Why You Need To Go After Your Dreams With Everything You Have
Whatever journey you're on, don't forget to dream.
Siriporn-88 / Shutterstock By Elisabeth Tuck
I’ve written a lot lately about goal setting, following your desires and living positively.
I’ve also been reading heaps on the topic too, stories of people who said yes to a chance and changed their lives. It’s inspiring and helps to keep me focused on my own personal development and happiness.
The past 12 months were truly transitional for me; I spent a whole year in the UK (holidays aside) after five years of travel, and really started to think about how I wanted to shape my life.
I came to understand that being truly happy means fulfilling potential in all aspects of our lives.
The most important lesson of all was to understand that I can do anything I want to, I just have to go after it.
Your life won’t change unless you do, so if you want to live the best life possible you have to establish what that looks like and create it for yourself.
This means saying yes to opportunities, giving new things a try and being prepared to fail. It isn’t going to be easy, it won’t always go to plan, but that’s okay.
Your dreams will also change and you will slowly adapt your plans to align with them.
Goals, resolutions, dreams will all be vital to achieving your happiest and most fulfilled state, so don’t forget to take the time to think about yourself.
Plans and goal-setting really help me — not only to lay out what I want to do, but also to help me better understand how I am going to get there.
I then use the process retrospectively to reflect upon my progress as a means to praising how far I have come.
This can be extra useful on the days when life is feeling a little stagnant, as you can easily refocus with some much-needed perspective.
Importantly, however, is the process of mapping out your dreams, as it helps you to condense them into a few bite-sized chunks.
If something seems completely unattainable, you can look at the steps you would need to fulfill to get to it and start working slowly up the ladder.
The opportunities are limitless, but it’s also important to remember that they don’t often come without hard work, so you must be prepared to dedicate time and energy to catching those dreams with both hands.
This could be the best year of your life. It could be the start of a whole new path. Or it might just be the time when you finally realized that you have all that you need to be happy right where you are.
Whatever journey you’re on, don’t forget to dream.
Elisabeth Tuck is a travel writer who has worked her way around the world, managing international volunteer programs on four continents, and combining her love of travel with a successful career. Her work has appeared on GoAbroad, Thought Catalog, Huffington Post, and Matador Network.