Four Obstacles to Living Our Dreams

“Knowing what you want is the first step in getting it.”  Oprah Winfrey

Every one of us has an internal compass to guide us on our life path – a voice within that knows more than what we can comprehend or sometimes articulate with the mind. We all have yearnings and dreams within seeking to manifest, but only some manage to bring them out fully. According to the Wealth Research Group, 98% of people die without fulfilling their dreams. How could only 2% of the population turn dreams into reality? Aren’t we all born with a mind, body, heart, and soul? Don’t we all have the same 24 hours daily to be, to live, and to create? What has robbed us of this innate capability to make dreams a reality? How do so few succeed, while the majority feel potential within themselves but stay stuck? Our dreams not only show us who we are but also whom we have the potential to become. Honoring our dreams and vision means bringing what is in our inner world into the outer world. It means that we live authentically.

Recently I have felt a voice within me getting louder and louder, giving voice to dreams and desires. To express what I feel within and want to manifest, I designed a vision board. The process brought many beautiful feelings of joy, creativity, hope, power, and possibility. I was so excited by the outcome, and I showed my vision board to my mother, only to get a response that I had already created it 25 years ago. She went and pulled a photo book that I had created when I was 11 years old, and I was so shocked to see so much of what I value depicted already in the photo book. There were photos of mountains, kids, travel, nature, art, photos of buildings in America. I never thought I would come to the US, and I grew up in a flat part of Morocco But now as I write these words, I’m living on top of a mountain surrounded by views of mountain ranges and valleys. I thought that I was becoming a different person and that my dreams, especially the retreat center that I am in the process of building, were all new. But to my surprise, my dreams had been with me all along. I just managed to silence them, forget them, or allow myself to be distracted from them for the past decades. How many of us stay distracted or stuck in the hamster wheel of life?

Our Environment 

Our upbringing certainly has a factor in our relationship to our dreams. As a child, we absorb the beliefs of others around us, and we don’t just naturally break from that programming when we become adults. The programming is so embedded in our subconscious mind that we aren’t even aware of it. We fall victim to being brainwashed by society and lose the connection with ourselves; we become followers. We allow others to dictate the path of our lives, and we lose who we truly are along the way and what we are here on earth for. We silence our dreams as a result of our fear of the perception of others about our dreams. We fear being excluded or judged if we choose a different path than what we have been known for. We think about ourselves what we think others think of us. We end up living in the perception of others perception of us. We need to realize that the most important perception and relationship is the one we have with ourselves. It is time to own our perception. It is only when we remove the layers built over the years that fog our vision that we can start seeing who we truly are.

When I realized how important my environment is to my growth, I decided I wanted to be surrounded by nature all the time. I decided that I no longer wanted to live in a city. And I received a lot of criticism from my family and friends about the dream of living in the countryside surrounded by forests and trees. I had to search within myself deeply to let others keep their ideas to themselves and keep my dream for myself. I had to believe in it when no one around me did. I trusted that what I felt within me needed to emerge, and it was my responsibility to do so. It takes courage, self-trust, and self-belief to commit to our dreams and not seek validation from others, but the rewards are limitless. I am so grateful I did because living in my current environment offers me the grounding to write these words from my heart. This step led to greater growth than I predicted. Just as our environment can build our limiting beliefs, it also has the power to lift us and support our dreams. They say that we are the result of the five people that we spend the most time with. Surrounding ourselves with others who share our dreams, we help set ourselves up for success. We design a positive influence and possible opportunities for collaboration and ways to accelerate our growth. We all need each other’s support, and why not create environments that work in our favor? What environment supports your dreams?

Our Comfort Zone

Making our dreams a reality takes effort, persistence, and grit. Not everyone is willing to undergo discomfort to reach freedom, so most choose to settle. They settle for where they are because it’s safe. It’s predictable. They allow fear of the change that could come as a result of pursuing their dreams to lead the way. Nothing good comes out of fear, except that it robs us of life. We might not be able to get rid of it completely, but we can feel it and act anyway. We can fear the change and the risk of pursuing our dreams but act anyway. Our dreams are meant to support our growth journey and our contribution to the world, and that can only come outside of our comfort zone. The butterfly has to come out of the cocoon to fly. We need to step out of our comfort zones to be able to live our dreams.

Our Conversations With Ourselves  

When we give our power away and allow others to influence our beliefs or perception, we lose the power of our minds. We end up adopting limiting beliefs that keep us stuck and lost. We adopt the belief that we are not good enough or not worthy of those dreams or alone in the world. Because these beliefs become part of who we are, we aren’t even aware that we carry them and that they rob us of our dreams. We end up carrying the limiting beliefs with us even when the people who helped create them are no longer around us. We become the obstacle. The way we talk to ourselves becomes a challenge. We become the barrier to realizing our dreams. We might feel something needs to change or is energetically off balance, but we lack the awareness to articulate the challenge. Our conscious mind doesn’t grasp our inner vision or the obstacles. The good news is that we can choose how we talk to ourselves. We can believe in ourselves, our abilities, and our dreams. We can learn to talk to ourselves like our best friends. If your friend was coming to you with your current challenge right now, what would you say to them?

Our Lifestyle

When we design a life where we are so busy with our daily activities, it becomes very challenging to invest time to gain the clarity needed. We lose focus on what matters and get distracted from a path that is aligned with who we are and our dreams, and what we are here to offer to the world. Therefore, we must audit our beliefs, environment, relationships, conversations with ourselves, and how we spend our time to ensure that we focus on the priorities that matter most. Let’s dare to dream and take steps with the support of our environments and surroundings. With grit and resilience, anything is possible.

The first step to making any dream a reality is clearly understanding what you want. You need to know it in detail. This is what I am offering support with in my free webinar, “Illuminate Your Vision.” There is power in writing our goals and dreams in absolute detail. You will even get the chance to share them out loud. Research shows that only 4% of people who don’t write their dreams reach them, while 44% of people who write their dreams reach them. If you re-read the dreams, the chance goes up by 200%. People who re-read their dreams make nine times more money than those who don’t. There is power in our dreams. Are you ready for your dreams?