Why do we give up on dreams?
It’s a deceptively simple question with any number of slippery answers, but what we can say is there are too many people who decide the things they want, the things they’ve dreamed of, aren’t worth chasing.
Often people are afraid, even if they haven’t yet realized it. We convince ourselves we just can’t do it, we’re not smart enough, talented enough, well-connected or whatever enough. There are always excuses that we can tell ourselves that sound incredibly convincing, but it’s a rare thing to actually run up against a variable that’s truly unsolvable when we try our best.
Again, though these justifications seem rational, they’re still usually a front overlying the true demotivator of fear. In other words, we can overcome these excuses by being honest about the fear that’s really holding us back.
If fear is an obstacle, the real killer is complacency, the feeling sort of like comfort that creeps in when we’ve been sitting in one place for so long that it feels like everything we know. Even if we’re not happy in a situation, so many of us will continue to stick it out for — for what? It’s not clear, even to ourselves, why we stay and change nothing, even if we’re unhappy and have every reason to move on.
At its heart, this usually is another kind of fear, namely a fear of the unknown. To be sure, it’s a risk to leave the confines of everything we know and set sail on a course that seems unclear. Even if the risk is relatively small or purely psychological, such as shying away from playing your music to an audience to avoid making yourself vulnerable, it can be enough to stop us in our tracks.
That impulse may be normal but it’s a poisonous attitude when you’re striving for the life you want. You don’t have to take drastic measures like selling your car to finance your latest scheme, but it’s healthy to take risks now and then to chase a payoff that really matters.
It can take a little extra encouragement to make those steps outside of our comfort zone, so if you’re looking for a bit of coaching, you should give us a call. We speak all the time with clients looking to change their lives but who need a hand to find the way — get in touch with us to learn how we can help!