Blog | Personal development

How to Turn Your Dreams into Reality

3 Steps to Achieving Your Goals

At one point or another, we all have hopes and dreams. They typically start when we’re young and continue to evolve and change as we get older. But there’s a huge difference between having dreams and actually achieving them. The ultimate question is: how do we turn our dreams into a reality?

The truth is that you cannot have what you want unless you do something. In order to succeed in anything, you have to have accomplishments. If you want to become a successful sales person, you have to deliver a product or service that someone is willing to buy. If you want to become the next fitness model, you have to dedicate yourself to eating well and exercising.

Whatever you have is a result of what you do. The textbook definition of do is “to perform, to execute, to accomplish, to exert, to be the cause of.” There are three types of doing that are necessary to reach a goal: aspire, acquire, and apply.

When you aspire to do something, it’s the dream, the vision, the want. It’s what you will ultimately have once you reach your financial goal. The dream might be something like, “I want two vacations homes in tropical locations.” “I want to spend more time with my kids.” “I want to start my own business.” “I want to be able to donate to a cause close to my heart.”

Although the GOAL is financial freedom, the DREAM is much more than the money. It’s what you want to do once you obtain that financial freedom. It’s important to have a clear vision on what your dream is so that you can visualize it every day. The more you think about it, the more likely you are to start making accomplishments to achieve that dream.

In order to acquire your dream, you have to do the research to get there. Acquiring knowledge to reach your dream means you have to read books, attend seminars and classes, do online research, talk with experts, and work closely with coaches and mentors. By doing all of this, you are gathering the information you need in order to take action.

This leads us to the application part of your dream. People often say “put what you’ve learned into action”. When you apply the knowledge you’ve learned, you can start making offers, putting your money on the table, taking on your first clients, buying stock shares or gold, making sales calls, or asking for investment dollars. Without the application step, nothing happens.

When you start putting what you’ve learned into real-world practice, that’s when you’ll truly start to learn. But you have to do all three: aspire, acquire and apply. It takes all three steps to achieve your dreams.

I have seen many women aspire and acquire but then get stuck. They attend all the seminars, read all the books, and are constantly researching online. The problem is they never apply what they learned. Why? My guess is fear—fear of making a mistake, of losing money or fear of looking stupid.

But you have to move past the fear. If you don’t move past the fear, you’ll get stuck and never accomplish your dreams. And don’t be surprised if you repeat these steps. You’re not done when you reach the application step. You always acquire more and apply more, and acquire more and apply more, all the while holding onto your vision of what you aspire to. It’s an ongoing dynamic cycle.

As you move towards achieving your financial dreams, pay attention. Make sure you aren’t skipping the steps. When you find the right balance, you’ll start to move through every stage and begin to find financial success and freedom.