path unveils itself when you least expect it, so push on and allow a little reinvention when necessary. What matters is that you get there, so don’t become attached to one way of obtaining it.
