Are you dreaming without acting or acting without dreaming?
This time of year every blog post, magazine and talk show has a segment on New Year’s Resolutions. And every year countless numbers of us set ourselves up to feel bad a year from now.
Some never get around to making resolutions, or if they do, they’re vague – be healthier, get richer, work less, do more creative projects, travel more and so on. These are what Mary Poppins called “pie crust promises,” easy to make and easy to break.
Great teachers like Dana Wilde, Jack Canfield and Tony Robbins urge us to create vivid pictures of what we want in our lives – to see the results and to imagine how we will feel when we have achieved those results. It’s a powerful technique. It works. But it means taking action.
Not just any action. Intentional action. Action that is intendedto help us achieve what we most care about.
Some of us take action alright. We may have a condition laughingly called ADS (Always Doing Something). But if the actions aren’t focused on a clear destination, we find at year’s end that we are no closer to where we actually want to be.
So here’s the invitation.
If you are a dreamer: Dream away, imagine where you want to be, how you want to feel and so on. Write it down, or draw pictures of it, then go for it. But don’t stop there. Also commit to the actions you will take each week and DO THEM, not just once, but week after week.
If you are a doer: If you tend to Fire Aim Ready! –give yourself the time to dream, to imagine what you really want be, have and accomplish. Consider the impact you want to have. Then and only then move to action.
We all have a growing edge. As you prepare for 2016, consider yours. Do you need to dream more or act more?
Let me know what you discover.
Until next Tuesday.
Elizabeth