“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”
― Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Do you think about your age as just another number?
Have you decided you are too old to pursue your dreams?
Started on that “Bucket List” yet?
The truth is there are a lot of things that you can do to make your dreams come true at any age. In fact, age is just a number and is irrelevant to many pursuits. The way to achieve a goal is to make a plan and try to stick to it. Note, I said try to stick to it. We don’t always achieve the goals we set for ourselves but people who plan are 40% more likely to succeed.
So, how do you go about forgetting your age and pursuing your dreams?
Go public with your intent. Many times I was told growing up that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, but setting your intentions and sharing them with others is more likely to help you stay on track towards your goals.
Some of us let things go not for lack of planning, but because we bite off more than we can chew with setting unrealistic goals or attempting to fix too many flaws at one time. Baby steps when you begin a self-improvement project, step at a time.
Remember the planners, the one’s I told you were 40% more successful? They stuck with it, beyond the initial excitement of trying something new. They generally approached it one day at a time.
Did they expect to succeed or fail? Good question. Mostly, I’ll bet they expected to succeed, but they also had realistic goals. In other words, they knew they could not be perfect all the time. They knew pursuing your dream to the exclusion of all else in your life was a set-up for failure, so they expected a little backsliding. Mostly, they were human and accepted it.
Since most of the successful people are in it for the long-term, they don’t pursue the goal and when they’re done plan to have success engraved on the tombstone. They reward themselves along the way, because they’re in it for the journey, not the destination.
They were also successful because they realized early on that things take time, and they gave their dream the time required to make it happen.
But when we come to the end of the day, and we each of us knows this in our heart, mind, and soul; they had a plan. They worked the plan and made it happen, even while they enjoyed the journey.