You Can Make Your Dreams Come True

“What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

These are the famous words of Napoleon Hill in his timeless best seller, Think & Grow Rich. In writing that book, he analyzed hundreds of people who had all been successful in their life endeavors. He wanted to explore what made these folks successful and if they shared similar traits. As he assessed all that he heard and observed he came to the conclusion that every single one of these successful people had started with an idea and an unwavering desire to see it come to fruition.

Although it is not stated in these terms in the book, what he describes is essentially the law of attraction at work. You see, whatever we think, believe, and imagine can come true – if we take action and allow it to. And, those elements of action and allowing are key pieces of the puzzle. We can think about doing something all we want, but if we don’t do something about it, then it’s unlikely to happen.

Effectively, there are three parts to the equation of creating whatever you want.

Visualization. This means getting really clear about what we want, why we want it, and how we want to feel when we have it. These elements are important – it’s not enough to just say you want something or to think about it. As any athlete, performer, or successful businessperson who practices visualization will tell you, you have to go deeper than that. You have to be very specific about your “why.” Why is this desire important? Why do you want it? (If you’re not yet clear on what you want and why, check out this piece for more.) Then, you need to actually feel the experience of having or achieving this desire. What emotions will you feel? Joy? Freedom? Fulfillment? Really immerse yourself in imagining you already have your desire and how you feel about it. Working through these elements of visualization brings clarity to our dream and it sends out a clear signal that we want this to happen.
Action. As you worked through the specifics of the what, why, and feelings of your desire, you created a very clear picture of your goal. This helps trigger aligned or inspired action – that is, action steps to help you attain your goal. If we take action before we have clarity on what we want, it can often result in us spinning our wheels and not achieving much of anything. But, if we’re clear on what we want, the steps to achieve it also become clear. We can start taking action that will put us on the path to achieving our goal.
Allow. Most people think that if they visualize and take action, they’ll achieve what they want. But, there is a third step and it’s critically important. It’s allowing and being open to receive. What this means is that we need to keep an open mind about how or in what form our desire may happen. That is, we need to detach from the exact outcome or how it might present itself.
An anecdote that helps illustrate this is the story of a man stranded on the roof of his house in a major flood. He prayed that God would help him. A family on a raft came by and offered him assistance but he declined, saying that God would help him. That was followed by a rescue boat and even a helicopter. He said the same thing and stayed on the roof of the house as the waters rose. Ultimately, he was washed away and as he entered heaven he asked God why he didn’t receive the help he had prayed for. God said, “I sent a raft, a boat, and a helicopter and you declined them all.”

The point is, we can’t be closed off about how our dreams can manifest – we have to be open to allowing all possibilities for how it can happen.

Similarly, we have to allow ourselves to achieve our desire. We can visualize and take action very effectively, but if we have limited beliefs about ourselves and our ability to achieve our desire, we won’t experience success. Instead, these subconscious beliefs will sabotage our efforts and keep us from realizing our potential. We have to allow for belief in ourselves, for belief in our dreams, and for belief that they can come true.

Make your dreams come true. What desires and goals are you thinking about and imagining? They can be your reality if you visualize, take action, and allow for good things to happen.

What dreams do you want to become reality? Please let me know by sharing your comments below or on my Facebook page.

With gratitude,