8 Tips to Make Your Dreams a Reality

There are some simple ways to hack your mind to help you motivate, focus and get on the path to realizing your ambitions. Here are some steps to get started!

Launching Cloud & Joy has proven to be the hardest and most gratifying project we’ve undertaken — with triumphs and plenty of setbacks along the way (as those of you who’ve been following us might know!). But it all started with a twinkle of an idea and a dream. Inspired by our awesome interview with female entrepeneur Kasey Blaustein (see our interview here) we thought we’d share some life hacks we’ve learned for taking those goals and making them happen.

1. Clarify your Dream Into a Vision

When you wake from a dream, it’s gauzy, nebulous and often fanciful. But when you see something in reality, it’s specific and (hopefully) clear. When setting goals, it’s helpful to think about the difference between ‘dreams’ and ‘visions’ the same way.

Sharpen and identify exactly what you want to achieve. Single out your goal. Be specific. Ask yourself the hard questions. Why do you want it? What are you willing to risk to achieve it? When do I see myself reaching my goal? For example…

A dream is “I’d love to work in art.” A vision is “In 5 years, I will have a commercial art and design studio creating art installations for a variety of brands because my goal is to share my style with the world in partnership with companies that fit my approach.”

Or how about: “I’d love to do ice cream” versus “I want to create a healthy ice cream that lets people enjoy a treat that fits into a healthy lifestyle and make it easily available to people in their local grocery store within 3 years. I want to do this because I love ice cream and making people happy, but still want to empower people to live healthy”

2. Create a Vision Board

Vision boards are a great way of giving yourself a consistent reminder of what your goals are and why. This can be as crafty as items pinned to an actual board that symbolize what you want to achieve… or digital — such as a collage of images you set as your computer’s desktop wallpaper. Another approach is to pin index cards to your board that summarize of your plan for making each goal happen next to each symbol. Vision boards have become a little bit of a jokey punching bag for the cynical, but the fact is they work. Just remember, it’s a vision board… not a dream board.

3. Keep a Journal

Each day, write down a brief summary of what you did today to achieve your vision. Once you start doing this, you’ll be surprised how (if we don’t watch) so many little things get in the way and we end up not making each day count.

This can take the form of something as down-home as a leatherbound book, or as structured as a task board with ‘cards’ for each thing you accomplish. In fact, this kind of task board (either digital or physical index cards) are how we manage our goals.

4. Set Achievable Smaller Goals (& Celebrate Them!)

Every big vision is the result of many smaller milestones. I’m sure you’ve heard the proverb “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Sometimes, we get so focused on the big goal that seems insurmountable. Focus on smaller, achievable goals. Break your goals into smaller milestones: short term (weekly or monthly), mid-term and long term. While you shouldn’t forget your long-term goal, each day focus on these short-term steps for about 75% of the day — leaving 25% to assess the big picture.

And celebrate the small victories. Each week and each day, give yourself props for achieving those goals. Be nice to yourself. Even treat yourself occasionally when you accomplish them. It helps to maintain motivation.

5. Find a Role Model

Every vision is unique. But there are people you can look to who’ve forged a path at least similar in some aspects to yours. Learning about these people can be both inspirational and serve as a map. Many of them have written books about their lives (or had books written about them). And of course, the internet exists!

Plus, don’t just learn from their successes. I guarantee that each successful person has had failures and wrong turns. These can be just as instructive. But remember, you are you. So these role models to emulate can be great guides but you will ultimately have your own path different from theirs.

“…celebrate the small victories. Each week and each day, give yourself props for achieving those goals. Be nice to yourself.”

6. Get a Peer Group

Having a role model on Mount Olympus that you emulate is great. But you also need people closer that you can actually interact with. A peer group of like-minded visionaries can hold you accountable when you slack or want to quit, and can provide great advice. You’ll often be more effective and diligent following your vision if you know you have to talk to someone about what you’ve done the next week!

A great mix is having a peer group in which you are both the mentor and the mentee. You should never be the most accomplished person in your group. You should be around people who are ahead of you so they can be good mentors. Likewise, your group should have opportunities for you to be a mentor. You’d be surprised how much you can learn by helping and teaching others. Ideally, I’d go for 70% ahead of you on the path, and 30% coming up.

7. Take Breaks for Self Care

Being a persistent hard worker is great. But, if you don’t take time for yourself you risk burn-out. And often, when we are grinding along we can lose sight of the big picture and the ‘why’ of what we’re doing. Meditation and taking 15 minutes per day for quiet time and focusing on something other than your project often helps us refocus. And of course, keeping yourself in healthy shape means more energy to achieve. So don’t neglect sleep, rest and exercise.

8. Be Persistent

You will have setbacks (we don’t believe in calling them failures). Did you know that statistically, successful people have failed more often than most? This is because they tried more, risked more and were more dogged in their pursuit than average. So don’t give up when things get hard or discouraging. Re-center, re-focus and push through it. This where all the above tips: a clear vision, vision board, journal, inspirations, a peer group and self-care breaks all come in. You may need to take more than 15 minutes.

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean simply pushing in the same direction or tackling the same problem in the same way over and over. There are times where a certain approach just isn’t going to work. And in these cases you may need to rethink. But rethink doesn’t mean resign and give in. There are many paths to each destination.

We look forward to seeing what you achieve!