The Power in Showing Up Consistently for Our Dreams
This morning I was on a Facebook live with the author of the book launch team I’m a part of. Jamie Kern Lima launched her book Believe IT on Tuesday February 23 and both the book and Jamie are beautiful gifts to this world. At the end of the live she announced a giveaway of five bracelets from her friend Lia Valencia Key’s jewelry line asked us to respond to a question to be eligible to win. The question was “how do you think you’d show up different if you truly believe your dreams are possible?” Without hesitation, I typed the first response that came to mind: I would show up more consistently. I will start doing this right now!!!!
So here I am. Showing up for those of you who read my blog posts. Thank you, by the way J I didn’t have a post ready to go for today even though I promised myself at the beginning of the year that I would commit to posting once a week on Thursdays. It was important to me to show up weekly not only to fuel my passion for writing and sharing knowledge but because I know how much it makes a difference in propelling us towards achieving our dreams and our goals when we take consistent action. I have a number of dreams and one of them involves writing and being a published author. Another dream involves providing education that will elevate the level of financial literacy across the globe. These two dreams are connected by a common thread, which is the service of others. The overarching theme in my life is to show up to serve others and add value to their lives. To your life. I know I can’t do this if I don’t show up consistently.
How about you? What is one dream you want to fulfill in your life? Come on, write it down! Why is this dream important to you? Be super honest and keep asking yourself why? until you get to a deeper level of motivation. I recently learned that we want to ask our self why? seven times. It is with the seventh answer that we get to the deepest level of our motivation. Try this right now! Now that you’re clear about the truest why behind your dream, I want you to think about the role that consistent action plays in helping you achieve it.
Maybe your dream is to become a CEO for a company. What does being a CEO entail? A lot of hard work, dedication, having a clear vision and being able to lead others towards that vision. There’s heaps more involved in this role but I’m keeping it simple for illustration purposes. Let’s say you’re in a manager role today, happens if you don’t show up consistently as a leader in your current role? You’re going to miss out on establishing skills, credibility, and experience that will help you later in your career. If you’re an awesome leader three out of five days a week that’s cool but you’re not setting yourself up for success, are you? You’re not behaving in the way a CEO would now, so what do you need to do to prove to yourself and others that you’re capable of achieving that role in the future? You need to show up consistently, embodying all of the aspects of a future CEO.
Once we stop behaving consistently, our dreams start to slip away. If we don’t regularly act in congruence with the way we need to in order to establish the habits that get us to our dream, we delay our dream and make it harder to achieve. We might even get so comfortable with the inaction, we choose to give up on our dream. So here I am, showing up for my dream of being a thought-provoking writer by reflecting on my experience with you instead of procrastinating or listening to all of the excuses about why I don’t need to write today.
How are you going to show up for your dream today?