How to frame your dreams
Part 1: Keeping up the motivation
We all have dreams; dreams make us wake up every morning. The dreams make you work harder, pray more. The dreams keep you even healthy, as mentioned by Brian Horvath in Following Your Dreams Helps You Live Longer | by Brian Horvath | Thrive Global | Medium. According to the medical research had run by PNAS, having dreams affect human beings’ mood and decrease the stress level that directly impacts mortality.
And most of us can dream anything — the sky is the limit- we can dream of ourselves as an award-winning actor, we can dream of being 10 kg less or passing the driving test.
Dreams are made to be followed. Life is meant to be lived.
Paulo Coelho — The Alchemist
Therefore I want to write about dreams and help to stretch ourselves towards them while we still have the new year spirit.
Let’s step back and look at the definition of a dream. According to Google dictionary, a dream is an aspiration, ambition or ideal, and these words simply can describe a motivational concept.
There are 20 different similar words for “dream” that pops the question in my head:
“ What makes the difference between transforming a dream to an objective rather than keeping it as an illusion?”
I think the difference is; having the right motivation and an actionable plan. This piece that you’ve started to read will cover three dimensions of motivation; Health, Habit&Routines, and Faith.
Keeping up the motivation
I always think being self-motivated is a personal treasure. As we see in many disciplines, people’s -who had outstanding achievements- first asset is “willing to do”. None of the significant inventions, revolutions, changes happen coincidentally.
However, you can improve and keep up your motivation with some efforts. Let’s look at the following three dimensions that can make you super motivated:
- Health
In every other aspect of life, the priority should be health. If you feel fit enough, you find the right energy to move. As we know, there is a basic formula for better health: Good Sleep + Good Nutrition + Good Exercise.
I know each of us has a different lifestyle, for instance, the ones who have a baby keeping up them awake all night or hectic work life with sitting in front of the screen all day. It will never be easy to become healthy in one day, but keep in mind that every effort will count.
Eating an apple instead of a chocolate bar, drinking one less glass of wine, having a quick 15 min walk between the meetings will differ for sure.
2. Habits & Routines
Whether we are aware or not, we have physical, emotional and mental habits and routines that help us survive; some even happen involuntarily. For instance, biting nails during a zoom meeting is an unhealthy habit that shows you managing stress. Or having a lengthy toilet break after your morning coffee is your body’s routine to feel comfortable.
Simply, our job is to be self-aware of our habits and routines and change the unhelpful ones with helpful ones to stay productive and motivated.
Creating healthy life habits like doing workouts, eating vegetables.
Breathing exercises for stress, starting meditation.
Using less social media and being more productive.
Listening to music to keep you focused or change your mood.
Little things can make a big difference whilst you are transforming your habits. The hack is starting little and slow but doing it every day. Let’s start with the easiest:
Smiling at yourself in the mirror:
Every morning, smile at yourself for 15 seconds, which will give a positive boost for the day. Try it for seven days, and let me know how you feel about the comments below :)
3. Faith
Have faith in yourself. Believe that you will do it because you “can”. Refresh your faith by praying or meditation, totally up to you. Whatever you want to achieve, get or change, starting with gratitude eventually will give the comfort for asking for more.
Also, you can have some practices to keep up the faith; here one comes:
Dream Visualization:
Close your eyes, imagine that you are in front of a warm white coloured wall. It is your dream wall; now, you will start to hang your lovely beautiful frames on the wall. You’d picked each frame and the pictures in it delicately.
Now put the biggest frame just in the middle of the wall. Step back and watch your dream. Are you in that picture? If yes, please focus on your face; try to feel how you may feel in your dream; proud, purely happy, safe, peaceful. Please keep that feeling in you, grab another frame, and hang it on the wall just close to the big one. Look at both of them, how they look together, are they completing each other? I guess they are.
If you are genuinely reading these lines, you may start smiling; stay that way because there are more frames to hang on that wall. One by one, hang them. Take your time, look at the frames; get close, touch them, feel them, own them. These are yours, and this is all you.
You can visualize this wall every night before you sleep, come in front of your imaginary wall and look at your pictures. And if you have enough place, you can literally have this wall, or a big poster, a collage to keep your dreams physical. This practice will stimulate your brain, and then, you’ll unconsciously make your decisions towards your dreams during the day.
Conclusion;
Your dreams are your fortune, your limitless spiritual energy source. Being aware of your dreams, not being scared of them and nurturing them will feel you better. It would be the best effort of you to keep your dreams alive!
In the second part of this piece, we’ll cover having an actionable plan for your dreams; stay tuned!
Wishing you a happy new year that you live your dreams.
