Just Adjust your Dreams

Come on…….Be Reasonable

In the afterglow of another completely compelling Olympic Games I got to thinking about what it takes to be the best and make it to the Olympics. Among many other factors, being the best is primarily about overcoming.

What do athletes have to overcome to get to the Olympics? Every one of them had to endure long hours, painful training, injuries and years of sacrifice. We heard last week how Nastia Luikin who won the Women’s Gymnastics all-round competition was injured almost the entire year prior to the games. Injuries are bad but the most insidious and unacceptable thing that the athletes who have made it to the Olympics have had to overcome is the doubters. The doubters are the people who told them they couldn’t do it; they did not have what it takes in terms of talent, resources or drive. Or that no one has ever done that so you just need to adjust your dreams. Can you imagine how many times these elite athletes had to overcome these suggestions? Often from some of the people closest to them? As mere mortals we are subject to this conversation every day and most of us are not trying to something as ambitious as competing in the Olympics.

In the realm of world class athletics making it to the highest level is no longer determined by who is more talented, has trained harder or has access to the best technology. Everyone is talented, everyone trains hard and everyone has access to the same technologies. So what is the difference? The athletes who make it to the Olympics are the ones who ignored, dismissed and/or overcame people telling them to adjust their dreams.

Thank goodness, Jessie Owens, the Wright brothers, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Nadia Comeneche, Mark Spitz, Oprah, Harriet Tubman, Michael Jordon, Mary Lou Retton, Carl Lewis or Michael Phelps never did.

What about you? When someone tells you that your idea will never work, you can’t do that, you are not smart or talented enough, or that no one has ever done it that way, how often do you let that stop you? Be honest, it has stopped us all at some point in our lives. People do it us all the time. I call that “taking your lights out,” and it is often the people who are closest to us that do it. They say things like what if, you should, I just don’t want you to be disappointed, I just worry you’ll get hurt. Those comments create doubt and we let doubt stop us. So, we adjust our dreams. We listen to the doubters that create doubt, and that changes the trajectory of our lives. I talk to people about their true desire all the time. I estimate that at least 80% of the time when we begin to explore their ideas about why they can’t have what they want, it boils down to someone else has told them they could not do it.

You know the real kicker about this? If you really pay attention the people who are taking your lights out and suggesting that you cannot do it, most of the time it is people who are not up to anything themselves. They have no significant accomplishments and are not, nor will they ever be, going for their life. They have themselves listened to the doubters and adjusted their dreams and they are passing the favor on to you. So not only are you adjusting you dreams, you are adjusting them by listening to people who are not going for theirs. Anyone who is going for their dreams and getting what they want in life will not suggest that you adjust your dreams; they will be encouraging, supportive and even ask how they can help. If you have people in your life who are asking you to adjust your dreams, you have a problem.

Adjust your dreams? I know it is disappointing and difficult to accept that people say these kinds of things, but what may be even more difficult to accept is that you have done it to others, just as it has been done to you. Intentionally or not you have at some point told someone that they could not do it, were not smart enough or strong enough, did not want them to get hurt, and that they should adjust their dreams. I don’t know about you, but I do not want to be the one who influences anyone to adjust their dreams. So, I am asking you right now to please stop it, and I will too.

If you adjusted your dreams so much for so long that you don’t remember them, or think it’s impossible to get what you really want and want to change that, call me. Together we can get you back to your brilliance and on track to your dreams.