What's Getting in the Way of Your Dreams?

You have career dreams. Every day you work hard to make them come true. Yet maybe you’re not where you want to be yet. Maybe you feel stuck where you are. Perhaps you’re not enjoying the journey.

So what’s getting in your way? Where are you getting stuck ? How is that preventing you from making the impact you want?

The surface answer may be the outcome of relentlessly comparing ourselves to others. In everyone’s carefully curated social media feeds, we often forget we’re comparing our real lives, full of messiness and challenge, to everyone else’s near-perfect highlights reel. No wonder we can feel we fall short.

It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that achieving a big dream takes time. Dreams don’t happen overnight or in a month or even a year, as many success stories on social media would have you believe.

Everyone has a dream

A wonderful antidote is the opening words from Barbra Streisand and Jamie Foxx’s version of the song Climb Ev’ry Mountain. Thanks to Leslie Lupinsky, I discovered this inspirational piece. Leslie along with Jeff Jacobson led of one of my life-changing coaching courses at the Co-Active Training Institute.

The song begins with dialogue:

Everyone has a dream, don’t you think?

Yes, but the question is how do you make it happen?

Well, first of all, if you can imagine it, then you can achieve it

But it might take a lot of time, and it might take a lot of hard work …

It’s the hard work part that so often gets glossed over. If it doesn’t appear that others have had to work hard for their success, we can start to wonder what’s wrong with us. What is making our path so difficult? Why is it taking so long to achieve our career dreams? How can there be so much rejection along the way?

Finding inspiration in others

Here’s where the long and winding paths of others inspire me.

One is Marie Forleo. She wanted to coach people and help them discover, as the title of her book says, that Everything is Figureoutable. It took her seven years (!) for her coaching business to become sustainable. In between she worked a variety of jobs as she relentlessly pursued her dream. Oprah now calls her “a thought leader of the next generation.”

Another is Susan Cain. She wrote a bestselling book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. Based on that, she gave a top 25 TED talk on the strength of introverts. How long did it take her to write her book that sparked a “quiet revolution”? Seven years!

Above all, they both persisted through many twists and turns in pursuit of their deeply held dreams. A long-held desire was to make other people’s lives better as a result. There are lessons for us in their stories.

As a result, here’s what I take away from their examples, my corporate years as a communications and marketing leader, and my entrepreneurial experience (so far!) as a social media consultant and a business and executive coach.

Kick fear to the curb

First of all, why do we have fear in our lives? It protects us from extreme risks that could ultimately derail us. Fear comes to us through our inner critic. It’s the voice that whispers in our ears. You’re not good enough. You don’t have what it takes. You can never do it. If we listen long enough, we begin to believe it. Fear becomes a dream killer. What to think and do instead? Thank our fear for alerting us to dangers, set fear aside, and take mitigating and bold actions.

Be a victor, not a victim

Also, when we believe the rantings of our inner critic, we can view life in victim mode. We start to think we’re not active agents in our own lives. A negative running commentary can set in. I can’t do that. It will be a waste of my time to even try. The deck is stacked against me. A victim mentality can lead to paralysis, and and endless feeling of being stuck. What to think and do instead? Recall times you took control and overcome challenges. You’re a victor, so remind yourself you can and will do it again.

Take relentless action

Finally, thinking ourselves out of problems doesn’t work. We have to take action. Sometimes a challenge can feel so daunting that it’s hard to know where to start. Begin with the simplest step. Maybe it’s creating your career dream in the first place, in beautiful detail. Perhaps it’s having a development conversation with your supervisor, to start creating a path toward the future you envision and the contribution you want to make. Or it could be taking better care of yourself mentally, physically and spiritually so you have more energy and enthusiasm to pursue your dreams.

What does this all mean?

With all of this action, what are the implications for you how show up on social media? As a start, you can consider sharing your struggles as well as your successes. How are you overcoming obstacles? What are you doing to handle rejection? How are you persevering toward your dream?

Since the beginning of this year I’ve had plenty of personal experience with rejection. Two articles I wrote were declined for publication by HBR.org, the online part of Harvard Business Review I love to read for new ideas. People who indicated interest in working with me stopped responding to messages. Some of my speaking proposals resulted in rejections. And there’s more, but I won’t bore you.

All that said, there were also successes and new doors that opened. Consequently, those are the ones I choose to focus on. They are the ones I rejoice in, embrace, and celebrate.

Above all, the rock-solid belief in our own ability and our own agency is what keeps us going. Ultimately it’s what makes the day-to-day journey so meaningful and so much fun. And that’s what life is all about.

This article originally appeared on my blog about how to build your career through social media.

You can get a free copy of my workbook, Your Social Media Success Roadmap, by joining my email list (on the left-hand column). You’ll also get an email update from me once or twice a month with tips on boosting your career through social media.

I work with people to build social media plans for their careers. I'm also a business and executive coach, helping people pursue their career dreams and create high-performing teams and organizations. Reach out if you'd like to explore this with me. I'd love to chat with you!