If your dream is big enough you can’t help but be a bit fearful that little ol’ you don’t know enough to get there from here. Perfect! That is the way a big dream should feel, SCARY… and exciting. In this step you are bridging the gap between the life you are living and the life you have, so far, only dreamed you can live. Making friends with your fear is critical at this point and probably a skill you can use for the rest of your life.
I told you the story about leaving my restaurants after 20 years with no apparent place to land. I had to close my eyes and take that step off a cliff and know that I would be supported. This is where faith comes in. If your dream is big enough, you have to have faith in life to be able to handle the scary things you don’t know how to accomplish.
One of my coaching clients is an accountant. (He told me I could share this session with you.) We had a major breakthrough when we discovered that he was only dreaming as far as he could reconcile the dream in his current life. He couldn’t dream big because he didn’t know how he would get there from here. He could only dream as big as his savings and current knowledge would allow. Dreaming takes faith, faith in yourself but also something bigger, some higher power, life force, or Holy Spirit supporting you on this earth journey. If you can only dream as big as your life is now it’s not a dream, it’s a goal. There is a big difference. You can set goals for your life and reach those goals but those are small, incremental steps that may never get you to your dream. To dream big and live a life by design takes into account who you want to be in the world. It takes skills you don’t have, it takes believing you will be guided along the path to your biggest dream.
Let’s talk about fear. Stepping off the cliff is fear inducing, living into your dream is no less scary. I used to rappel off cliffs so I know that the first step is the most frightening, the rest of the trip down is fun and exciting once you know you are being supported by a rope and safety gear. However, even with all the safety gear in the world the first step is fear inducing, you don’t know if everything is hooked in and on correctly until you go over the edge. (Of course you do a safety check before you take that first step). Living into your dream is going to feel this way too. Taking the first step is frightening until you know you are being supported.
I took the cliff-step toward my dream when I left my restaurants. (I DO NOT suggest that you up and leave your job without some place to land!) I took a low wage job for a few months, keeping the faith that my dream was in front of me and I was making progress. I had fear; I had to befriend it to get past it.
Facing fear is what successful people do. They don’t know how to do something but they know it’s possible so they face the fear they have and move through it. Maybe your fear is of trusting people? You feel you are self-reliant and don’t need others, you have been hurt and not supported therefore you choose to be alone. What if you stepped off that cliff and entrusted someone with your love and your heart? You could get hurt again, and you will, but by facing that fear you could experience love to a degree you would never have had the chance by not facing the fear. I didn’t say it wouldn’t be scary.
Fear also comes from the limiting beliefs you believe about you. In this, you are your own worst enemy. I have a belief that you have to work hard to make money. Now, I’m not afraid of a hard day’s work but I might get even further if I believed that you don’t have to work hard if you work smart. Maybe my belief could be that I don’t even have to work smart if I can get myself into a place of gratitude and abundance the money will flow. There are many of beliefs I can have around how to make money. I think I will believe that if I am helping people the money will flow, through gratitude and abundance from me to the people I’m helping and then back to me. Isn’t that the law of attraction? That belief, of staying in gratitude and helping others feels more authentic and helpful to my life than working hard. It’s not easy to change your paradigms but it is critical if you are going to bridge the gap between the life you have and the life you are dreaming. Examine your beliefs, if they don’t work for you change them. I believe that if I serve people and stay in a state of gratitude, unlimited amounts of money will flow into my life. How’s that for an “I believe” statement?
