A dream without a goal is merely an illusion.

People often ask me, ‘Do you have any goals?’ Well, here’s the thing, we all do! Our subconscious mind is a goal-striving machine which will stop at nothing until it gets what our dominant thoughts desire. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, there are a couple of potential stumbling blocks.

Humans experience between 70,000 and 100,000 thoughts per day which dictate our emotional state and thus our behaviour. Without one chosen goal, we can succumb to this mass of ideas swirling around our brains, causing us to focus on things that we don’t want.

On top of this, we are all negatively wired – unfortunately it’s in our nature – which means that if left unchecked, our subconscious won’t always select positive goals. Even as we aim for something, we are often thinking about failing and the more we focus on something, the bigger that becomes. If your overriding visualisation is negative, this will generate a negative outcome in the real world. In other words, if you don’t have a clearly defined goal, you’ll end up with one you don’t want.

But how do you know what you DO want? Unfortunately, we’re not all Picasso, who could draw before he could talk and knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life from the word go. Most of us are not like that and have to live through various experiences before we find what really nourishes our soul.

Even then, there are some who go through life too scared of pushing themselves outside of their comfort zone. Strangely enough, it’s only in challenging ourselves and causing ourselves a certain amount of discomfort that we find the ignition we need to really propel ourselves.

The trouble comes when our goals aren’t big enough; when they don’t light up our insides like a firework. It’s a primal instinct to simply want to survive, rather than thrive and it’s part of our ‘humanness’ to be drawn to the path of least resistance. So, we all too easily tiptoe through life without getting the most out of everything because we don’t like change. But, if we’re not aiming high enough, we’ll get stuck in the monotonous habit loop of just doing what we did yesterday and the day before, because there’s safety in that. But safety means no risk, no risk means no failure, and no failure means no success.

So, no goal is ever great unless at some point you doubted your ability to achieve it. Having a goal that’s big and powerful will be the thing that pulls you through the challenges you encounter. Your purpose must outweigh whatever circumstances you are facing, otherwise you’ll become a victim of those circumstances and they’ll overwhelm you.

Avoid losing sight of your goal by breaking it down into digestible pieces until it feels manageable. In the example of setting up BreakPoint, I looked at creating the website and constructing the programmes and course agenda. From there I set dates to run the first corporate and public sessions.

These clear, positive and realistic, short-, medium- and long-term goals were crucial to breathing life into the business. Their power helped me make decisions; they helped me get through the honeymoon period of the idea. They helped the dream become a reality.

Because a dream without a goal isn’t a reality; it’s merely an illusion. You’ve got to have the dream to start with – and the more you plant the idea, the harder your subconscious will work to get you there – but at some stage you have to get your hands dirty and move into the action phase. For this you need to apply a process, and this is why you should give your goal a date. Without a date, you’re a rudderless ship floating in the ocean, but set timelines will encourage you to take actions, each of which will be a step in the right direction.

That direction is key; if you can maintain momentum, you can avoid being dragged into the negative cycle of thinking there’s too much of a mountain to climb. Instead of looking at the bigger picture, take the small wins of reaching the waypoints on the route up to the summit.

And instead of looking up at the mountain, take the time to look back and see how far you’ve come. Take a moment to reflect on how well you have done and enjoy the view! Before you know it, you’re halfway, then three-quarters of the way up the climb and soon enough you’ll be riding that bad boy like a rocking horse!

BreakPoint offers a range of corporate and individual development programmes that help people unlock infinite potential – get in touch today to discuss a course that's right for you: www.break-point.co.uk .