As the New Year approaches, we look forward to our next year of life, and there is no better time to let ourselves dare to formulate a dream.
I don’t know about you – but if I don’t have a dream, I am miserable.
Dreams drive us. Dreams motivate us. Dreams make life worth living. They bring excitement and hope into our lives. Children carry dreams around naturally, but dreams don’t come to us as easily once we are adults. In fact, we sometimes give up on our dreams out of fear that we will fail to achieve them and be disappointed in ourselves.
We go to school and get educated. We get a job. We work. We pay our bills. We go on some vacations. We raise our kids. We retire. Somewhere in there, we can lose sight of our dreams.
Some of our biggest regrets in life are that we didn’t pursue “that” dream. However, remember that old Chinese proverb: The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second-best time is today.
I want to give you a tool to make sure that your dreams come alive this next year.a blueprint called The 3-minute Dream Maker.
I am Dr. Jayne Gardner. I have spent the last 25 years helping entrepreneurs make their dreams come true! This year, I want to offer everyone this 4-week plan I use with my leaders. I have seen it work for business people and I know it can work for you.
A new and motivating way to set your resolutions for 2023 is to avoid the word Goal, which makes my emotional set point go down. The business leaders I coach tell me that they know setting goals is required but they sometimes get discouraged with that “to-do” list that never goes away. Let’s change how we look at this life of ours.
The 3-minute Dream Maker
Week 1. Schedule some Dream time. Set up some time to dream. Make a date with yourself every day for the next week at a certain time (put it on your schedule) and let yourself dream for 3 minutes. That’s all. Practice at first—your mind will give you all the reasons those dreams of yours won’t come true but persist with that dream time.
Week 2. Take the second week of 2023 and write down what dreams came up for you in the last week of dreaming time. Create a list called: My Top 100 Dream Maker’s List. I have my clients begin listing their top 100 dreams in early January. One hundred dreams seem like a lot at first but eventually, in your dream time, they will surface. Examples of my clients’ dreams include places they want to go, things they want to see, relationships they want to improve, a new car they want to buy, the purchase of a first home, or maybe even things they’ve been wanting to change about themselves. Start this list with anything and everything. No limits. Want a soul mate? Write that down on your list. Want a vacation in Italy? Pencil it in. Want to lose weight? Decide how much and put it down. Spend these first two weeks of the year—dreaming again.
Week 3. Pick one dream and spend 3 minutes a day with it. Pick the first of the dreams you want to accomplish. Start with an achievable dream to build up your confidence and your belief in dreams again, a reasonable dream that you know you can pull off but just haven’t made time to plan it and make it happen yet. Like maybe you have been saving up your vacation days but just have been too busy to go on that vacation. Make it happen. Choose one dream you know in the back of your mind you can make happen.
Every morning, take 3 minutes to ask yourself these questions: What if my dream came true? What would it look like? What would it feel like? What would you see, taste or smell? For example, feel the sun on your face. Smell the ocean in your nostrils. Experience the pressures of daily life dissolving. Just imagine yourself on that beach or hiking in the woods, or seeing one of the wonders of the world.
Create a task list of everything you need to do to make this first dream come true.
Week 4. Get an Accountability Partner (AP) is the next important step to make your dreams materialize. Set up a 20-minute time you will meet with them once a week. It can be your partner in life, your best friend or someone you think might inspire you. Just pick someone and ask them. In this weekly time, check in with them to see how many tasks you have completed to make that dream come true. Commit to your partner to do at least one thing a week from your task list. Share with your AP every week what progress you have made. This AP is crucial to making your dream come true.
Once you tell somebody—then your dream is out there—and more likely to happen.
Let me review:
Week One: Schedule a week of dream time. Every day for a week, spend three minutes dreaming about dreams you have wished to come true in the past, and allow new dreams to come to you.
Week Two: Create your Top 100 Dream List this week.
Week Three: Pick one dream. Create a task list of what you have to do to make this dream come true.
Week Four: Pick an AP and get started doing something every week that will get you there.
Keep dreaming…After this first dream has been accomplished, go to the second dream on your list. Remember, take it one dream at a time and ask your Accountability Partner to hold you accountable for completing tasks you know you need to do to make that dream come true.
After that dream comes true, pick another dream, and repeat the four week cycle above.
Research from my experience with thousands of clients tells me that if you write it down, and tell someone about it, it is more likely to happen.
But what I know to be true, as Oprah says if you think about it for 3 minutes every day, and allow your brain to see it come true, it will happen.
Dare to dream again! Make 2023 the year your dreams come true!