Are You Working to Build Your Dream?

Are you happy in what you do for a living? Does your work fulfill you and give you purpose?

I am one of the lucky few who can say yes to these questions. I truly love my work, but it was not always that way. For years I held various jobs that brought in higher levels of pay and more responsibility but never gave me any job satisfaction. I feel like there were almost two decades of my life that I sold to corporations that did not care about me as an individual, or jobs in which my heart was never in. Choosing to spend my time and energy chasing money rather than chasing happiness.

What bothers me the most when I look back though is that I was unaware for that entire time that this is what I was choosing. I thought that making more money and gaining more responsibility is what would make me happy. In my mind, money = happiness. I was unaware of any alternative. In my mind you went to college, got a job, started a family, rose through the ranks until you retired.

I didn’t even realize that what I was doing every day was contributing to my unhappiness. I knew I was unfulfilled but thought everyone felt like that. Or worse yet, just didn’t think about it at all.

Now I should give myself a bit of a pass because if you had asked me at any point during that time what I could have been doing that would make me happy I could not have given you an honest answer, outside of playing shortstop in the majors or being Bobby Flay.

With no facts and figures to back me up I feel that many people are at some stage of this right now. They are getting up everyday and heading to work at a job they do not particularly like, in a field that they never intended to choose, because they feel they do not have a choice. Life just happened, and now they are stuck. Is this you?

If this sounds like you then you have to ask yourself a huge question. Do I really know what I want to be doing?

If the answer is no then do not feel you are alone. It took me almost twenty years to find my calling, and I am passionate about the idea of personal transformation and firmly believe you are never too old to start again and chase a dream. For some that dream is firmly outlined in their minds from the start and they have the good fortune of knowing what they are meant to do. For others it may take years to figure it out. Dead ends, pit stops, and turnarounds. But they will find it!

You will find what you are meant to be, but it is a messy world we live in and circumstances rarely turn out like they do in the movies. If you feel like you are treading water, you are not alone. If you feel like you are not special, that life has no design for you bigger than what you are right now, you are not alone. You will find it!

We see life as an Us and Them proposition. They are the special ones. We can’t possibly do what They can do. This just isn’t real. No one is more special than you are, but guess what?! You are not that special either. If you want to make a dream come true then you will have to work harder for that dream than you have ever worked in your life.

If there is anything I know to be true in my heart it is this: I am no better than you. No more talented than you. It took me twenty years to find my passion but I did find it, and so will you.

Now when you ask yourself if you truly know what you want to be doing and the answer is yes, then you have no excuse to not being chasing that dream right now. I know you need to make money, but how much is enough? Is the money more important than your passion? Only you can answer this. We really only go around this merry go round once. Perhaps if the Buddhists are right then we will come back as a flower or a bug but the point is that you will not get another shot at happiness. Forget money! Plant your flag. Stand your ground. Say to yourself “I have had enough of living for someone else’s dreams” because if you are not working on your dream then your are working on someone else’s.

If you want to be the billionaire CEO of a fortune 500 company then work for that. Make that happen. Do not stop until you are there. BUT if you are currently a retail clerk and in your heart want to be a fashion photographer, then you better damn well get started. Nights, weekends, days off. Make it happen. If you know then you have to try, it’s that simple.

I feel strongly that if you have an idea, a dream, a passion, and you have never tried to make it happen then you are wasting this life. Dreams are hard, and no one is saying that your road will be easy, but you will not care about the difficulties because it is what you were meant to do!

For the first time in my life I am getting paid to do what I love. Train, Coach, Teach. But I am far from finished. I have a goal, a dream and I am working on it every day. Truth be told most days I have no idea what to do, but I do something, to move the ball forward.

If you know your dream, then now is the time. If you do not, then you are not alone, but you must keep going until you get there. Do not settle for a mediocre life that you never wanted.

Build your own dreams or someone else will hire you to build theirs.

GK