The First Three Steps in Dreaming Big And Reaching Your Dreams

I said a couple weeks ago that "The hardest part of getting exactly what you want out of life is coming up with the dream or vision for it." Now I want to tell you the first three steps in dreaming, because you aren't going to accomplish anything--you will never have the relationship you want to have--until you dream for it and really want it. 

The first three steps are:

1. DISCOVER

2. YOURSELF

3. FIRST

If you are struggling to stay motivated, if you lose track of where you are going, if you don't know what you want then your problem is that you don't know how to dream. And you don't know how to dream because you haven't Discovered Yourself First. 

1. Discover

To discover something is to find it. It already exists, but you don't know everything about it. Scientists make discoveries--they don't invent things, they analyze things that are already there. Explorers discover things, they don't build things, they go on adventures, they venture into the unknown looking for something and they don't stop until they've learned everything they can learn about the thing they discovered. 

If you want to discover yourself, you have to go on "adventures," you have to push yourself, you have to take risks and venture into the unknown. What you're looking for is there already. You don't have to make it, build it, or change it, it's already there inside of you. You will have to be alone, you will have to try new things you will have to experiment. You will probably have to go against the grain and do things that people tell you directly not to do, things that society tells you you shouldn't do. That's what it means to discover yourself. 

2. Yourself

In case you're confused about what I mean,You are You. Singular. You don't need friends, money, a house, a car, a pet, kids, a spouse or partner, or even success to be You. You aren't the sum of the things associated with you, you are You and those things are added to you. So when you set about to discover yourself, look beyond those things. Look for the things about you that you have no guilt and no shame over. Look for the things that you are confident and comfortable with--fearless even. Not even the things that you are fearless towards other people over, but the things that you are fearless about to yourself.--The honest truth about yourself, that you can admit to yourself, even if you can't admit it to other people.--Who are you really? What do you want to be, or who do you want to be? When you die, what do you want history to remember you as? What do you want history to say about you, who are you in this entire universe? When you die, what unique skills and abilities that you aren't using right now are going to die with you never to benefit mankind with ever again? Why are you important--what about you makes you important? That is who you are. And when you can find that person, you have to choose to be that person.

A lot of people don't choose to be who they really are. They choose to be who society wants them to be. They choose to be a follower. They choose to do what other people tell them to be because they think it's easier, they think it's better--and only because someone else told them it was, not that it actually was. It's not easier, and it's not better--the only easy thing to be in life is yourself, because you don't have to try hard at all to be it. So when you choose to be yourself, you are choosing to not let the outside world tell you who to be. You are choosing to be comfortable with yourself. You are choosing to be confident rather than scared all of the time that you're doing it wrong or that you're going to face some hard times because you're being you. Find yourself, and then choose to be that person. 

3. First

Life isn't a game even though you might think it is. If you're reading this right now and you're thinking about how you have to go brush your teeth before bed or how you have to meet up with friends or family and or how you have to get back to work, then you're still playing the game.--The most important person in your life is You; and if you haven't found who You is yet, then you need to get your priorities straight. Nothing in your life is as important at figuring out who you are. Once you know who you are, then you can take care of yourself, then you can take care of other people, then you can work for other people or you can go work for yourself. That's what it means to discover yourself first. 

On the airplane they tell you in an emergency to take care of yourself first--put your mask on before you try to help someone else put theirs on. You are no good to anyone if in the process of helping them you are incapacitated. That's how you are right now in life. You're so caught up in everything around you, whether it's people or possessions, or ideals--it doesn't matter, but you're caught up in it. You're caught up in wanting to have a boyfriend or girlfriend so bad that you put yourself off, or you're caught up in supporting and defending your political beliefs or religious beliefs, and you don't even know who you are, or maybe you're so caught up in making money that you don't even know what you value and you keep telling yourself you want to be somebody who is rich. When you become rich--if you become rich--what are you going to regret? 

Discover Yourself First

3 Signs Your Relationship Is Never Going to Work

I hate this aspect of my job. I hate thinking about it, talking about it, and in my own life I hate facing it myself because it's depressing. But my last article was on facing the reality of your relationships and to be clear, I feel obligated to share what criteria you should look for as signs that your relationship will never be perfect the way you want it to. My material comes from an article published in the Journal of Family Psychology back in 2012.


There are three things that are strongly correlated to divorce, separation, break up,  and as I like to call it, "relationship endings." Those three things are:

1. Poor Communication
2. Poor Emotional Management
3. And a lack of perceiving that your needs are being met

Poor Communication often comes down to conflict management. How do you resolve your conflicts? Do you insist that you are right and the other person is wrong and therefore the discussion is over? Do you avoid discussions with the other person because you don't want to upset them? Do you avoid conversations with them because you don't want them to hurt you? Do you cave every time they want something from you because you don't want to upset them? Do you get upset that they don't remember things? Do you get upset because they don't appear to value the same things as you?--All of these issues are a symptom of poor communication. --I'll write an article on this eventually, and have in fact devoted a significant portion of my book to this very topic, but if you know your relationship suffers from poor communication then expect it to fail sometime in the future. That is, if you don't commit now to improve your communication.

Poor Emotional Management is all about feelings. How do you feel in the relationship? If you were to take an hourly log of how you are feeling in a week, how many hours would you classify as you feeling "satisfied" or "happy" with your relationship? If you feel stressed, if you feel sad, if you feel angry, if you feel scared more than 50% of the time, expect your relationship to come to an end eventually. In fact, if you are in that situation, let me remind you that the only reason you still have a relationship of any kind with that person is because you are keeping it alive.

Lack of Needs Fulfillment I stated above that it was the perception of your needs being fulfilled. This is a tricky issue to attach to relationship endings. For starters, it is not your responsibility to fulfill other people's needs. Ever. However, we form relationships because it makes it easier to fulfill our needs and wants. If you aren't helping them meet some of their important needs, or you are blocking them from meeting those needs (or making their life more stressful), you might need to reconsider why you are in the relationship in the first place. And, if your needs aren't getting met, you shouldn't blame the other person for not fulfilling them, but you should consider developing other relationships that can help you fulfill those--if not fulfilling them on your own without complaining.

It's not unlikely that at some point in the life of your relationships you will experience each of these things. You might recognize that the communication in your relationship is terrible, or that you are projecting your emotions on the other person or feel that they have made you upset or angry. You may even think that you aren't getting any of your needs met by the other person. This is fine, so long as it is temporary--that is when you try to work on those things.
If your relationship doesn't communicate very well, work in it. If you keep feeling the same emotions, focus on resolving those emotions. If you aren't getting your needs me, you REALLY need to find ways to get those needs met. No, you don't need to put your relationship on hold, but you need to commit more to resolving these things. You can still maintain the same level of relationship with them and, on the side, be improving your personal ability to communicate, handle your emotions, and get your needs met.

With that in mind, if you try your damnedest, you're committing to the relationship and you're working on yourself, and you're still having these problems, then it's time to admit defeat. There is no shame in ending a relationship that isn't working out. If it doesn't get you closer to that dream relationship you're working towards, or if it keeps slipping back into those three negative areas, then set up some boundaries and move forward.

There is really only one sign that your relationship will never work, and that is that you or the other person no longer wants to improve your communication, no longer want to manage the emotions, or no longer wants to find a solution for helping the other person get their needs fulfilled. No matter what happens, no matter what mistakes are made, the hurtful things said, actions taken, or the decisions made, if you both want to keep working on these three things, then you will maintain a relationship and hopefully it won't be bogged down with so many boundaries that it can become a great relationship.