Today, I want you to give up on your dream.
Go on. Write it down on a piece of paper and throw it in the trash. Or better yet, burn it.
“What!?”
I know, I know. It’s not the thing we’ve been hearing about all our lives, read about on LinkedIn, or hear from whatever Instagram virtue-signaling wannabe influencer.
“Huh?”
Here’s what I want you to do.
I want you to take out another piece of paper and get really, brutally honest with yourself about why you’re pursuing your dream. I’m going to give you a series of prompts but I need to say it again:
You need to get really fucking honest with yourself.
Denial is one of the mind’s great protectors and deflectors, and has allowed us to survive in circumstances too confounding or painful to reason about. So, we developed strategies to feel loved, safe, and like we belong.
If you weren’t allowed to be you growing up, by now you have created a persona to fit into your family system and have a deeply-ingrained belief system that is misaligned with reality.
Unfortunately, that persona and belief system make it very hard to connect with our true interests, desires, and motivations, so what we think might be our “dream” is really someone else’s. Or, we pick something with a string of expectations attached that lead us to a pot of coal at the end of the ego-manifested rainbow.
That’s what too many people do. They chase rainbows looking for a pot of gold and find a pot of coal instead. Onto the next rainbow I suppose.
Here are the prompts.
What if no one is looking?
Validation.
Is that it? Is that the root of your dream?
What if you got none? No likes, no follows, no comments — nothing. Talking about it to someone might make them want to sleep with you or it could put them to sleep. Doesn’t matter.
Or does it? Ask yourself.
When you think about your dream, does the daily grind fill you with joy, even if it sucks half the time? Or is it what people will say when you reach a certain milestone or you make your first million dollars?
How about making an average of $72,000 pursuing your dream and having 166 Instagram followers that only like the pictures of your vacation, or your last meal at a nice restaurant?
What if telling people what you do makes them change the subject because they can’t relate or couldn’t care less? Would you still pursue it?
What if you fail?
Contrary to popular belief, failure is an option.
Everyone fails and everyone sucks at something. In fact, most people suck at most things.
I like driving my car but would suck in a NASCAR race.
I like riding horses but would suck in a rodeo.
The fact is, I suck at most things, but do I suck at my dream? Sometimes I think so. Sometimes I fail so hard I think to myself, “Yeah, this ain’t for me. Time to throw in the towel and go back to square one.
If I did that, is that really my dream? I doubt it.
Failure is an option because it teaches us what we don’t know yet. In fact, I’m a huge fan of failure because painful lessons stick around.
I can read a book and think, “Oh yeah, that’s great. Makes a lot of sense and I’ll do that from now on.”
I’ve likely forgotten it in a month.
The lessons that felt like a javelin in my heart or a microphone not dropped, but thrown at my head, are the ones I hold onto. Those are the sticky ones.
So does your dream come packaged in a bed of flower pedals and handed to you by five beautiful servants, or did you have to dig through a cardboard box of thorny stems until you find the occasional rose?
Not to mention, you found that cardboard box on the side of road, and as you sped past you said, “Stop! That’s it! Pull over. I need what’s in that box!”
What if people hate your dream?
What if your parents say, “Well that’s stupid. Why would you do that?”
How about your friends? What if they said the same, or worse yet, tell you they like your dream while they slowly back out of your life?
We can’t please everyone.
In fact, we can’t please most people, because everyone has their own definition of the meaning of life and what makes sense to them. Most people won’t have the same dream as you.
This is a similar principle as prompt number one. If people don’t care or actively dislike your dream, what’s it to you? Do you pursue it anyway or do you crumble and think of something else, then complain later that “things got in the way of your dream?”
“The pioneers get the arrows” as they say, so if your dream is disruptive you might not get support. You might not get funding, job offers, clients, customers, or be able to keep your lights on. Are those dealbreakers?
Write the answer on your piece of paper.
What if your dream is saturated?
There are millions of coaches out there. Millions and millions.
The bar of entry to becoming a coach is extremely low and virtually anybody can do it. It’s unregulated, and most coaches barely make a living.
Didn’t stop me. Am I special? No.
In fact, it’s me thinking that I’m special that gets me into trouble, because that makes me lazy.
When I think I’m special I stop thinking that I need to work hard or continue marketing my ass off. I start making excuses like, “I’m so special, therefore it’s _______ fault for things not working out.”
Bullshit.
If things don’t work out for me as a coach then it wasn’t my dream. But I digress.
If your dream is saturated then it’s up to you to find something that makes you stand out. Find an area within that industry that you do better than most, or that you tend to know more about. Another route is to choose something that keeps you up at night — something you have to figure out or have to do right now otherwise it’ll drive you insane.
A good indicator that you’re aligned with your dream is that it feels more like an obsession than a job.
The point I’m trying to make is…
I’m not saying that you can’t get a million followers or make a billion dollars pursuing your dream, or that either of those are indicators that you’re on the wrong path.
What I’m saying is that dreaming of the results or only playing off what people like or dislike, is going to lead you astray. It’s what Robert Greene calls the False Path.
I remember when I was starting out as a musician at the age of 12, and my first love was for the drums. My parents bought me an acoustic guitar and later an electric one, and I could care less about playing. I liked the drums.
It wasn’t until my best friend at the time started playing Metallica songs on the guitar that I jumped up and said, “I need to play guitar. I need to play Metallica songs better than him.”
You know what that was? Ego.
I took my dream of playing the drums and threw it on the ground and stepped on it. I needed to beat someone; I needed to win. I needed to prove that I was better just for the sheer sport of it.
To wrap up, I don’t want you to give up on your dream. I want you to give up on your fake dream that requires followers, friends, admiration, money, and all of that outside validation and reward to fuel your passion. In my experience, chasing a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow leads to burnout, procrastination, excuses, entitlement, and eventually, coal.
Real dreams, in my opinion, are divinely inspired, and emanate from a vibration somewhere in your chest or gut. Whenever I start thinking about all of the glory or financial rewards I’ll get as a result of my dream, I know I’m on the wrong path.
Keep that piece of paper if you answered the prompts. Read it everyday until you’re 100% clear about your dream.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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