Friday 6 September 2013

Making decisions motivated by your dreams, rather than your fears!

This morning as I lay in bed, thinking of all the decisions my husband and I will be needing to make in the next 2 – 3 months, I tried to put my coaching into practice within my own life. 

How does one make ‘towards dreams' decisions instead of ‘away from fears’ decisions???

We are all dreamers at heart…except some of us were encouraged to dream while growing up, whilst others weren't...and this has, more than likely, determined your views towards the concept of dreams and the reality of them in your life.

Today, I want to tell you that dreams are a necessity in life. They are often the driving force behind our actions, our thoughts. Without even realizing it, we consult with our dreams (and with dreams, come fears) before making big life decisions and sometimes even small decisions too. The problem with this is that we often end up consulting the fears (moving away from something we know we DON’T want), rather than consulting our dreams (moving towards something we DO want).  Sounds a bit confusing…Okay, I’ll give you a few quick examples…

Imagine, that you are bored in your job. Over it, to put it bluntly, except you find that you're not applying for jobs at other companies and you can’t quite put your finger on 'why'. As a coach, I can bet-ya, that if we chatted for a mere 30 min, you’d be admitting to…

# 1 – Having always wanted to travel/live abroad and you guess that this may be the reason why you're nervous to settle into a new job.

# 2 – The fact that you're a little scared to apply for a new job in this industry, as deep down you know that this was never the career you dreamed/dream of pursuing  in the first place.

BOTH of these completely logical reasons are ‘fear driven’ responses – ie. AWAY from something you don’t want. These fears ultimately stem from your dreams, the ones you desperately don't want to let go of..the ones so deeply and carefully hidden in your heart, for protection, for safe-keeping, that sometimes it’s hard to find them again. Based on this little piece of evidence...GUESS WHAT - You DO know what you want, but, as with all of us, its sometimes a scary place to go, so instead, you try to avoid what you don’t want and hope you’ll end up in a happy space, somehow.

Let’s look at the two directions that the above-mentioned decision could go in…

A)   You could decide to put off these thoughts for a while and just stick it through at work (this could SO easily be applied to unhappy relationship too)…I mean you're not "that" unhappy, right? (Motivated by Fear)

B)   Or you could decide to start the process of redefining what you want to do "career-wise"; by slowly putting into place a plan for moving forward…a plan for pursuing what was always deep-down in your heart, just hidden beneath the rubble of fear and "what-ifs". (Motivated by Dreams)


Weird when you put it like that…right???!!!


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So as a little task for today…to get us all on the track of starting to make decisions based on our dreams/desires rather than fear-driven decisions.

Try to catch yourself today, when you are in position that requires you to make a decision. Or look at a recent decision you've made. BIG or small. Now, if you learn best from writing - get some paper ready, from reading aloud – go to a quiet boardroom, from thinking – get your thinking-cap on.

I’m gonna use the writing example, as that’s how I learn.

# 1 -   Write down the decision you had/have to make…and what you decided or the direction you leaning towards.

# 2 – Now answer these questions…honestly.

  • How do you feel about the decision you made? 
  • Was it a difficult decision or an easy one?
  • Why do you think you decided what you did?
  • Why else did you decide this?
  • Was this decision motivated by fear or dreams? (Was it a ‘towards’ or ‘away from’ decision?)
  • If 'Fear - driven' - How would this decision have looked had you been motivated by your dreams?  Would this lead to a further decision you may now have needed to make?

  • If 'Dream - driven' - How did it feel to know you were moving in a direction that EXCITES you?  How can use what you applied in making this decision...to other areas of your life?

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