When You’re Ready to Give Up On Your Dreams : The Survival Guide

Most people give up on their dreams before they’re able to see the first results of their hard work.

Oftentimes it would have taken just a little longer for them to get some results and start believing that their goal might be possible.

I have found that it usually takes about two months after you have become serious about making your dream a reality before you get the first signs that you can actually make it. Once you’ve reached that turning point those signs usually come with full force, bringing you opportunities that you never thought possible.

The Killer Phase

When you first make the decision to make a big change in your life, it often seems like everything is against you. You’re giving it all, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. Problems arise. People don’t understand. You doubt your own sanity.

This is the stage where most people give up. They don’t realize that obstacles arise naturally to test whether or not you want this enough. In that moment it seems impossible that your dream will ever turn into reality. You feel small, alone and scared.

This is exactly where I was about one year ago. In the beginning of March, I decided that I was sick of sleepwalking through life. I wanted more. So I took a look at my life and saw all that wasn’t good: I wasn’t disciplined, I slept in most days and broke about ten days into the new month. I skipped school but didn’t know what to do with my time so I ended up browsing the internet for hours.

It took a lot of courage to acknowledge the status quo of my life. But I did and then took the next step and visualized how I would want my ideal life to look like. I made plans and goals, a lot of them.

I tried my best to improve and grow, but it didn’t seem to make a difference.

The only thing that kept me going was the belief that life wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t possible to live a more meaningful and happy life.

So I stuck with it. And I’m so glad I did.

How to move through it

Here’s what I learned about dealing with doubts, fears and all the shit life throws at you when you start getting serious about living your dreams:

• Take baby steps. Don’t overwhelm yourself. If you look at the people that inspired you it’s easy to measure yourself against their standards. Of course, it’s easy for peeps like Brian Johnson or Leo Babauta to be disciplined and get big meaningful things done each day. But they’ve had years worth of training. They didn’t wake up super disciplined one day with all their bad habits vanished into thin air. They took small steps each day to close the gap between who they were and who they wanted to be. Take baby steps. Celebrate even your smallest successes. And (this is a big one) only compare yourself to an older version of yourself.
• Be honest with yourself. If you feel overwhelmed and miserable, don’t pretend it’s all good. Acknowledge your feelings. Take a look at them. The best way I’ve found to deal with my fears and doubts is to journal about them. What you resist persists. When you take an honest look at your problems they’ll disappear more often than not.
• Trust. This is the most important part. When you don’t trust that you can do it, it will be much harder to push through your fears and put in the work necessary to reach your goals. Do anything to make it seem more plausible that you can do this. Get pumped up listening to inspirational music. Read books and stories from people who have done what you want to do. Surround yourself with passionate people. Do what it takes.
• Don’t give up. There are gonna be moments when your dreams scare you so much you want to be boring again. Yet the only way to guarantee that you won’t make it is to give up. If you take persistent action, no matter how small, you are bound to be successful in your endeavor. Don’t give up.

The Turning Point

Creating the life of your dreams can be tough. Don’t underestimate it. But when you continually work on gaining an optimistic mindset and put in the work, you’ll reach a turning point one day. Things will start to fall into place. Opportunities will arise where you least expected them.

My first big turning point came in form of a two-month coaching scholarship from Jacob Sokol. When I applied for it I didn’t expect to be chosen at all. But I applied anyways to see what’s possible and at least give it a shot.

In those two months that Jacob coached me every two weeks, I had more epiphanies and gained more knowledge about myself and where I wanted to go than ever before. It was the catalyst I needed to stop fussing around and start taking some bad ass action.

I launched this blog, became friends with other world changers in the making, and ended up working for Jacob as his coaching assistant. Who would have thought?

When you’re standing at the beginning of your journey, it can be daunting to look at the road ahead. The only way to get from there to where you want to be is to take the first step. And the next. Then keep going. [Click to tweet]