Unlocking Your Potential

The notion "Follow Your Dreams" has its pros and cons. It's been sold like a fairy tale Christmas, snowflakes, a fireplace and gifts under the perfectly decorated tree. Work with this scenario in a place with no snow, a home striving to keep things together, or a homeless shelter.

 Following your dreams can create the anxiety and the feeling for those that are content with the way things are somehow devoid of dreams, passion, or purpose, are even somehow sheep people: “non-passionate” and should continue to look for their purpose.

 The thing about dreams is to live everyday with gratitude of who we are and what we have and never what the world defines and dictates as a trend or future stamp of approved passion and purpose.

 We need to self-evaluate “Find Passion in something that you are already doing." After all, most of us spend at least some time doing things we love and have put in the work to be where we can be today. It may not be feasible or possible to do it for a living, but we can still find the joy and passion in the times when we can do these things.

 We all have dreams however following your dreams and living your dreams means that you are choosing to break out of your comfort zone or taking a chance on an uncertain future. Finding the courage is not easy and requires that we are able to recognize our fears and do what you need to do.

 Choosing to live your dreams can be difficult. I have been on this journey for several years and have experienced fear, challenges and naysayers first-hand. Over the few years, I have had to overcome various difficulties as they come my way, but no matter what that was, I found the courage to continue. If you have been asking yourself how to overcome challenges and obstacles, I hope these points will provoke your thinking and how to continue to pursue your dreams and make them a reality.

  Living your dream does not mean you will be successful overnight. Anyone who has achieved successful results of living their dream has had to pull up their sleeves, put in the work and struggle through. Your dream will be no different. You have to think about the long term.

 The one thing I can say has been an incredible part of my journey is having the support and people who believe in my dream. We all definitely need the support and encouragement. Having the right people to support you in achieving your goals will give you the drive and strength to keep going. There will be times you want to wave a white flag and look for an easy way out of the rabbit hole you have revealed and when those moments of self-doubt creep in, they will remind you of your potential and just how far you’ve come. Above this, the most important thing is that you continue to believe in you.

 The journey of living one’s dreams has its fair share of failure and success and you can’t have one without the other. Dealing with failure is inevitable. I have learned to embrace failure as an important process of achieving my dreams. The important thing is what we take away from our failures to be innovative in how we move on to our next steps. Failing is a great learning opportunity to figure out what went right or wrong, so we make informed decisions on taking a different approach.

 One of the obstacles we face in living our dreams is dealing with people who will create doubt in our minds. There will always be people that will doubt your ability to reach your goals. We have been encouraged to receive open feedback and use this as part of our growth. I feel being selective in what exactly you hope to achieve and learn from feedback plays a very important factor. People may think you’re not talented enough or have the right profile, resources and tools for you to succeed. I've found asking a follow through question like "what do I need to consider to overcome what I don't have" as a great next step to dealing with a feedback that is not constructive. People sharing constructive feedback will have a fair response to this and those that just used a tick box response fall into F13 a key that does not exist on your keyboard.

 One of my favourite authors Janine Garner in her new book "Be Brilliant" talks about finding the four key people that will help you unleash your Brilliance.

I love her books because they have practical activities that require to follow through on what action steps you need to consider. I've found these four key people and I have seen the difference in the feedback I get as well as how it's made me hold myself accountable to achieving my goals.

 It takes a lot of hard work and belief in yourself to get where you want to be; stay focused and align yourself with the right people to support you. I've developed a tool, called the 4Cs, which are Celebrate, Connect, Collaborate and Create that I have used to give me a good balance in achieving my goals.

 Celebrate | you and others is about taking the time to Celebrate who we are and we in turn start to appreciate and recognise others for their positive contributions. We help you to learn how to appreciate the nuances in differences and bring the human factors into daily interactions, ways of work and business engagements.

 Connect and establishing meaningful connections is an art of engagement. In living your dreams establish clear intentions of growing your social currency net-worth by engaging with your heart and mind. Building meaningful relationships results in foundations of trust that enable environments for inclusivity and collaboration with others.

 Collaborate | When we have established meaningful relationships, we open doors to building collaborative practices. This requires that we have a sound mind that has a good navigation of the audience, environment, and our territory. Aligning our goals with the clarity enables collaborative practices that build communities of practice. Successful Collaboration can only exist if we have trust and conducive enabling environments where we can establish and nurture trusted relationships.

 Create | The 4Cs support our journey in aligning our dreams with insights to being a better leader of self, others and enhanced capability to execute on our personal strategic goals. The 4Cs remind us of the provoking thoughts of daily practices required for us to deliver and yield desirable results. For me this Journey has brought a multitude of opportunities for innovation and meaning in realising my dreams and unleashing my true potential.

Realising your dreams is a journey that you can make possible and I hope this provokes your thinking in living to your fullest potential and pursuing your dreams.

 May the 4Cs be with you.