How to Get Away With Murdering Your Dream

February 5, 2015 | ChangingCourse.com

In my two decades at Changing Course I’ve grieved the premature death of hundreds of perfectly viable business ideas.

Ideas which were totally possible – some even brilliant.

Ideas which if acted upon could have sprung their owners from job jail and made a difference in the world as well.

But sadly their owner let them perish.

There are a lot of ways to kill a dream.

For instance you can believe all those life-long cubicle dwellers who love to tell you that being your own boss is just a pipe dream.

Or you can become so overwhelmed with the thought of acting on your great idea that all you want to do is zone out in front of the television.

Or you can become consumed with the “what ifs.”

  • What if no one likes, wants, or buys my stuff?
  • What if I fall flat on my face?
  • What if I don’t know enough or am not smart enough to pull it off?

So much so that you never pause to consider what your life will be like in the far more likely event that you actually succeed!

There are dozens more of course. But by far the most common way to get away with murdering your dream is to simply keep it to yourself.

After all, if no one ever knows about your big idea they can’t possibly judge it – or you.

If you don’t share your business plan then no one will know that you didn’t lift a single finger to get it off the launch pad.

If you never let your idea see the light of day, never show your art or share your writing then no one will expect anything from you.

In other words, when you’re accountable only to yourself, then there’s no real consequence for failing to follow through.

That is of course other than spending the next ten or twenty years stuck in a job-job. 

If you think that’s too high a price to pay, then you have a choice. You can continue to slowly starve your dream to death through sheer neglect.

Or you can decide to get off the misery-go-round.

If you wisely chose the latter, here are two simple steps you can take right this very minute.

Step 1: Publicly Declare Your Intention

For five years I produced a wonderful workshop called Work at What You Love which I also co-led with and my good friend and author of Making a Living Without a Job Barbara Winter.

make your dreams come true - motivational slogan on a napkin witIn the final hour of this multi-day seminar participants were instructed to stand and publicly declare an intention. One by one upwards of 150 people rose microphone in hand to publicly give voice to their dream.

And now you can too.



The ground rules of a public declaration are simple:

  • It must be summarized in one sentence.
  • It can’t begin with “I’d like to…” or “Maybe I will…” or “It would be great if I could….” Instead, your declaration must begin with the words “I’m going to___”
  • It must include a commitment to act.

Some of the intentions shared over the years are downright inspiring!

“I’m going to be the penguin expert on a tour of the Galapagos.”

“I’m going to open a bakery-café that caters to stay at home parents and their kids.”

“I’m going to spend six months every year in the south of France.”

“I’m going to write the biography of my grandfather’s life.”

“I’m going to move to an island and open a bike repair shop.”

So you have a choice. You can murder your idea and no one will ever know.

Or you breathe life into your dream by scrolling down to either the Facebook OR the general comments section to make your own public declaration now.

Step 2: Find people who want to see your idea succeed as much as you do

The forces of fear, self-doubt, and overwhelm are mighty. That’s why you need a team of people who want to see you realize your dream as much as you do.

People who will be there to support one another, to hold each other accountable for making slow steady progress, to offer new ideas and solutions, to help one another overcome the inevitable setbacks, and to celebrate the wins big and small.

It’s interesting. Left on your own and you can feel hopeless.

But when you’re in a group like this, somehow you feel empowered. You become almost “bigger” than you usually are.

You feel a confidence that’s sometimes impossible to muster on your own. Yet with this network of supporters cheering you on, you’re inspired to go on… to plow ahead with a certain audacity that you might not normally feel you have in you.

As importantly, your productivity will soar. With a dream team behind you, you will get more done in six months than you would otherwise accomplish in six years!
Group Of Business People Are Focused On The JobThe people on your dream team can be friends, like-minded co-workers, even total strangers. You can meet in person or via conference call.

Regardless of who’s in your group or how you communicate the key is commitment. To truly succeed your dream team must commit to meeting weekly for no less than six months.

I’ve been a member in three business-building groups myself and each one has helped me grow in leaps and bounds.

I’m so convinced of the power of having a “mastermind” behind you that I recently created a formal Changing Course Dream Team.

The people who’ve already joined a dream team did so as a result of signing up for the recent Work @ What You Love workshop. (If you missed it and still want to take the class, you have until February 14 to get the complete webinar recordings.)

You don’t need to have attended Work at What You Love to join a Dream Team. That’s why I’m opening up the Dream Teams to my larger Changing Course newsletter readership.

These Dream Teams are set to begin in the next two weeks.

Right now there only 5 spots left. Once you sign up you can select your 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice from various days and times.

Don’t murder your dream. Instead take a moment now to learn how you can join a Changing Course support group and to discover 5 ways a dream team can help you achieve your dream.

Even if a dream team is not for you, I encourage you to scroll down this page to publically declare your intention today. After all, a dream is a terrible thing to waste!

I hope you enjoyed this preview and I hope to see YOU in a dream team!