Recently I was in Geneva, Switzerland speaking on Women: The 3rd Billion. At the end of one of the sessions, someone asked me if I could give her markers or simple steps to help her jump start living her dream life. She wanted to know if there was a universal way to do this.
In coaching her through that session we arrived at the following steps that I stumbled on while reviewing my notes from that time this week and I thought to share with you in the hope that you will find them useful […] Here they are:
1. Identify your Conflict – Every dream is an answer to a question or a solution to a problem. What identifying your conflict means is that you need to take time and spend thinking through what question you believe you want to answer with your life work. In identifying your conflict it is important to answer the questions; ‘what upsets you?’, ‘what keeps you up at night?’ and ‘what do you dream about’. Your answers if properly thought through usually arrive at the same thing.
2. Identify your Gifting – From experience I have found that for every conflict, I have identified when I look closer at my abilities or gifts; they are usually able to fashion our products or services that can solve the problems or answer the questions that my conflict poses. What this means therefore, is upon discovering what you want to answer to; then you need to do a list of your gifts, abilities, talents, skills and such like. These form the foundation of your natural resources with which you can tackle your conflict.
3. Take Responsibility for Your Gift/Conflict – Again from experience I have come to realise that most times, the gifts we are quick to take responsibility for are the gifts we feel good about. Where conflicts are concerned I also find that it is always easier to talk about the conflict than stepping out to take responsibility for them. The reason is because whether gifts or conflict, taking responsibility moves us out of our comfort zones and we would rather not move out. Be that as it may, this step is vital if you really want to live the dream life.
4. Device A Strategy – The fourth step is to take everything we now know. That is our knowledge about what our conflicts and gifts are, and enhance that knowledge with the commitment to take responsibility for them. The commitment to take responsibility usually should push or inspire you to devise a strategy; which simply put is to find a way organic to you to plug your gift into the need, question or problem that your conflict is. Your strategy can either be a product or a service. Whatever it is, now you are accountable to others for providing a solution to that particular thing that upsets or excites you the most.
5. Deploy Your Strategy – Once you have a strategy the only way to determine if it works or not, is to deploy it. Until your strategy is deployed you may not be able to tell for certain if it works or not; which is why this particular step is very important. However, please note that your strategy may work fine or need tweaking or not even work at all. The point of deploying at this stage is so you can make your course correction if need be, or simply change strategy if required. It is important to not however, that a strategy not deployed is an inexistent one. So be bold, to step out and boldly deploy; hopefully, it will work but even if it doesn’t at least you now know what not to do.
6. Resolve your Conflict – The moment you have a strategy in place whether as a product or service and have deployed it the first time, if you have need to correct you quickly do so and bang! You are on your way to resolving your conflict. At this stage you shift gears into actually fulfilling your dream. Now this is an exciting place to be, here all the hard work begins to pay off and you fill like a million bucks. At this point you have earned the title of Dreamer for real. I must tell you this stage feels really good. Just seeing that your work has answered a question or resolved a conflict has a special high of its own that compares to none. You feel fulfilled and you see impact, and honestly no one can describe that feeling.
7. Take What You Need – The reason most people refuse or hesitate to follow or pursue their dreams is because it has been rumoured that dream land is a lot of hard work with no pay. Well, let me debunk that myth today; there definitely is a pay day for dreamers. It may be long coming and take a while to show up; but one thing I know for sure is that pay day does come. However, let me quickly emphasise that from experience I have also come to realise that pay day comes in for what we need. That is why our last step is to take what you need from what you have made from steps 1 through 6.
Like I said dreamland can be walked through in these 7 simple steps; however, that they are seven simple steps does not mean they are bound to be easy or will take seven minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or even years. Between one step and the other may be really long, but the one thing I can tell you even now is if you stick with it; you are bound to apprehend and hit pay one day; whatever pay is for you.
The truth is there is no easy route to dream land but the steps can be simplified and worked/walked through with determination, focus, discipline and commitment; just to mention a few. Should you have started, please keep at it and I am sure you will make it. And if you are just about to set out; I am sure you will make it NeverTheLess.
You will, I promise.
Need help? I am only an email away.
Here is to your success!
Bidemi