Zoom In On Specifics

What do you want?

Do you want to be heathier, wealthier, or perhaps you want a new job, a new lifestyle or to be able to travel more?

We all have dreams of a better life yet rarely make the moves toward achieving those things we fantasise about.

One reason is that our dreams and fantasies are often quite vague on detail. We like the idea of these things but we just leave them as dreams to retreat into when our current existence gets to us. In order to make a real difference in our lives we need to narrow in on those dreams and develop them into specific goals we can use as a springboard to reach the real life we want to live.

Start by letting your imagination run wild. Really be creative in your dreams about what would bring you satisfaction if life, give yourself no limits on what you think of and allow yourself to mentally explore the most outrageous possibilities your life could be. Throw everything into the mix, everything you have ever dreamt of achieving, those childhood and youthful ambitions that faded away and those sparks of ideas that were smothered by life.

Once you have done that write down some of the ideas that appeal to you most. It is time to switch from the creative side of your brain to the logical side!

Look at the ideas you have written down, do any of them need you to achieve one of the others first? For example, do you dream of a life of travel and of a life of financial independence? The life of travel may need you to have that financial security first. If that is the case cross off the dependent ones from your list.

Now, take what is ever left on your list and put them in order of priority. Which one feels most important to you right now? This is not to say you are dismissing the other ideas, we are just focussing on the most important idea right now. Those other dreams can just take a temporary backseat while we concentrate on achieving first things first.

Now zoom in on that one idea.

Remember it is your idea and how you view that idea is unique to you.

Maybe, for example, your number one priority is to be healthier. What exactly does that mean to you? It could mean losing weight, it could mean being able to run a marathon, it could mean eating healthier etc. You need to focus on what is important to you, not what other people are saying and not what society is demanding at the moment. Work your idea down to a single goal that you can aim for, a goal that is YOUR GOAL and one you can begin to work toward.

A brief warning, although we are aiming to create the goal to move us toward a better life it does not have to be perfect. Perfectionism is often a means of not making a decision and not taking action because we constantly wait for things to be exactly right and put off doing anything until we have got things exactly right!

Your goal does not have to be so precise and perfect it just needs to be something more concrete than the vague dream we started with. It is our call to action.

To start the process of changing our lives for our own benefit we need to start with something specific to aim for. Vague dreams make it difficult to find a starting point, so by using some focus to narrow down those dreams to an achievable, specific goal we can begin the process toward a life we want.