How To Turn Your Dreams Into Reality

When you were young did anyone ever tell you that you were a dreamer? And if they did – did they say it in a way which made you think that was a good or a bad thing?

I’ll bet it was the latter. It’s such a shame isn’t it – we seem to crush our children’s dreams without meaning to. You see, I wanted to be a singer. I loved to sing. I played the piano and the guitar too, and the recorder when I was a nipper. But singing – that’s what I really wanted to do.

And I was pretty good. I mean, I wasn’t Ariana Grande good (oh my God that range!), but I could have been Barbra Streisand good. And I did end up leading the choir in my 6th form at school, and being in musicals at Uni.

The problem was – when I was a kid, being a singer wasn’t something that normal people did. Maybe it still isn’t but in these days of reality TV, and Britain’s Got Talent, you can actually believe that it could be YOU.

In my childhood, whilst I dreamt of it, it was made absolutely clear to me that ‘people like us’ didn’t do stuff like that. It was ‘nice’ that I had a talent, but that wasn’t going to pay the bills and so I needed to ‘be realistic’ and focus on getting a ‘real’ job.

I don’t blame my parents (I used to, but I don’t now). They were doing their best – and what did they know about supporting a child to do something unusual? There was no internet – you couldn’t ‘google’ how to become a singer.

At some stage though, we all grow up (well most of us do), and we have to take responsibility for making our own dreams come true. It takes a bit of a shift – when you have been brought up to believe that ‘dreams’ are beyond you. That they are for other people.

So, I went back to singing lessons in my 30’s and I sang at a few venues. And I loved it. But I didn’t love it enough to pursue it as a career any more. I had different priorities – young children – a fledgling business.

And as I grew my businesses, I thought that was my dream. Until my coach asked me a really profound question. He asked me ‘Why?’. Why did I want to grow my business? And I couldn’t answer him. I realised eventually, I was doing it to make my parents proud, to fulfil a dream my Dad had all his life to run his own business.

I realised that the reason I was running that business was to prove that I was good enough. And it wasn’t until my coach asked me the question Why, that I really even asked myself the same question. I had never really thought about it. And so, he asked me to think about it.

What happens when you ask yourself the tough questions.

Would you agree that in order to turn your dreams into reality, you first need to know what those dreams are? More importantly than that, you have to really want something. And not in a ‘pining for it/would love it if it happened’ kind of way, but in a way of knowing. What I mean by that – is that your dream feels so RIGHT – you know that this is what you were meant to do.

I realised my dream was not to run a highly successful business just to 'be a millionaire Rodney’. What lights me up is helping other people. The bit I used to love about recruitment – when I ran those businesses - was helping someone get their dream job. Seeing and hearing how happy it made them, made all the hard work worth it. And that’s the second step of realising a dream – understanding yourself and your values.

The third step is taking a leap of faith and getting into action. BELIEVE.

Most people expect other people to believe in them – when selling their product or service, when entering into a relationship. But how can others believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself? I am sure you have seen examples of people who are not as intelligent / cultured / funny / hardworking / talented etc as you are, succeeding – seemingly easily? When you had to work really hard to get any success?

Well, mostly it is because they believe in themselves and have a clear vision and focus. They also operate within their values. They may not be yours!!

Let me give you an example.

When I finally worked out that what I love to do is help people (many years into running a women in business network) – I decided I would love to run a retreat. It would be called the ‘Get Shit Done’ retreat, because whilst I love relaxing, I could never justify going away for a bit of sun for ‘no reason’. However, if I could combine helping women in business with having fun then that would be perfect.

But I still didn’t do it. Why was that?

Well, it all became clear when I met a lovely lady called Tracey Jones-Bolding, who became my partner in the Get Shit Done venture. The reason I hadn’t done anything about it was that whilst my top value is helping people, my other top value is having fun. And it didn’t seem like loads of fun making a retreat happen all on my own.

So – you need to KNOW what your dreams really are, and they need to align with your values. And the 3rd step is taking the leap of faith and ‘doing a Nike’, in other words – Just Do IT.

So, June 2018 you will find me and Tracey sharing a room at a hotel in Kent where we were coaching public speaking. We began a conversation which led to ‘I have always wanted to run a retreat’ and ‘no really? I would love to do that’, and realised we were business soul mates!  By the end of the night we had the hotel and the rooms booked for October, and 3 months later there we were on the last night of the 4-day 5-night retreat.

It was a really magical moment looking around the room and observing the friendships that had developed. There had been 4 days of hard but fun work – learning about social media and sales. There had been a lot of fun – from evenings in the infinity pool in the spa, to late night (illegal) impersonating of mermaids in the adults only pool (resulting in a hilarious telling off by hotel security!). There had been much food and drink consumed from the all-inclusive restaurants and bars. And even some time for sun bathing.

But the real magic was living a dream come true. I knew in that moment, more than anytime in my life to that point, that we live in a world of thought. And thoughts become things. If you BELIEVE, and then act as if – as if it were already true.

If you would like to find out more about our Get Shit Done retreats – email me on [email protected] or FB message me! I’d love to help you turn your dreams into reality.

Here are 3 ways you can work with me:-

1. Book yourself a strategy call where you will get a minimum of 3 Tactics you can immediately implement to improve your social media. We can talk about how we can work together, if we both feel it is a match – you will get your 3 tips either way.  Book here  https://carolefossey.as.me/SocialMediaConsult
2. Book yourself onto our next Leading Women in Business Mastermind Group – where we mastermind the sh** out of your business and take you to the next level. We also run the Get Sh** Done retreats in Majorca, Dubai and the UK.    Find Out About Our Events HERE
3. If you feel you need 1-2-1 coaching – then book yourself an appointment here https://carolefossey.as.me/coaching